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Children Of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

I was not expecting to post today but I’m so appalled by the response to our sister Sarah Hurwitz’s remarks at the annual General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America that I can’t remain a bystander.

Specifically, I’m appalled by the willful misinterpretation of those remarks by a slew of bad actors.

So here is what she actually said:

“Holocaust education is absolutely essential,” she said. “But I think it may be confusing some of our young people about antisemitism, because they learn about big, strong Nazis hurting weak, emaciated Jews, and they think, ‘Oh, antisemitism is like anti-Black racism, right? Powerful white people against powerless black people.’ So when on TikTok, all day long, they see powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it’s not surprising that they think, ‘Oh, I know the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel. You fight the big, powerful people hurting the weak people.’”

To me, the point she’s making is obvious: that many young would-be social justice activists are historically illiterate when it comes to Israel; their perception of the conflict is created entirely by social media, and increasingly social media is nothing but images and videos — many of them distorted or AI-generated — meant to portray the Israel-Hamas war as a genocide committed by the powerful and evil against weak innocent victims.

And she’s 100% right. Imagine a world where no one knew a thing about World War II. Where the sickening aggression, barbarism and sociopathy of Japan and Germany were scrubbed from the public record, and all they saw, day in and week out for months or even years on end, were countless photographs like these:

Now, you can argue that firebombing Dresden and dropping atomic bombs on Japan were unjustifiable — I’m not here to have that debate.

But what you can’t argue is that Japan and Germany were the weak, innocent, blameless victims of evil, awful America and Britain. The story is much more complicated than that.

PLEASE NOTE: I am not saying Gaza is Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan.

But what I am saying is that war is always unadulterated hell, and if you have absolutely no knowledge of context and all you see are horrific images of suffering children, you can easily be manipulated into sympathy for that side of a war and hatred for the other side.

That was her entire point, but of course, the internet now abounds with ridiculous distortions.

In an article about the response, JTA reports: “But beyond the General Assembly audience, the backlash was fast and fierce. Instagram and Reddit filled up with posts accusing her of saying, as one post put it, “that it was a mistake to teach Americans that genocide is bad.”

“Let’s be clear about what she’s actually saying: The problem isn’t what’s happening. It’s that young people can see it. The issue isn’t the carnage; it’s the loss of narrative control. She’s not disagreeing with the moral lesson that we should stand against the powerful harming the vulnerable. She’s upset that people are applying it universally. The lesson was supposed to stay contained, meant only for certain victims,” wrote Rabbi Sandra Lawson, amplified by IfNotNow.

“I feel like I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t address [Sarah’s] astonishing remark that Holocaust education in the United States has improperly taught a universal lesson against genocide,” wrote journalist Spencer Ackerman at Forever Wars.

I waded into several internet frays yesterday — an absolute rarity for me now — because I seriously couldn’t stomach the nonsense, especially when it was coming from other Jews.

Let me tell you, it’s hard to have a conversation with people as — yes — illiterate as these. They don’t know a single thing. Not one thing. All they have are buzzwords and unearned sanctimony.

This Chris Lansdown offers a perfect illustration of their m.o.

You ask a question, they ignore it and pivot to arguing against an imaginary response from me instead.

Of course, this doesn’t happen. The next pivot was to the predictable, “Do you support genocide?” Because that’s all they know how to say.

Seriously, I point out that maybe the side with “nothing” shouldn’t have launched a massive vicious attack on the civilians of the side that has “everything” and the next comment is “So you FULLY ENDORSE MURDERING ALL THE CHILDREN, WOMEN AND MEN IN PALESTINE.”

I won’t belabor the point with any more screenshots but I honestly encountered not a single intellectually honest or substantive response to any of my points.

At any rate. Here’s the main reason I’m writing today:

When an internet mob manufactures a reason to go after a proud Jewess because she stands with her people, then we need to mount a community-wide campaign of support to counter that.

Those who attended the book club event with Sarah heard how, in that group of just 100, three people took life-altering action in response to As A Jew: one made the decision to convert to Judaism, another was moved to undertake a Daf Yomi course, and one designed a whole therapeutic protocol for struggling Jews around the insights of that book.

As for myself, I don’t think I would have involved myself so deeply with the Jewish woman whose deathbed I recently described attending. Because of Sarah’s chaplain stories, I was moved to assist her with availing herself of medical aid in dying, and I also arranged and participated in a chevra kadisha ceremony after she died.

So I’m imploring everyone reading this to take the following action:

Please, go to Amazon or Goodreads or both and write a heartfelt 5-star review of As A Jew — or even just rate it 5 stars.

When internet mobs come for people, they aim to take their targets down on every level, including professionally. Let’s create a tsunami of love in those public forums and support her vital and essential work.

If you do this and send me a screenshot of your review at elissa_karen@msn.com, I will send you a personal hand-written thank-you letter and also, I will do anything I can to return the favor.

I will also be very deeply grateful.

Let me end with a touch of comic relief.

One of the people who tweeted against Sarah in this recent firestorm was the pathetic antizionist Peter Beinart.

But karma is a fury.

He is now the target of his own “scandal” — the poor thing had the audacity to talk to his own people at Tel Aviv University and now no amount of groveling can restore the favor of his jihadist overlords.

That didn’t stop him from trying, though:

Sarah and I were emailing back and forth after I reached out to see if she’s okay. In my last message to her, I sent a screenshot of Peter’s mea culpa, and wrote:

And remember, no matter what kind of week you’re having, at least you’ll never be this guy.

Which, really, is a pretty profound consolation.

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.