Teaneck, New Jersey’s Leadership Failure.
https://youtu.be/WjIEK3vlpBg?is=UIPr_WJiOEcVq8zF
October 7th was the day the world stopped listening.
We watched Jewish history repeat itself in real time.
Broadcast on GoPro cameras for the world to see. Still, they denied it.
We saw mothers shielding their children, grandmothers taken hostage, and daughters dragged into Gaza.
We heard screaming, crying, then the silence of the world.
We heard the silence on the dais of Mayor Mark Schwartz, Deputy Mayor Karen Orgen, and Councilman Elie Y. Katz. We saw the silence of Councilman-elect Avi Berliner and council candidate Sharon Kolb, those whom Mark Schwartz, Karen Orgen, Elie Y. Katz, and the Bergen County Jewish Action Committee said the Jewish community must vote for as a bloc.
There were four seats, so why was the vote divided?
They didn’t give you permission to vote for the person speaking up, because they have been silent.
We watched as people debated our pain, as crowds marched, not for the women who were stolen, but for those who took them.
When we begged the world to look, they told us to be quiet.
My name is Councilwoman Hillary Goldberg, and I will never be silenced.
I carry that promise onto the dais, and I carry it onto the streets of Teaneck where they think I can be silenced.
She is every Jewish mother, every Jewish daughter, every Jewish woman who has carried this people forward, who has stood in the face of destruction and said, “Not this time. Not on my watch.”
We rise from the ashes of pogroms, from the ruins of ghettos, from the voices of those who could not rise themselves.
We rise from the Holocaust, from exile, from October 7th, from every attempt to erase us.
We rise from grief, from fear, from history itself.
We rise because we have no other choice.
Because if we do not rise, who will?
She is not just the one who nurtures, she is the one who fights.
She is not just the one who comforts, she is the one who builds.
She is not just the one who remembers, she is the one who ensures the world does not forget.
She is me, and she will never stop fighting for our safety.
She will save us from ourselves, as well as those who seek us harm.
Not today.
Not tomorrow.
Not ever.
That is a promise