A letter to my non Jewish friends

For my friends who are not Jewish and don’t have a connection to Israel, I would imagine that the news headlines might seem like just another terrible day in the Middle East. It is not.

I want to emphasize that the entire Jewish community is heartbroken and in mourning and not okay. “Heartbroken” is not a word I use lightly. We are in a state of unprecedented deep grief.

Our community has spent these past few days scrolling through social media, seeing videos of friends and family being kidnapped and murdered while thousands of rockets are shot into Israel from Gaza. It is unfathomable and it hurts so deeply.

Every name on the missing or murdered list is literally only one or at most two degrees of separation from all of us. We are .2% of the world’s population and this attack is very much on the scale of 9/11.

Many of those lives taken were celebrating peace, love and unity at a music festival in the desert and many of them promoted peaceful co-existence between Palestinians and Israelis.

You may criticize governments and policy but please know that if you support Hamas, you are supporting barbarians who intentionally go into civilians’ homes, kidnap and murder grandmas and babies, rape women and parade victims’ corpses throughout the streets in celebration of their murders. The terrorists then posted the murders on those victims’ Facebook pages for all their family and friends to see. This by definition is pure evil.

Hamas has one mission and they don’t hide it. It is to annihilate the Jewish people. They hold their own people in captivity and have been terrorizing for too long. We need the world’s support to finally put an end to the terrorist regime.

Undoubtedly, as Israel prepares its response, major news media will gaslight you into thinking this is a “disproportionate response” or an “unfair advantage of military strength.” What is this? A game of tennis? What exactly is an “appropriate” response to something as horrendous as this?

Try to imagine what you would do if just one rocket fell in your backyard, let alone thousands. Would you have restraint? I don’t have the answer of how to bring about peace and frankly, no one does at this time.

This is one of history’s most complicated conflicts and I suspect the answer won’t come soon. What I do know is that so many beautiful lives have been taken and many more innocent lives will be lost in days and weeks to come and this is a tremendously difficult time.

My ask is that if you find yourself justifying these horrendous acts as a form of “resistance,” please understand that means that you are supporting murder and dehumanization of innocent people. The pro-Palestinian rally In Times Square, NY, had people in attendance holding up swastikas, taunting victims’ families and celebrating their deaths by showing bloody pictures of victims. I implore you, please do not be gaslit or brainwashed into thinking these acts of horrors are justifiable.