It’s been nearly eight weeks since the October 7 massacre, and, somehow, things have only gotten worse.
US Jews have removed mezuzas from their doorposts and kippas from their heads. We are scared to walk through campus or be seen entering Hillel. I am heartbroken and I am angry, and I’m sick of tiptoeing around the unequivocal love, support, and empathy I have for my people and my home.
So, to my peers who tell me that it’s impressive when I say proudly in public that I am pro-Israel: What choice do I have but to be pro-Israel?
No other place to go
Israel is the only place where I am not a minority. It is home to almost half of the world’s Jewish population.
Israel is the only place we have ever been able to go when everybody else forced us out. There is nowhere else that embraces us, that allows us to live unapologetically as Jews.
What else would I be in public?
I don’t get to choose when to be Jewish. Being Jewish isn’t all bar-mitzvah parties and Wednesday night challah bakes. To be Jewish is also to be proud of our identity even when the world turns its back on us, and when people call us cruel names as we defend ourselves from the terrorists who have declared that they will continue to attack us until we are eradicated.
To those who call for a ceasefire: Many of you acknowledge that what Hamas did is evil but proclaim that you don’t support the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Your stance is not heroic. You say Israel should provide them with electricity, water, and more warnings.
But none of that matters because antisemitism is the world’s longest hatred, and Jews are the eternal scapegoat. You’ll always find something for which to blame us.
Hamas leaders are worth billions of dollars and live luxurious lifestyles in Qatar while their people in the Gaza Strip suffer in poverty.
Why don’t they help?
None of us want innocent people to die, but the world is a safer place for all without terrorism.
Have you already forgotten the global outpouring of empathy for the 3,000 lives lost during the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the United States’ resolute response and commitment to defending its citizens from future harm?
Israel cannot and will not stop defending itself until it defeats Hamas, who started this war when they decapitated our children, raped our women, and took some 250 hostages – all while broadcasting it for the world to see and celebrate.
You would be lying if you said you wouldn’t do anything in your power to bring your kidnapped family and friends back home.
To my friends who stand up for Palestine while simultaneously advocating for basic freedoms and social movements, Black Lives Matter, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, democracy, and equality for all ethnic and racial minorities: Don’t be foolish. Hamas will come for you too, because they don’t believe in any of those things.
I’ll never forget how after years of us supporting your fight, you didn’t stand up for us once.
To the university professors and administrators who excuse their inaction in support of free speech, and to those who say that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism: Why have antisemitic incidents risen by 400% since the October 7 attack? Was it free speech or anti-Zionism when UCLA students pummeled a Netanyahu piñata while yelling “Beat that f***ing Jew!?”
Was it freedom of expression when a Jewish man was killed on the street corner of Los Angeles?
Why are students being spat on, assaulted, and threatened? Why are Israeli flags being burned and posters of hostages being torn down? You conflate our First Amendment rights with dangerous antisemitic tropes and rhetoric.
You use your positions of power to fuel hate.
To the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices on college campuses: You exclude us from your cause. You don’t consider us a minority worthy of your quest for justice although we make up just 0.2% of the world’s population.
TO THE influential donors who have written letters to their alma maters, condemning their silence and equating it to antisemitism, and to the CEOs who have rescinded job offers from students who justify Hamas’s evil tactics: Thank you.
Your moral clarity makes those of us on college campuses and in work spaces feel a little bit safer. We need more people like you, who use their positions of power to take a firm stance against terrorism.
To those who throw out words like apartheid and occupation: You rewrite our history as if we aren’t indigenous to the Land of Israel. You call us white colonizers. But we are not “white.” Your double standard speaks louder than your ignorance.
And to my Jewish friends who criticize Israel during her darkest days: Shame on you. You don’t know how bad it hurts.
You scream genocide as if your own grandparents weren’t murdered in the Holocaust, as if Hamas doesn’t have the same mission to wipe all Jews from the planet. As if this couldn’t be the beginning of the next Holocaust.
And to the Jewish and non-Jewish people who mourn the atrocities Hamas has committed, who wave their Israeli flags proudly, who ask each other how they’re doing, who demand the hostages are brought home, who fight for moral clarity on college campuses: We’re all that each other has.
Let’s win this fight together.
The writer is a senior at UCLA.