What are your priorities?

With the rise of malicious and violent antisemitic attacks, as we most recently have witnessed in Amsterdam and elsewhere, American Jewish leadership is delinquent in addressing with forthright clarity the primary source of attacks on Jews. The consequences of which leaves their organizations ineffectual in combating antisemitism.

The costs of not boldly confronting overt antisemitism, perpetrated by antisemitic academics, students, street hooligans, and a segment of the progressive-woke, encourages violence, intimidation, and the perpetuation of lies on college campuses, in urban centers, and within the esteemed halls of Congress. Silence has encouraged the perpetrators to continue their verbal, physical and legislative assaults. The fallout of ignoring or minimizing assaults on members of the Jewish community pushes its set-upon victims to retreat to imaginary safe spaces by concealing their identity as Jews, and open support of Israel.

Too many in the Jewish community refuse to confront organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace, New Israel Fund, and other groups with Jewish-friendly sounding names, whose words of support for Israel are disingenuous because their policy positions are hostile to its welfare and existence. Today, the new anti-Israel and anti-Zionism we are witnessing are merely refurbished wrappings concealing age-old antisemitism and misguided ideologies. Yet too many in the Jewish community deflect attention away from today’s foreign and domestic antisemites, committing instead their energies to actively encourage those noble attributes of tolerance, inclusion, and protection for everyone, that is for everyone but members of their own tribe.

Rabbi Hillel who believed in universal kindness, was prescient when he stated, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? Then he added, “If I am only for myself, what am I?” It was no accident that he put support for himself first, after which he offered a message of inclusiveness. So, we in the Jewish community should heed his sage advice and protect our Jewish family, community, and heritage, not exclusively, but first-and-foremost. “And if not now, when?”