The trauma of October 7 is still reverberating in the Israeli and the Diaspora’s collective nervous systems.
It has awoken many Jews to the unbreakable bond between Israel, Judaism, and the Jewish people. It has confirmed the belief that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. Again, Israel under threat immediately affected Jewish safety worldwide.
But this time, the massacre triggered the Holocaust trauma. After decades of Jewish disunity within Israel and with the Diaspora, a new Jewish collective emerged. Every Jew now knows from the inside and outside the intrinsic connection between Jews, Judaism, Israel, and Zionism.
As Hamas’s barbaric violence shocked the Jewish world, the immediate connection between Jews, Judaism, and Israel came from within. Some young Jews, lost in the West’s internal civilizational convulsions, have not gotten the message.
The antisemitism abroad following Hamas's October 7 massacre
The sheer magnitude of the numbers calling for gassing the Jews stunned the Jews and the West, which had convinced themselves they were fighting antisemitism. This was the inescapable call for Western Jews who saw themselves as Westerners first, then Jews. Jews may deny their connection to Judaism or Israel, but the world will never allow it.
This connection is the precious silver lining to October’s horror. A new strength has emerged from having the collective body and soul united.
The Jewish people in Israel, the physical manifestation of the Holy Land and Covenant, the return to Zion, are the physical expression of Zionism.
To help ourselves (and the world) move out of the dark forces that took over, we need our full power and to trust our Jewish DNA that we will survive, no matter what.
We must insist that, by definition, anti-Zionism is antisemitism. Only we can define who and what we are: a historical people, a religion, a culture, and a land. This is why we remained strangers in the hosting countries – the wandering Jew around the globe. We had a land, which we lost and to which we knew we belonged and would return, and we did return.
Jews, the Abrahamic religions, and other nations knew that Zionism was the fulfillment of this eternal covenant. Anti-Zionism is antisemitic because it seeks to cancel the Jewish covenant and history. Because Israel recognized the right of Arabs to be part of that land, it has not colonized anyone. But Islamic dogmas and Western antisemitism made Palestinians refuse to share the land, leading to their misery. Jew-hatred also overlapped with hatred of the West.
ACCUSING ISRAEL of being an apartheid state, a colonizer, or an oppressor is just another creative antisemitic expression. After the Holocaust, it was impolite for people to admit they hate the Jews. The “Palestinian cause” became the new, justifiable code of Jewish hatred, regardless of how much it hurt the Palestinians. They annulled or distorted Jewish history and denied Arab-Palestinian ongoing violence.
We have much to do to repair this situation. We must heal our collective trauma.
We must be fierce and unapologetic when using defensive force. We must deeply ground our newly found unity in our language and actions, re-educating ourselves to stop the polarization, and let go of hatred and demonization between the different sides. To secure our unity, we must understand and value how each group is a part of the collective Jewish, Zionist soul.
While the traumatic massacre and the worldwide unfair reaction to it are seared in our collective consciousness, we must make sure to release our traumatic emotions to free ourselves from trauma’s yoke.
In my daily contact with Israeli students and families, I notice that, while the traumatic shock is still significant, the collective psyche is starting to get a grasp of the situation. The miracle of the spontaneous return to national unity, the return of many hostages, and the IDF’s military advances in Gaza are all starting to reduce the traumatic activation that is essential for the recovery of our collective nervous system.
Yes, there is a tremendous collective sadness floating almost physically over Israel. As one client who recently visited Israel said, “There is silence in Israel. There is not the regular noise in the streets.” The grief is a collective grief, emanating from this recovered sense of peoplehood, intrinsically united. When one part is hurt, we are all hurt.
American Jews still express their shock at the spread of antisemitism among American academic, political, and media elites. Nothing denounces more clearly that anti-Zionism is antisemitism than the rush of hostility that immediately sprang up in the anti-Israel camp on October 7 and 8, before any Israeli response. Their instant joy at Jewish suffering, and the calls for more violence (intifada, genocide) worldwide are living proof of it.
America and its Jews woke up to the fact that many of these elites believe that being anti-Zionist and supporting calls for the death of all Jews is not antisemitic. The Jews realized that many, whom we regarded as allies, supported Hamas’s massacre. They were not our allies – another confirmation that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.
WHAT IS hopeful is that this fight does not belong only to American and European Jews but to all Westerners interested in traditional Western values: compassion, freedom, equality, and tolerance.
Jewish students were helplessly subjected to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement’s malevolence for years. Congress hearings with university heads, a stark example of lack of moral clarity and shameless antisemitism among the educational elites, were the coup de grace that outraged the Jewish community. Consequently, it is now determined to fight antisemitism and for Israel, one more time showing the indestructible tie between Judaism, the Jewish people, and Zionism.
JEWS KNOW they are in for a long ride. Thus we must strengthen our physical, emotional, and moral stamina. Hamas’s jihadi violence and the outrageous support it received opened our eyes. We must have moral clarity about right or wrong, just or unjust. Without any doubt or hesitation, we must declare our rightful claim to our land and forgo any need to belong to progressive politics at the cost of our Jewishness or support of Israel.
This Jewish catastrophe has also opened the world’s eyes, forcing it to confront the dangers facing it. Jews as the canary in the coal mine is followed by an immediate danger for all. The West has been astounded by the moral damage their universities have unleashed upon their students. It finally recognizes that virulent antisemitism makes Jewish students feel physically unsafe.
More devastating is the moral turpitude of the country’s elite faculty and students. They find raping women, killing babies, decapitating, and burning people alive justifiable. Congress is trying to address this repulsive turpitude. It is a complex fight that involves the West, not just the Jews.
Arab countries realize how this massacre and the ensuing war would threaten their own security if Israel did not destroy Hamas. They need a strong Israel and are trying to defuse the tension, sending discreet signals for connection with Israel, despite fearing the Arab street.
The massacre has also brought into focus the role of misguided or ideological media promoting misinformation and fueling violence – a theme to also address.
There are many pieces to the puzzle of bringing antisemitism and anti-Zionism to tolerable levels. We must all address each piece carefully and methodically. We have friends and allies to help. Let’s take a deep breath and dive in to help wherever we can! ■
The writer, a Marriage, Family, and Child Therapist (MFCT), is founder/president of the International Trauma-Healing Institutes (ITI US, ITI Israel); co-founder of Jerusalem’s Herzog Hospital’s Trauma Center; and senior faculty in Somatic Experiencing. Her Ross Model includes stress-release tools for the collective level, and she authored the book series Beyond the Trauma Vortex into the Healing Vortex.