I Don’t Want to Hear You Say ‘Never Again’

I grew up on the words “Never Again”. I learned about the Holocaust through visiting museums; through borrowed books from the library; through stories told from old men and women, crisscrossed veins nearly camouflaging the faded numbers on their forearms. I was told the world would never allow this, not ever again. I was told the world was against anti-Semitism.

The truth is, it’s 2025, and the phrase “Never Again” is bullsh*t. It’s a lie. Because I am sitting here, on my comfy couch in my lovely living room, with an HD TV showing me clear as could possibly be: Jewish skeletons walking right this moment out of Auschwitz. Less than a hundred kilometers away from me.

You all told me it could never again be, and here we see: here it is happening, it is real, it’s even on TV.

So what do you have to say? That it’s not the Holocaust on a “macro” level because of the numbers; it’s the Holocaust on a “micro” level, because of what was done to just some individual Jewish humans.

Does anyone care about the numbers? Is it not enough that it was done to one Jew? Or 200 Jews? Or 2,000? At one point, at what “number”, would the world care?

But here is our folly, as Jews, trusting that the world would ever really care; the world is good at putting up museums and plaques, dedication days and ceremonies and anniversaries. Because you can do all those things from your comfort zone, from the safety of your narrative. It’s simply rinse and repeat; you don’t have to stand up and shout on your own two feet.

Now we see everyone’s true colors. What the world truly feels, what they really believe. It all comes down to one ageless, timeless, eternal belief: “The Jews deserve it.”

So no, I don’t buy into the saying “Never Again”. Because as it turns out, people don’t really change all that much.

What do I believe? I believe in the Israel Defense Forces. I believe in the common soldier who, without asking questions, puts on their uniform and descends into the darkest, most dangerous of dungeons, and they willingly give up their entire bright, beautiful lives – just to protect the rest of us. I believe in those brave, selfless men and women.

I believe in the brilliant brains who’ve somehow made the impossible possible – manipulating innovations in technology to create a shield in the sky that protects us from drones and rockets and missiles of every shape and size.

I believe in the undercover agents who spend precious years of their lives in foreign societies, never revealing their true identity so that they might discover and influence and act all in the name of keeping us a little bit more safe.

Those are my heroes; those are the people I trust. They are the only ones who truly, genuinely care about me staying alive. Who would go to the ends of the earth to get our hostages out of hell. And to everyone else – your words and your slogans are mere mist, evaporating as surely as the blurry edges of a memory. They hold no weight to me.

You know what Saturdays are like here in Israel these days? Saturdays are taking kids to a park or playground in Tel Aviv and looking up as the helicopters whir overhead, holding the most precious cargo in its wind, as it makes its holy way to the hospital nearby. Saturdays are “Mommy I want ice cream Mommy he took my toy Mommy my socks got wet,” while images of horror appear on my phone, my nightmares come to life, all in real time. And not just for me, but for everyone around me. While I try to brush a smile onto my face for the children, breathing through it all–the pain and joy and anger and relief and the tears, so many choked back tears—that’s just a Saturday morning right now for us Israelis.

And today, I witnessed Otto Frank come to life. The man who lost everything and everyone he loved, and somehow survived, and published his daughter’s diary so the world would hear Anne’s voice for generations to come. I always wondered how Otto Frank managed to get himself out of bed in the morning, let alone not commit suicide. And then I see Yarden Bibas. And Eli Sharabi. And others who are today’s tragic Otto Franks – who have lost so much, and yet, are still standing, still fighting to keep living.

So yes, I’m angry – angry that we just have to sit here watching this all unfold, silently screaming into the void. I’m tired of nothing changing. Not since the beginning of time, and not in the 42 years I’ve known this world. You know what my grandfather used to tell me, when I was a kid? “If only I’d had a gun, Libbie. Just one gun. That’s all I needed.” He had the most pale, pure blue eyes, and he would sit there in his sunshine-filled living room of their apartment in the Bronx, the dark clouds of the concentration camps never leaving his face.

My grandfather could only dream of a gun; he had no weapon and no way to save his family from extermination in the Holocaust. The only time he actually succeeded in killing a Nazi was when he did so with his bare hands. So yes – now we Jews have guns. We have our weapons. We finally have the bare minimum of what is required to protect ourselves and stay alive: a state, and an army. That is literally the only thing that has changed.

So no, it’s not ‘Never Again’, it’s RIGHT NOW, and if you had any doubt: here they are displayed on a silver platter on a Hamas stage, and you need to look into their hollowed, emaciated, fear-filled eyes—and realize that nothing has changed in the minds and hearts of people from centuries past—because they all let this happen, and some even clapped.

These are the same exact eyes from the black-and-white photos in the history books. The same—exact—eyes. Have you looked into them, really? Stop patting yourselves on the back, feeling like you’ve done something that matters. You hung a ribbon, you opened a book, you observed a moment of silence. Good for you. How exactly does that help our hostages in their hour of need?

The truth is that the Jewish People stand alone, always have, and always will. We have friends, yes—but friends will only go so far for one another. Blood is much thicker than water. The hostages are living proof of that – the thousands of dead Israeli bodies since October 7^th are all the museum anyone needs.

Everything else is bullsh*t.