Jews, it’s time to fight for America

When the horrendous news of last night’s shooting in DC came in, my husband and I were in the middle of the final episode of HBO’s The Plot Against America. Based on Philip Roth’s novel of the same name, the miniseries chronicles a hypothetical scenario in which the United States does not join the Allies during World War II and instead slowly spirals from minor antisemitic aggression into mass-scale pogroms. The tragic news of the cold-blooded murder of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, snapped us out of that fictional dystopian scenario and into a real-world one. We would have to be blind not to see the parallel.

Anyone paying attention is aware by now of the slow-moving coup happening in our culture—not just in recent months, but for years, and especially in the 18 months since October 7. From elite institutions on the left to populist media outlets on the right, the normalization and escalation of antisemitism is where the horseshoe of our culture meets: the one thing the far left and far right can agree on. I wish I could say I was surprised that it has come to this—young people being gunned down while walking out of a Jewish event—but I am not. This is the result of a long, strategic campaign of demonization of Israel and Zionism. But Americans would be wise to realize that this movement is not only an attack on Jews. It is an attack on Western values—an attack on the very essence of what makes the United States exceptional.

In The Plot Against America, there comes a point where some Jews see the writing on the wall and leave for Canada, while the main protagonist refuses to go. “This is my country,” he says, as he scrapes antisemitic graffiti off a Jewish gravestone, “Jew haters want a country—they’ve got plenty to choose from. This one, they’re not getting.” Every Jew in the United States has asked themselves the fundamental question baked into the bones of all of us descendants of Holocaust and pogrom survivors: How do you decide when to leave? Well, I am here to say that I am not giving up on America so easily.

As Dan Senor said in his excellent State of World Jewry address at the 92nd Street Y, we must look to Israelis not only for their innovation and technology, but for their clarity and unshakeable sense of purpose – their “why”. Just as Israel is the front line of the battle for Western values and civilization geopolitically, so we, American Jews, must be the front line in the war of ideas. Furthermore, we should look to Israelis for their bravery and resilience as well. Israelis did not leave Israel when they were attacked. No — on October 8, they filled airplanes to come back and defend their country. Now it is our time to fight.

In her book How To Fight Anti-Semitism, Bari Weiss aptly observed that:

“When antisemitism is rising, it is the number one sign that a society is dying or maybe is already dead. The proximate victims are Jews themselves, but the bigger and overlooked victim, if you look at history, is the surrounding society.”

The United States is our home, and it is worth fighting for. This must be our “why.” It is unprecedented in our fraught history to have a country in which Jews can be  safe, successful, and integrated into all elements of society, the way we have been here. As we feel this reality slipping away, we must realize that not only do we need the United States—but the United States needs us. It needs Jews to stand up to the evil forces trying to cause it to implode from within.

Last night’s antisemitic murder was tragic, chilling, and infuriating. While I feel scared for my children, my family, and my community, I refuse to live in fear. We must be brave in the face of intimidation—whether physical, cultural, or reputational. If we cower, hide, or flee, then the terrorists win. We mustn’t let them.