About Last Night

Children Of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

Last night, I went to an event to support Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, who is my dream politician: a proud Jew, the son of two survivors, a tireless fighter for progressive change who has incurred the wrath of jihadist sympathizers by refusing to call Israel’s war with Hamas a genocide, refusing to vote for the discontinuation of arms to Israel, and refusing to renounce his Zionism to appease the haters.

The event was a celebration and discussion of his (delightfully Jew-y) new memoir and manifesto, It Takes Chuzpah.

Entering the event meant walking a gauntlet of protestors outside the theater, who were equipped with bullhorns, hateful pamphlets and a self-righteous clamor you could hear from blocks away. I never go anywhere without mace anymore and I had the canister in my hand and my finger on the trigger as my friend and I crossed their barricades.

The event was an hour long and it was interrupted every five minutes for the entire duration by individual protestors standing up, unfurling signs, screaming over the senator, blowing police whistles and otherwise doing their best to disrupt the conversation between Wyden and our lovely moderator, Rukaiyah Adams. Each one was shouted down and booed by the packed theater. It was heartening to know that so many Zionist progressives could fill a space of several hundred seats in Portland, Oregon. It was vexing to endure the hecklers but still very uplifting to physically be in such a room.

The protestors were the same individuals who would have screamed for a ceasefire at this time last year. Now that we are in the midst of a ceasefire, they’re screaming that Senator Wyden is a war criminal. There is no appeasing Jew-haters. We should never try.

But more than anything, I was struck by this surreal truth:

We are in the midst of a very fast-moving fascist coup perpetrated by a mad king and megalomaniacal billionaire and we have to hope our military will refuse to obey unlawful orders because no rule of law or justice system will prevail here.

And this — this! — is what they’re screaming about, even in the midst of their long-sought ceasefire.

Trump just unilaterally cut off Congressionally-approved aid to disease-ravaged children around the globe. In a New York Times article headlined Health Programs Shutter Around The World After Trump Pauses Foreign Aid, researchers and program managers testified to the sweeping and lethal damage done by these draconian measures.

Many of those interviewed broke down in tears as they described the rapid destruction of decades of work…

“You could open the funding floodgates again tomorrow and you will still have children dying months from now because of this pause,” [one] scientist said.

So it’s especially striking to hear protestors relentlessly banging the drum of Israel, chanting “How many kids did you kill today?” when, again, there is currently a ceasefire and they’re attacking not the deranged clown in the White House signing the death warrants of children all over the world but the senator fighting tooth and nail for sanity and decency to prevail.

Which brings me to what I posted on my own Facebook page this morning:

One really has to wonder what MAGAts are telling themselves right now. "Okay, maybe all the hostages in Gaza aren't home and the war between Russia and Ukraine is still raging, and the price of gas and groceries are only spiking with no end in sight, but at least he freed a bunch of sociopathic criminals, drove up the cost of prescription drugs, crippled our public health agencies, gutted aviation safety to the tune of 3 plane crashes in one week, started a trade war with our closest allies that will cost Americans dearly, and is illegally letting a psycho plunder the US Treasury."

And for the Jews who support him — to my abject humiliation — I also have to wonder: where is the line? When will they understand what they’re underwriting? On the slim chance that’s you, I want you to know it’s not too late to come away from that hateful camp and join the Israel lovers on the other side.

Being Jewish should mean something morally and spiritually elevated. Israel is supposed to be a light unto the nations. We aren’t a sports team, where the point is to win at any cost.

And I am absolutely convinced we don’t have to choose between Jewish survival and Jewish decency. Senator Ron Wyden is walking proof of that. We need to carve out a place on the left, not leave the left. We need to take up space and insist on our right to stand there.

Over the weekend, in response to an exciting invitation I hope to say more about soon, I began to dream of co-leading a local group of progressive Zionists here in Oregon. Where we could do things like fight the teacher’s union’s efforts to ram jihadist propaganda into our education system and curriculum. And support Senator Wyden. And give the Jews who feel alienated by the left and yet repelled by Trump a true, in-person community.

I know, as Senator Wyden would surely tell me, that would take some chutzpah. But if we don’t do it, who will?

Now more than ever, if we allow Trump’s GOP to be the sole home of Zionism, it will be a disaster of more-than-epic proportions.

It will, in my opinion, damage Zionism’s shining name beyond repair. It will drive a wedge between Israel and the overwhelming majority of U.S. Jews. It will cost Israel the life-sustaining privilege of being a bi-partisan priority in Congress. And it will cost us our children’s and grandchildren’s love for the Jewish nation.

To this end, please — if you would — take a second to respond to this poll.

Thank you so much in advance for helping me understand how best to serve this community in these shifting and frightening times.

I’ll be back with you on Wednesday. So much love, light and strength to you all.

Am Yisrael Chai.