Fighting the Virus Without, Fixing the Void Within

The hatred we face has shed the skin of race theory and donned the cloak of “social justice,” confusing a generation of young Jews whose connection to their people has grown hollow. To survive this latest strain, we must do more than defend our borders, we must fill the void of our identity with something stronger than trauma.

I find myself thinking often these days about the nature of a virus. It is a persistent, adaptable thing. It does not disappear; it merely learns to survive in new climates, to bypass new antibodies. Antisemitism is much the same. It is an ancient virus that has mutated once again, and we are feeling the fever of this latest strain.

In medieval times, the virus was religious. We were hated for our faith, for the rejection of the majority’s god. Then, in the dark heart of the 20th century, it mutated into something racial. The Nazis did not care about our prayers, only our blood. And now? Now it has mutated again. It has shed the crude skin of race theory and donned the cloak of ideology. It disguises itself in the language of “social justice,” of human rights, of the oppressed and the oppressor. But make no mistake: beneath the new vocabulary, the old virus beats with the same rhythm.

What is it we want, really? It sounds almost banal to say it aloud. We want to be treated like anyone else. We ask for the simple, elusive privilege of normalcy. We ask to be judged without double standards. We ask for the world to understand that we have our fair share of idiots; yes, we have those who weaponize our trauma to justify violence, and they are a stain upon us. But they are not the whole of us. We are a silent majority who simply wish to live. Like anyone else. Period.

Yet, this desire for normalcy is crashing against a new reality, one that Sarah Hurwitz recently described with painful clarity. She speaks of a generation of young Jews whose minds are being pummeled by algorithms, by a TikTok feed that offers no context, only visceral horror.

Hurwitz describes a “wall of carnage.” She notes that when we try to speak to these young people, to offer history, data, or the nuance of our survival, they cannot hear us. They are seeing Jewish identity only through this wall of images from Gaza.

Let me be clear, as Hurwitz is: She is not saying the carnage in Gaza is not a problem. It is a tragedy; it is a wound in the world. But she warns us that when a young Jew sees their entire identity only through the lens of that tragedy, something profound is broken. They see powerful Israelis and weak Palestinians, and they map the trauma of the Holocaust onto this new grid, mistakenly believing that to honor the victims of the Nazis, they must despise the state that was built to protect them.

And here lies a deeper tragedy, one we must face if we are to heal. We are paying the price for a hollowness in our own house. As Hurwitz argues, too many of us have allowed Jewish identity to become a “contentless void”. A mix of bagels, Seinfeld jokes, and a Protestant-style definition of religion. But Judaism is not merely a religion. It is a peoplehood, a civilization, a family.

When our children view the seven million Jews in Israel merely as “co-religionists” across the ocean, it is easy for them to sever the bond. It is easy to walk away from a stranger who prays differently. It is much harder to walk away from a sibling. If we leave our identity empty, the world will fill it for us. And right now, the world is filling it with the poison of this mutated virus. To fight it, we must offer substance. We must return to our story. As an anchor.

We must also confront a truth that is difficult to swallow, yet necessary to digest. If we have learned anything by now, it is that this virus is not a passing fever. It is ancient, woven into the bedrock of history, and it will probably be a forever problem. We cannot explain it away, we cannot apologize it away, and we likely cannot solve it. It is a shadow that follows us.

So, where does that leave us?

It leaves us with the work of survival. We must ensure that Jews and Israelis are safe. We must fight for a reality where we are free from this shapeshifting hatred. But we cannot only look outward, sword in hand. We must also look inward.

To look inward is to realize that the status quo is corroding us. To better ourselves, and to fortify the fragile, bruised democracy of Israel, we must face a strategic reality that we have tried, for too long, to wish away. We must move toward total separation from the Palestinians.

I am not speaking of peace. I am not naive. I know that the ship of peace sailed on the morning of October 7th, leaving us standing on a blood-soaked shore. The air is too thick with smoke for dreams of reconciliation right now. But the absence of peace cannot mean the permanence of this entanglement. To remain inextricably bound to another people, ruling over them, is morally and pragmatically unsustainable. It is a weight that drags Israel’s democracy down. We do not need to love our neighbors to know that we must build a future where we are not responsible for their fate, nor they for ours. Separation is not a favor we do for them, it is a necessity we owe to ourselves, for the sake of our own moral breath and our future as a free people.

The virus has mutated, yes. But we are still here. And our task is to remain here, flawed, human, separated but secure, safe, and free.