The huge rally for Israel in Washington, DC this past Tuesday, checked all the boxes.
Jews from all over the country, from all backgrounds, young and old, melded together in a massive show of unity. American flags waved alongside Israeli flags up and down the National Mall. There was blue and white as far as the eye could see.
Our most prominent political leaders, Republicans and Democrats, proclaimed they stand with Israel. Israel and the United States, now and forever. Antisemitism has no place here.
So, if the Jews of the United States were looking for a reaffirmation of their place in American society after the current flood of antisemitism, they found it.
I was there too, swelling with pride. After all, this wasn’t 1943. Jews won’t remain silent after the horrors of 10/7. The US government doesn’t refuse to hear from its Jewish citizens as it did back then.
All good. All good. Even the weather cooperated.
But there was one sentence that was delivered by one of the speakers, that haunts me and worries me.
Alana Zeitchik is cousin to six of the hostages being held by Hamas. She spoke lovingly, emotionally and emphatically at the rally. Here’s her line that makes me shiver. She said, “For too many in the West, the suffering of hostage families like mine, has become a footnote, collateral damage in the service of some perceived higher universal truths.”
A “footnote”, she said. A blip on the radar. Old news.
And indeed, it took almost 300,000 people, traveling by plane, train, bus and car to the nation’s capital, to keep the hostages, kidnapped by Hamas, as a key part of the narrative of 10/7 and its aftermath. At least for one day.
After the euphoria of the rally and the positive media coverage, the plight of the hostages reverted to what Alana Zeitchik warned against and what has now caught the attention of American Jewish leadership.
Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the ADL, says “we have a major, major, major generational problem.” He says the number of young Hamas supporters is “shockingly and terrifyingly high.”
According to a Harvard/Harris poll, 51 percent of Americans ages 18-24 believe Hamas was justified in attacking Israel and committing the horrors we’ve seen and read.
Greenblatt blames TikTok and believe a comprehensive technological solution is what is needed.
I’ll blame something far more fundamental.
We’ve surrendered our children’s education to radical ideologies that reduce the problems of society to a struggle between oppressed and oppressor, between overlord and underdog, between people without color, who are inherently racist, and people with color, who cannot be racist.
So, it is not surprising that these very same young people, are now ripping down posters of the Hamas hostages, are marching in pro-Hamas rallies, and are shouting death to the Jews and from the river to the sea, etc., etc.
Yes, it has turned into a grotesque, social media street theatre, with grinning, smug and hate filled, mostly young people as the stars. But it is clearly rooted in the lessons from their teachers.
To these young, distorted haters, the hostages are footnotes, worthy victims when you’re in a cosmic battle against oppression, ethnic cleansing and genocide.
In that struggle, terrorism is not terrorism, it is a response to injustice. The right of self-defense isn’t noble, it’s genocide and a perpetuation of colonial domination of an indigenous population.
We can call these young people misguided, misunderstood, even ignorant. But we cannot ignore the beliefs they now espouse and will likely carry with them into the future.
The ADL’s Greenblatt wants great tech minds to create a strategy to infiltrate Gen Z’s social media feeds and tilt them away from Hamas and toward Israel. Tilt them away from being Jew haters to at least being Jew neutrals.
Fine, but that’s all ex post facto. American youth have been suckled on Critical Race Theory. It is now in their hearts and in their minds. Their parents have obliviously gone along for the ride or have succumbed to a cowardly silence for fear of social shaming and private school banishment.
Those same young people, who are taught history with no context and morality that lacks clarity, who are unashamedly tearing down posters of innocent, kidnapped children, women and men, are populating the campuses of our elite universities. They will go on to elected office, corporate leadership and university professorships.
Those same young people, are blithely, cruelly, relegating Alana Zeitchik’s six cousins that are being held hostage by Hamas, to footnotes. Jews are okay when they’re footnotes.
This past Tuesday, what is so great about America was on full display in Washington, DC. Tens of thousands of citizens, peacefully, pridefully standing up for right vs. wrong. The politicians spoke. There was unity. There was beauty.
The boxes were checked. I was so proud.
And then, I was so scared.