Silence is not love

Dear Parents:

This letter is written not with judgment, but with urgency. It is not meant to shame — but to awaken. If your child is among the Jewish students chanting for intifada, waving Hamas slogans, or aligning with groups that deny Israel’s right to exist, then you — we — have a problem. This is your wake-up call.

You may have raised them with values of justice, empathy, and intellectual openness. You may have hoped that their college years would expand their minds, teach them to speak out for the oppressed, and challenge power structures. But something has gone terribly wrong. Because in their quest to champion the underdog, they have turned against their own people.

Let’s be clear: Hamas is not a liberation movement. It is not a “resistance” group. It is a terrorist organization with an explicitly genocidal charter—one that does not distinguish between Israeli and Jew, settler and student, Zionist and diaspora. When they chant “From the river to the sea,” they mean erasure. They mean no Jews. Not just no Israelis—no Jews. Your children. My children. You.

Yet today, some Jewish students proudly wear keffiyehs, call for “river to the sea,” and believe they are on the right side of history. They dismiss the rape of women on October 7 as “unconfirmed,” ignore the trauma of hostages still in captivity, and see antisemitism only when it fits a political narrative they agree with.

They speak of “colonizers” and “decolonization” without acknowledging that Israel is the only Jewish homeland—a place of refuge after centuries of exile, pogroms, and genocide. They forget that Israel is not a perfect country, but it is a real one. It exists, and it has the right to. They excuse terrorism as a response to “colonialism.” But ask yourself: Whose land is this, really? Who are the colonizers, and who are the indigenous?

Here is a historical truth no one on campus seems willing to say out loud: Jews are the original inhabitants of the Land of Israel. Our presence there predates Islam by over a thousand years. Hebrew was spoken in Jerusalem before a single Arabic word was uttered in that land. We built our temples there. We were exiled and scattered—and yet we never stopped praying to return. Next year in Jerusalem was never a metaphor. It was a longing—an identity.

Our parents and grandparents survived the camps, the pogroms, the gas chambers. They taught us: Never again. But “never again” only works if we recognize when it’s happening again—and who it’s happening to.

What we’re witnessing is not just moral confusion. It’s a profound historical amnesia. And many of our children, in their eagerness to belong, to fight injustice, to be seen as “good allies,” have bought into a movement that denies the truth of who they are—and who we are.

They’ve been told that “lived experience” matters. That victims should be believed. Except, it seems, when the victims are Jewish. Then we’re told to sit down, be quiet, or apologize for our existence.

So where are we, the parents? Have we abdicated our role entirely, or are we so afraid of being “on the wrong side” that we let our children sleepwalk into movements that dehumanize Jews—us, their own family?

Silence is not love. Agreement is not understanding. And watching from the sidelines while our children ally themselves with people who want to see our community wiped off the map is not parenting—it is abandonment.

We are not asking our children to blindly support everything the Israeli government does. We should raise moral, questioning minds. But we must draw a line. Supporting groups that deny Israel’s right to exist or cheer Hamas is not activism. It is complicity in hate.

If your child were marching to dismantle Ukraine, or Taiwan, or Tibet, would you still say, “They’re just finding their voice”? Why is it only the Jewish state whose existence must be up for debate?

We owe it to our children—and to the generations before and after—to teach moral clarity. To help them distinguish between justice and hatred wrapped in the language of social justice. To remind them that Judaism is not a costume or a culture they can set aside when it becomes inconvenient. It is a covenant, a people, and a responsibility.

This is your moment to speak up. To ask hard questions. To challenge them. To remind them of who they are. And to say, without apology: You do not get to fight for every cause but abandon your own people.

We are not powerless. We still have voices. We still have truth. But we must use them—now—before the next generation forgets not only where they come from, but who they are.

Sincerely,

Irina Zavina-Tare
A fellow Jewish parent who refuses to stay silent