On Purim, Let’s Rip Off the Masks of Hypocrisy

We haven’t quite reached the Ides of March, yet misfortune and doom seem to be making their way across the world at an accelerated pace. How many of you saw the photos on social media of the huge rallies spreading across our country protesting the massacre of nearly 1,000 civilians that took place in Syria barely a week ago? How many of you saw videos of masked demonstrators holding Druze flags while they protested against the violence committed against the Druze community in Syria? How many of your friends have been harassed, stalked, insulted, and beaten while on their college campus because of being Nigerian or Congolese, and somehow therefor being connected to the executions carried out by Islamists in those countries? None. None of you saw those protests because they simply did not occur. After a Google search and a query into ChatGPT, I can unfortunately yet confidently report that “as of March 12, 2025, there have been no widely reported protests in the United States specifically addressing a massacre in Syria during March 2025.” Of course, ChatGPT failed to note that Israel recently sent dozens of aid trucks to the Druze community in Syria in response to the tragedies. On Africa, “specific data on worldwide protests against these attacks and the broader persecution of Christians in Nigeria and Niger over the past three months is limited.”

How many of you have heard of the January 12^th Borno State Attack in Nigeria where Islamist militants from Boko Haram rounded up 40 farmers on the shores of Lake Chad and shot them? And what about the Irumu Territory Attacks in late January and early February, in which 28 people were killed by armed groups, causing widespread panic and the displacement of thousands of civilians? On February 10^th in the Djugu Territory Massacre, the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo militia set fires to homes with people trapped inside them; they committed sexual violence and used machetes and guns to kill over 80 people including women and children. Then on February 12^th in the Kasanga Massacre, militants from the Allied Democratic Forces and the Islamic State’s Central Africa Province, abducted over 70 Christian civilians from a village, took them to a church, and beheaded them.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that on March 6^th, 973 civilians were massacred. Other reports indicate that over 1,000 people, including 745 civilians, were killed in just two days. Entire families were executed together, mainly of members of the Alawite sect of Shia Islam (to which former toppled dictator Assad belonged), the Druze, and Christians. It’s a horrifically morbid game of one side blaming the other, with nobody admitting exactly how it started: purportedly, Assad loyalists killed members of the new government security forces, then the security forces along with allied militias began taking revenge. Somewhere in that mix lies Turkey, a country backing the militias and new unelected president.

But none of these true genocides, acts of undeserved violence committed against particular religions, have gotten the attention they deserve because well, obviously, if it isn’t Israelis or Jews doing the killing, why would anyone organize a protest? Other than meaningless resolutions, issuing condemnations, and calling for investigations, no sanctions or other punitive measures against these governments have been enacted by the unholy United Nations. While the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, none have been issued for the leaders of these other countries.

And back home in the United States we are not that much better. In the name of the anti-Israel movement, hundreds of students from Columbia University, Barnard College, and Union Theological Seminary stormed and occupied a building on Barnard’s campus while threatening that there was a bomb, causing more than $30,000 worth of property damage, and physically assaulting a university employee requiring hospitalization. It was eerily reminiscent of the other dozens of violent protests on college campuses over the last year, except this time it was entirely different. President Trump applied Title VI of the Civil Rights Act along with his Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism to withdraw $400 million of the government’s money from Columbia University.

Finally, after all the meaningless talk of the prior administration, meaningful action was taken, and it didn’t stop there. Federal agents arrested the ringleader of the protests at Columbia, a man accused of agitating on campus for over a year, calling a university dean genocidal, fostering an environment of harassment and abuse against Jewish and Israeli students, as well as distributing pro-Hamas propaganda according to Press Secretary Leavitt. As President Trump recently said, “If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here,” and he obviously means it, starting with Mahmoud Khalil. Perhaps there were no rallies for the massacre in Syria because over 1,000 people were otherwise busy marching to Union Square in support of that immigrant man threatened with deportation. Perhaps the 14 democrats trying to overturn the deportation orders were too busy to do anything about the Christians being murdered in Africa.

It behooves us to acknowledge the irony of the Left being suddenly so concerned about the 1^st amendment’s protection of freedom of speech, when all throughout the last 5 years they were advocating the censoring of anyone who had differing viewpoints on vaccine mandates, masking effectiveness, or anything else that had been deemed to be misinformation. Have we already forgotten that the same people now claiming to simply be defenders of free speech are the same people who reveled in having Big Tech silence and ban the President of the United States from speaking his mind? Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, and Twitch, among others, all disabled and banned Trump’s accounts alleging that they were concerned about incitement to violence. Wouldn’t it make sense that those same people now then be able to see that a man who organized dozens of deeply disturbing protests and fomented a campus environment in which Jews were too scared to walk to classes on their own because they had been victims to violence and bullying, deserved to be silenced? No, on the contrary. That man is being made out to be somewhat of a hero, a figurative martyr for their cause against President Donald Trump. It is shameful and sickening.

This week we are celebrating the holiday of Purim, where the evil Haman held a lottery and decided that on the 14^th day of Adar, all the Jews should be murdered, for literally no good reason except for the fact that they were Jews. A true genocide. While Esther, a name that itself implies secrecy, was still hiding her identity as a Jew and staying quiet, Mordechai advised, “Do not imagine that you will escape in the king’s palace from among all the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether it was for a time such as this that you attained royalty?” Esther did take action; she risked her life, revealed her identity, and saved all the Jews from extermination. Our tradition holds that every time we read the evil Haman’s name we make as much noise as possible, with whatever means necessary, like the kids holding graggers, to follow God’s command where He says, “You shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget.” When Israel was attacked on October 7^th many allies stood up along with us and raised their graggers so to speak. They made a lot of noise, they stood with us in rallies, they went to lobby our government. This Purim I ask you, the Jews, the people who have been victims of several genocides, to stand up, raise your gragger, raise your voice, and take action against the modern-day Amalekites in Africa and Syria. Write to your congressman asking them to make clear statements, to pass sanctions, to withdraw ambassadors, to boycott if necessary. Find reputable charities and organizations you can support monetarily, share the Jewish insights of activism with them and help them get more visibility in the news. Ask your Christian friends if their churches are doing anything and how you can help.

On Purim, we dress up in costume, but don’t use that as an excuse to put on a fake mask of righteous indignation at so-called assaults on free speech. Instead, focus your energies on ripping off the masks of the rest of the hypocritical world that wastes its time obsessed with Israel and couldn’t care less about innocent human beings being beheaded and executed by Islamists in many parts of the world. You can be an Esther. You can be a Mordechai.