Gevalt, Jews, DO NOT HIDE

Children Of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

This morning I saw a heartbreaking post in one of my private Jewish groups.

Screenshots aren’t allowed for good reason, but I’m going to reveal the content with no identifying details because the truth is, any one of thousands — maybe even millions — of American Jews could have written it.

This is what it said:

I just need a space to say: I’m tired. And lonely. And I feel like I’m in this weird state of “soft hiding”. All the time. I have collected my friends and loved ones over many years. They are people I adore and have shared so many memories with.

And they are spreading blood libels. I can’t share with them how I truly feel anymore. I want to move somewhere with a stronger, prouder, larger Jewish community so I don’t have to feel so alone any longer. But that’s not possible. Anyway. Just needed to vent to people who might understand.

From one angle, I related to this on more levels than I can count. I also spent decades in progressive circles, collecting friends and loved ones and very warm acquaintances with whom I shared genuine mutual goodwill. I was proud to call them friends and honored to have connected with them.

And I have definitely experienced some level of alteration with a very considerable number of them.

These alterations fall along a vast spectrum of various outcomes. Here are just some of them:

There are people I genuinely loved with whom I have parted ways cleanly and permanently.

There are countless writers, artists, musicians, activists and public figures whom I will never be able to appreciate the same way again, who are ruined for me.

The local anti-Trump groups that gave me so much comfort during his first term are also ruined for me. I’m no longer comforted in those spaces, to say the very least. I no longer want to march beside countless people who share my hatred of Trump since they also hate or believe they hate Zionists.

There are people whom I know, in my bone marrow, are not antisemites. In fact, you could call them Jewish-adjacent or even Judeophiles. They have spent their lives in close proximity to Jews, enjoyed decades’ worth of close friendships and romantic relationships with Jews, and drop Yiddish into every other sentence. They are people I never imagined would be all but silent in the face of so much Jew hatred, but they are. Oh, they say something like: “This is awful” when an elderly Holocaust survivor is, say, fucking set on fire and burned to death in broad daylight for no reason other than her demonstrating on behalf of our hostages, but that is the extent of their tepid response. On the other hand, they also haven’t jumped onto the Hamas-supporting bandwagon either, and I try to tell myself that counts for something.

There are people with whom I felt very close, with whom I now feel considerably less close. One wildly cherished friend and I who live at a long geographical distance from each other were both at AWP at the same time. Ordinarily I’d have moved heaven and earth to see her. But last year, I didn’t even try. I know we have very different feelings about Israel. A mutual Jewish friend reported that relations between the two of them had cooled considerably as a result. That was enough for me not to go looking for her. I didn’t know how reciprocal the desire to connect would be, and on some level, I didn’t want to know.

At that same AWP, by sheer chance, I ran into a different acquaintance whom I imagined would be newly cold toward me, but nothing could have been further from the truth. She is very progressive and she was overjoyed to see me. I was surprised and incredibly pleased.

The partner of my closest friend J. (with whom I go back more than 40 wonderful years) and I got into a heated argument soon after the war began. We stood in J’s home and shouted at each other in fury. In this one case, there was no real chance of estrangement where it mattered most. My kids reported to me afterward that it was the first time they had ever watched me engage in a fierce fight with a loved one without feeling a shred of fear that the friendship would end. My daughter said to me: “J. [my bff] was laughing at the two of you behind your back and I knew I didn’t have to be afraid because you and J. are never, ever, ever getting divorced.”

And yet the outcome was much, much better than that. J’s partner C. surprised me more than anyone else has during the two and half years since October 7. He realized he didn’t know enough about this very complex topic. And because he is a genuine scholar and a professional historian, he started to read. He subscribed to this newsletter and delved into my sources. He read article after article, book after book, listened to podcast after podcast. And to my pure astonishment, he became a passionate defender of Israel. I’m not exaggerating even slightly when I say this has been among the most cherished gifts of my life.

So I share the experience of that forlorn poster in that private Jewish group to the extent that I have also lost — or felt heartbroken in response to — a whole lot of people toward whom my feelings were formerly and unequivocally positive.

The thing that keeps me from being lonely? Even a little bit lonely?

Is that I’m not hiding.

Yes, as I detailed above, I’ve lost friends, and admired acquaintances, and public figures too. And I live in a town just as left-leaning as hers. It’s plastered with Palestinian flags and inverted red Hamas triangles and antizionist hatred. Walking into a bookstore or coffeehouse is like walking onto a minefield.

But I have been absolutely ruthless in my cardinal loyalties. I have nailed my flag to the mast so hard that I couldn’t lower it even if I wanted to. I have made the decision to stand for myself and my people and our truth at any cost, and anyone — anyone — absolutely anyone who can’t deal with that can go.

So — also as detailed above — some have gone. And some have stayed. And some of have stayed in spades. And I have made many, many, many more friends because I’m a lightning rod in this climate. Absolutely incredible luminaries like Dara Horn and Sara Hurwitz and Haviv Rettig Gur and Vanessa Hidary but also no end of regular Jews from all walks of life, from all over the world, and many new members of the Righteous Among The Nations.

Don’t hide, fam. Stand and be counted. Be openly and unapologetically Jewish in all your glory and let the chips fall where they will.

That way, the right ones will know where to find you.

Am Yisrael Chai.