Who Will Ask Forgiveness of Us?

Every year, as Elul arrives and the High Holy Days draw near, I begin making my list. Who have I hurt? Whose feelings have I ignored? Where have I spoken too quickly, judged too harshly, or failed to show kindness?

Judaism asks something extraordinary of us. Before we ask G-d for forgiveness, we must first seek forgiveness from those we have wronged. It is one of the most demanding and deeply human principles of our faith. Teshuvah is not simply about regret; it is about accountability. It requires honesty, humility and the courage to admit that we have caused pain.

Most years, I can do that. This year, however, another question keeps interrupting my prayers.

Who is prepared to ask forgiveness of us? Since October 7, I have found myself waiting for more recognition that something terrible happened to the Jewish people. I have waited for those who repeated outrageous accusations to acknowledge they may have been wrong. I have waited for those who rushed to condemn Israel while barely acknowledging the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust to pause and reflect. I have waited for some act of teshuvah. Mostly, I have waited in vain.

The journalist Zoe Strimpel recently wrote an Article in regards to Boy George’s pro Israel song in The Daily Telegraph about those “rare individuals who somehow manage to resist the tidal wave of misinformation surrounding Israel. They see through the slogans, recognize the distortions and understand how ancient prejudices have simply found new language. People like that have become precious.”

This brings me to another form of responsibility of the media. The media has enormous power to shape what people believe. Most of us cannot personally investigate a war, interview every witness, examine every piece of evidence or independently verify every photograph and video. We depend upon journalists to do that work for us. That is an enormous ethical responsibility. When reporting is based on uncorroborated claims, when allegations are presented as established fact, when important context is omitted, or when images and stories are selected in ways that create a one-sided narrative, the consequences can be profound. People form opinions, condemn others and sometimes even hate entire communities based on information that has never been adequately examined.

Journalism has turned into an opinion tainted trough. Why is much of what is reported no longer fair and balanced?

And when a media organization gets something seriously wrong, shouldn’t there be a form of Teshuva there too?

Shouldn’t there be an acknowledgment?

An apology? A correction that is as visible as the original accusation?

We ask individuals to take responsibility for the damage their words and actions cause. Surely institutions that influence millions of people should be held to the same moral standard. What has upset me is not only what I have witnessed around me, but what it has awakened inside me.

This year I finally completed one part of last year’s teshuvah. I forgave my neighbor. It was easy. I realized I no longer wanted to carry the weight of resentment. Choosing kindness felt lighter. Personal forgiveness, when another human being stands before you with all their flaws and complexities, was simpler in the end. I have done this before and must keep that memory accessible.

What has proved infinitely harder is forgiving a world that often seems determined not merely to disagree with Jews, but to misunderstand us and condemn us. It’s infuriating how there is so little self-reflection or deeper understanding that they have surrendered to manipulation.

Recently I met a woman while shopping. We chatted pleasantly enjoying one of those unexpected conversations.

Before we arranged to meet again for coffee, I asked her one question.

“What is your view on Israel?”

Her face immediately reddened.

“It’s stolen land,” she replied. Without missing a beat, I smiled and answered, “You really need to study some history, dear. It’s Jewish land.” Then I swiftly turned and walked away. Only afterwards did I notice how fast my heart had been beating. It wasn’t simply that I had answered her.

Part of me had enjoyed it. I realized I wasn’t responding only to one stranger’s opinion. I was responding to everything I have carried since October 7.

And I have noticed this happening more often.

Sometimes I hear a language, see a symbol or discover someone’s political views, and before they have spoken another word I wonder whether they already despise me because I am a Zionist Jew. I dislike that reaction in myself. It’s a form of projected bias and protection.

Judaism teaches us to see the individual before the label. Trauma and fear teaches the opposite. One event  has stayed with me more than any other.

A young Israeli couple were speaking Hebrew in a restaurant in Vietnam when another diner overheard them and launched into an aggressive public attack. She accused them of crimes they themselves had never committed. They asked to be left alone, but she continued emphatically, filming the entire encounter and later posting it online as though their humiliation were some kind of moral achievement.

I have never met that young couple.

Yet I have not been able to forget the woman’s voice. It’s lodged in my memory like a terrifying echo. What disturbed me most was not simply what happened to them. It was what happened inside me. I immediately began rehearsing the argument I would have made. I wished l could have been there to protect the couple to argue expertly with this witch of a woman. I imagined every response.

Every historical fact. Every devastating comeback. I wasn’t merely witnessing antisemitism. I was preparing for my own future confrontation.

A few weeks later I was having lunch in a café when a large group of young people arrived. One woman was wearing a “Free Palestine” cap, the first I had ever seen. Immediately a sentence formed in my mind.

“I completely agree,” I imagined saying. “Free Palestine…from Hamas.” I never said it. They were younger, louder, and rather intimidating. But once again I found myself rehearsing the confrontation. Not the conversation.

The victory. That unsettled me. I also remember unfurling an Israeli Flag defiantly smiling toward men in a car screaming at me those annoyingly cringe words.

Because the High Holy Days ask us not only to examine what we have done.

They ask us to examine what we are becoming. I do not regret standing up for Israel and the Jews. I do not regret challenging falsehoods. Silence has never protected the Jewish people.

But I am beginning to ask whether the desire to confront has started occupying too much space within me. Several American Jewish Journalists have recently preached to us that we should take care of our tent and fortify our Jewish Institutions and not mess with the outside masses baying at our doors. So l ask – is correcting people what we should spend our energy on?

And should my justified anger, quietly become part of my identity?

Recently I spoke with a young Modern Orthodox aeronautical physicist from MIT. He told me that he deliberately seeks conversations with anti-Israel students on campus. He believes dialogue still matters because these are the people with whom he will study, work and build his future. I admire him enormously. I also realized I could not do what he does and thank goodness l no longer have to negotiate life through those circles.  In any case I do not possess that level of patience or diplomacy. His courage lies in engagement. Mine, perhaps, still lies in speaking truthfully when I must even at the risk of raising someone’s ire.

Not all Jews can simply move to Israel. Some of us are too old, not well off enough, have no connections there, don’t speak Hebrew and so forth and so on.  An Israeli visitor to our egalitarian minyan in Düsseldorf recently told me he had tried to find work in Germany. More than once, opportunities instantly disappeared once employers discovered he came from Tel Aviv. He could have pursued legal action for discrimination, but eventually decided simply to return home.

“I just want to be where I feel normal,” he said. How many Jews are quietly asking themselves that same question today?

Most of us will remain where we are.

We will continue living, studying, working and raising families in societies where hostility toward Israel and toward Jews has become acceptable.

That is the one defining Jewish challenge of our generation.

And so I return to teshuvah.

I will still make my list this year.

I will still ask whom I have hurt.

Where I have spoken carelessly.

Where I need to become more patient, more generous, more compassionate.

Judaism demands nothing less. But I cannot help wondering whether the wider world might also make its own list.

Who has repeated accusations without checking whether they were true?

Who has accepted slogans in place of history? Who has remained silent while antisemitism once again became socially acceptable? Who has justified hatred because it was wrapped in the language of justice? Teshuvah cannot exist in only one direction.