We Must All Become Soldiers for 5786

We are in the year 5786. What will the future look like for Jews?  Let’s begin with the United Federation of Teachers, the main teachers’ union in New York City, who has endorsed Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor. While some Jewish leaders have condemned Mamdani for his repeated refusals to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, an increasing percentage of younger Democrats and younger Jewish voters are not aligning with Israel. We are witnessing more and more Jews embracing their new religion of “Progressivism” over Israel and Jewish Civil Rights.  “According to a new poll by Zenith Research and Public Progress Solutions, 43% of Jewish voters in New York said they would vote for Mamdani, including 67% of Jewish voters aged 18 to 44.” 

Chuck Schumer, resident of NY, and powerful Jewish Dem. Senate Majority Leader, should be shouting condemnation of this miserable excuse for a candidate at the top of his lungs. Instead, Schumer issued his congratulations to Mamdani on his lead in the race! Jerry Nadler, a prominent Jew, U.S. Representative for New York’s 12th Congressional District. astoundingly endorsed Mamdani.  The Jewish population in the New York metropolitan area is estimated to be around 1.7 million, with the majority living in New York City, making it the largest Jewish community in the United States, one of the largest in the world.  Where are the mass demonstrations? The 24/7 pickets outside their offices?  Where is the collective outrage?  Mamdani is a member of the Democratic Socialists, “…the party addressed Hamas’s terrorist massacre by adopting an anti-Israel resolution between “Free Palestine” and “Death to the IDF” chants.” https://tjvnews.com/news/politics/inside-the-dsa-convention-where-socialists-declared-dominance-over-dems-and-set-their-sights-on-2028/

The implications for the education of our children are frightening. We will see all aspects of societal infrastructure spewing malignant, false, biased narratives as facts. Calls for Israel’s demise as a Jewish State will be part of the daily new rallying cry for this over and under-educated mob, (including way too many Jews themselves),  positioning themselves as  “humanitarians” and “progressives.” For them, Israel can do no right while these Arabs can do no wrong.

The outright attacks on anyone who supports Israel has already become a “justifiable” act, met with silence, shrugs, or applause and by flotillas headed to Gaza, not to protest Hamas’ brutalization of Gazans, not to protest Hamas who use civilians as human shields, who torture any who dare to protest, but to protest big, bad Israel, where Arabs have more religious and civil rights, more freedom of speech than anywhere in the Middle East.  You don’t need me to ask what comes next after you are a subhuman Jew. But you do need someone to offer a specific plan for our survival.

We don’t need more whining, more laments without solutions, or incessantly emailing each other with the latest horror.  We need Jews of all ages shapes and sizes, Jewish men and women, to be enrolled in training, and be equipped, and comfortable using, a full range of legal items for self-defense. We need Jews who will fight back, who will take down an attacker swiftly and with ease. And make it known to the world that we will defend ourselves, our communities, and places where we gather, with the full legal force of our being.

We need all Jews, worldwide, to combat mainstream media’s falsehoods by flooding their offices and campuses with easy-to-digest “Myths vs. Facts” pamphlets. Reach young people by funding organizations who spread the truth and beauty of Israel on social media.  Generously fund organizations that practice lawfare, suing those who engage in institutionalized Jew hate and intimidation. Each and every Jew needs to become as relentlessly active as are our enemies. 

As we approach 5786, this bears repeating, from my Blog: How Many Times Do We Need to Bear Witness https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/how-many-times-do-we-need-to-bear-witness/

“In 1969, age 18, I went to Israel. My aunt took me to Yad Vashem, my first time. I held my tears in until the very last exhibit. I saw a silent towering pile of children’s shoes, worn, scuffed, shoe laces torn. I broke down sobbing.  In 2015, I went through the Yad Vashem Children’s Memorial, again in Israel. It was hollowed out from an underground cavern, darkly lit, with uneven steps, keeping you unbalanced. The ceiling is filled with stars for each of these murdered children. As you walk slowly through, you hear the names of the 1.5 million slaughtered Jewish children called out, one by one. The unbearable ache never completely goes away. This little girl stays with me. She is never far from my consciousness. The Holocaust documentary shows her trying to roll up the sleeve on her tattered coat, as she was asked to do, to show the tattoo of the number on her tiny arm. She did this with earnestness and intensity, as if to say to the world, to someone, to anyone, ‘if I do what I’m told, if I am a good girl, maybe this nightmare will stop’. It did not stop. As I write this now, my tears welled up again, for this little girl, and the millions like her who were butchered just because they were Jews.”

I never thought in 2023, I would again be sobbing with this same rage and grief for Jewish Israeli children literally torn apart, women gang raped, then shot, their naked, dead bodies stomped on, the dead paraded like war trophies, families trapped, their charred remains found, while Hamas gleefully video taped their butchery.  At least the Nazis gassed us before cremating us, although towards the end, as the Allies were descending they threw Jewish children alive into the ovens.

If you need role models, look no further than the IDF’s brave men and women. Or emulate the fearless Bielski brothers whose raw, relentless courage saved hundreds of Jews from the Nazis. “The brothers believed that the group needed to be feared if it had any chance of surviving in such a hostile environment,” their biographers wrote in the Tuvia Bielski: Rescue is Resistance Study Guide.

Diaspora Jews are quickly becoming used to being victims and are beginning to act like victims. And with enough practice, will make first rate, second class citizens. Do we need to be reminded that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior? When I was in France in 2015, all Jewish institutions were guarded by armed French soldiers because of assaults on Jews and Jewish institutions. In Paris, I saw no signs of Jews anywhere except for small plaques on buildings telling you how many Jews were rounded up on this corner during WWII.  If we learn anything from our history, it should be that we can never depend upon others to save Jews. We have to protect and save ourselves. 

As 5786 begins, I will end with yet another timely reminder which falls on deaf ears, on the ears of those who couldn’t identify a true victim from a true oppressor if their miserable lives depended on it, from my Blog,“Are you on the menu?” https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/are-you-on-the-menu/: If our collective wisdom is failing us, if our collective chutzpah is gone, and it is, perhaps it’s time to take some advice from an unlikely source, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, “In the last several decades the Palestinian leadership has missed one opportunity after the other and rejected all the peace proposals it was given,” the crown prince said…It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.” https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-crown-prince-told-palestinians-to-shut-up-and-stop-complaining-2018-4