This Thanksgiving, Gratitude Meets Uncertainty
Today is Thanksgiving — a day of gratitude, reflection, and acknowledgement of the blessings in our lives. I am deeply grateful for my family, my home, and the countless gifts that fill my daily life with meaning. But this Thanksgiving feels different. It carries a weight that I cannot ignore. In all the years I’ve lived in America, I have never felt the cultural shift as sharply as I do now.
Over the past two to three years — intensified by the war in Gaza — something has fundamentally changed. What we are witnessing is not just tension or disagreement; it is an eruption of antisemitism so open, so brazen, that it has begun to feel “normal” in public spaces. And this normalization is perhaps the most alarming development of all. In New York, the shift is especially pronounced.
With the newly appointed mayor and incoming leadership — some openly antisemitic, others aligned with groups or ideologies hostile to Jews — the tone of the city feels altered.
Even among those who present themselves as moderate, the reality is that the loudest, most extreme voices dominate the discourse.
Meanwhile, the vast majority — people who do not hate Jews, who understand the contributions the Jewish community has made to American society — remain silent. They continue with their lives while a new, disturbing “normal” takes shape around them.
At the very same moment that antisemitism is rising in America, something remarkable is happening in Germany. Authorities there are building a legal case against a 100-year-old alleged SS guard, insisting that justice must be pursued even a century later. It is symbolic and deliberate: a nation confronting its darkest past with absolute seriousness. The contrast is startling.
Germany is prosecuting a centenarian because it recognizes how genocide begins — with small acts, with silent assent, with hatred that grows unchecked.
And in America, we are seeing the early indicators of that same pattern: loud extremist groups setting the narrative while everyone else whispers or looks away. These are not coincidences. These are warnings. At first glance, it seems like two different worlds:
• Germany fiercely prosecuting the remnants of its historical evil, and
• America quietly tolerates the early signs of a familiar hatred.
But the uncomfortable truth is that the two worlds are dangerously connected. History does not repeat itself overnight. It starts with societal numbness. It begins when citizens stop being shocked by hateful rhetoric. When Jews — or any minority — are marginalized by aggressive extremist groups while the majority stays silent. When apathy replaces moral clarity.
And today, that apathy is growing. From radical elements within the Muslim community to far-left factions that legitimize and amplify extremist narratives, we are watching a new and troubling coalition shape public sentiment. Slowly, steadily, alarmingly, their worldview is becoming part of America’s everyday reality. This should concern everyone — not just Jews.
Thanksgiving is rooted in the idea of opportunity and religious freedom. Millions came to this country precisely because America offered what so many other nations did not: the safety to live openly as Jews, Christians, Muslims, or anyone else. Yet today, that promise feels fragile.
For the first time in decades, American Jews are questioning whether the security they have long felt — the comfort of truly belonging here — can still be taken for granted.
This is why Thanksgiving feels different. The lingering question in all of our minds is whether perhaps the Jewish Golden Era in America is coming to an end.
This moment calls for clarity. For voice. For unwavering insistence that hate — in any form, against any group — must be confronted before silence becomes complicity.
We can still be grateful for this great country. But gratitude does not mean pretending everything is fine. It means recognizing what is worth protecting.
America can remain a place of safety, democracy, and freedom — but only if we refuse to accept antisemitism as the new normal. Only if we speak up. Only if we remember the lessons that Germany is still grappling with: that hatred, once unleashed, does not vanish on its own.
This Thanksgiving, let our gratitude be paired with responsibility — to stand firm, to speak out, and to ensure that the promise of America remains strong for all who call it home.
