7 Things Jews Should Stop Saying
These are the slogans, assumptions, and talking points that no longer serve Jews in a post-October 7th world — and what should replace them.
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This is a guest essay by Vanessa Berg, who writes about Judaism and Israel.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
October 7th and its aftermath did not merely shatter illusions about security. It shattered illusions about language.
Vocabularies that once felt sophisticated, morally elevated, or strategically useful now sound exhausted.
Some phrases obscure reality more than they illuminate it. Others trap Jews inside defensive postures that no longer fit the moment. Still others unconsciously reduce Jewish civilization to reaction, trauma, and explanation rather than purpose, confidence, and continuity.
The challenge after October 7th is not simply to defend Jews better. It is to think more clearly, speak more honestly, and recover a language rooted in Jewish dignity instead of Jewish anxiety.
Here are seven things Jews should stop saying — and what we should start saying instead.
1) ‘Jews are the canary in the coal mine.’
For decades, Jews have used this phrase to explain antisemitism to the broader world. The idea is simple: Hatred that begins with Jews never ends with Jews. Jews are merely the first warning sign of a society in moral decline.
Historically, this is often true. Societies that normalized antisemitism frequently descended into wider barbarism. But after October 7th, the phrase increasingly sounds less like wisdom and more like a plea for relevance.
The problem is subtle but important. The phrase frames Jewish suffering primarily as a warning to others rather than as a catastrophe worthy of concern in its own right. It unintentionally trains Jews to justify antisemitism by explaining why non-Jews should care about it too.
But Jews do not need to earn the right to safety by proving our persecution will eventually spread elsewhere.
October 7th reminded many Jews of something uncomfortable: Some people will watch Jews suffer in real time and still not care. Some will excuse it. Some will celebrate it. Some will intellectualize it into abstraction. The canary metaphor assumes a level of universal moral reciprocity that increasingly does not exist.
Jews should stop speaking as though Jewish suffering is primarily valuable because it predicts danger for others. Instead, Jews should say something simpler and stronger: Jewish life matters because Jewish life matters.
This is not as metaphor. It’s not a warning system, and it’s not a democratic weather vane. Jewish life matters because Jewish life matters — as a civilization, as a people, as a family.
2) ‘Anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism.’
This phrase has become one of the great traps of modern Jewish discourse.
Many Jews adopted it out of intellectual fairness. They wanted to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israeli policy from hatred of Jews. That distinction can exist in theory. Governments are not above criticism, including Israel’s.
But October 7th exposed how the phrase is now functioning in practice.
When mobs chant for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state days after Jews are massacred, that is not a nuanced policy disagreement. When Jewish students are harassed under the banner of “decolonization,” when synagogues are targeted over Israeli military actions, when Jewish identity itself becomes suspect because Israel exists — the distinction collapses in the real world.
Much of what calls itself “anti-Zionism” today does not merely oppose particular Israeli policies. It opposes Jewish sovereignty itself. It demands from Jews what no other people are asked to surrender: the right to collective self-determination.
And increasingly, the term “Zionist” is simply being used as a socially acceptable substitute for “Jew.”
Jews should stop reflexively repeating formulations designed to reassure people who are not acting in good faith anyway. Instead, Jews should say: Criticism of Israeli policy is legitimate, as long as you equally analyze and assess every other foreign government’s policy.
3) ‘Never Again’
For generations, “Never Again” functioned as the moral centerpiece of post-Holocaust Jewish consciousness. But October 7th forced many Jews to confront a painful reality: “Never Again” became more slogan than strategy.
The massacre did not happen because Jews forgot history. Jews remember history obsessively. It happened because memory alone is not protection. Museums are not protection. Ceremonies are not protection. Sympathy is not protection.
Strength is protection.
“Never Again” sometimes created the illusion that awareness itself could prevent evil. But history does not automatically progress upward. Civilization is not self-sustaining. Human beings do not permanently evolve beyond barbarism.
October 7th was a reminder that Jews live in history, not beyond it.
The lesson of Jewish history was never supposed to be passive remembrance. It was supposed to be active responsibility.
Instead of merely saying “Never Again,” Jews should say: Never Defenseless Again. That shift matters. One is commemorative. The other is civilizational.
4) ‘The world just doesn’t understand us.’
This phrase contains truth, but it also contains surrender.
For years, many Jews comforted themselves with the belief that hostility toward Israel or Jews stemmed mainly from misunderstanding, misinformation, or lack of education. The assumption was that if people simply learned more, empathy would naturally follow.
October 7th weakened that assumption profoundly.
People watched videos of murdered civilians, kidnapped children, raped women, burned families — and many still rationalized it within days. Some celebrated immediately. Others contextualized instantly. Some could not even bring themselves to condemn it without qualification.
This was not merely a failure of information. It was a clash of moral frameworks.
Not everyone shares the same assumptions about democracy, pluralism, nationalism, minority rights, or civilization itself. Some people genuinely see Jewish power — any Jewish power — as illegitimate by definition.
Jews should stop assuming that hostility always emerges from ignorance waiting to be corrected. Sometimes people understand perfectly well and still oppose us. That realization is painful, but it is clarifying. It forces Jews to stop grounding survival in universal approval.
Instead, Jews should say: We will explain ourselves clearly, but we will not outsource our legitimacy to public opinion.
5) ‘Diaspora and Israel are separate conversations.’
October 7th shattered this illusion almost overnight.
Within days, Jews around the world discovered that we would be treated as extensions of Israel whether we wanted to be or not. Synagogues required increased security. Jewish students faced harassment. Jewish businesses were vandalized. Jews with no Israeli citizenship suddenly found themselves interrogated about Israeli military decisions.
The broader world does not draw the neat distinctions many Jews spent years insisting upon.
That does not mean diaspora Jews are responsible for every Israeli policy. We certainly are not. Nor does it mean all Jews must think identically about Israel. Healthy disagreement is part of Jewish tradition, but October 7th demonstrated that Jewish fate remains interconnected whether Jews acknowledge it or not.
For decades, many diaspora Jews tried to reduce Israel to one optional component of Jewish identity among many. But when crisis came, the emotional and historical bonds resurfaced instantly. Jews across the world felt personally wounded because, at some level, we understood instinctively that Israeli Jews are not abstractions. We are family.
Instead of pretending the conversations are separate, Jews should say something more mature: Jewish communities are distinct, but Jewish destiny is interconnected.
6) ‘We just need better PR.’
Few phrases reveal more confusion after October 7th than this one.
The idea that Israel or the Jewish world mainly suffers from a marketing problem misunderstands the scale of the issue. Public relations matters. Communication matters. Storytelling matters. But many Jews overestimate how much hatred stems from poor messaging rather than ideological hostility.
No communications strategy can persuade people who fundamentally believe Jewish sovereignty itself is immoral. No branding campaign can permanently solve civilizational conflicts.
The obsession with “better PR” also subtly encourages Jews to become emotionally dependent on applause, validation, and image management. It turns survival into a popularity contest.
Of course Jews should communicate effectively. Of course lies should be challenged. But Jews cannot build our entire strategic worldview around being liked. History is filled with deeply unpopular minorities who were nevertheless right.
Instead of saying “we need better PR,” Jews should say: We need greater clarity, confidence, and competence — clarity about who we are, confidence in why we exist, competence in defending Jewish civilization politically, culturally, spiritually, and physically.
7) ‘Judaism is just universal ethics.’
One of the quiet crises revealed after October 7th was how many Jews were left spiritually disoriented when universal ideals failed to protect particular Jewish lives.
For generations, many Jews increasingly described Judaism primarily as a vehicle for generalized social ethics: repairing the world, pursuing justice, helping humanity. These are real Jewish values. But detached from Jewish peoplehood, covenant, memory, and continuity, Judaism risks dissolving into generic humanitarianism with Hebrew vocabulary.
October 7th reminded many Jews that Judaism is not merely a set of ethical abstractions. It is also a civilization with a history, a tribe with obligations, a people with enemies, and a collective story worth preserving.
Universalism without particularism becomes fragile. A Judaism that cannot justify Jewish survival specifically will eventually struggle to survive at all.
The deepest Jewish traditions never saw a contradiction between caring for humanity and preserving Jewish distinctiveness. The Jews were not asked to disappear into the world. They were asked to bring something unique into it.
Instead of saying Judaism is “just universal ethics,” Jews should say: Judaism carries universal responsibilities through a particular people. That balance — neither tribal isolation nor self-erasure — may become one of the defining Jewish tasks of the post-October 7th era.
October 7th did not only force Jews to rethink security, geopolitics, and communal institutions. It forced a reckoning with language itself.
Some phrases belonged to an era when Jews believed integration would steadily deepen, antisemitism would steadily decline, and history itself was gradually bending toward moral consensus.
That era is over. The task now is not cynicism. It is maturity. It is not abandoning hope, but grounding hope in reality instead of illusion. It is not retreating from the world, but re-entering it with clearer eyes, stronger identities, and greater civilizational confidence.
The Jewish People survive not only through faith, spirituality, community, and institutions. We survive through the stories we tell ourselves.
Another phrase for Diaspora Jews to lose is "Two-State Solution". Israelis did not need October 7 to tell them that the creation of a Palestinian state would not be the solution to anything. They are the ones that would have to live with the consequences.
And yet we continue to hear the same sermon, preached by the same people, who claim to speak for most North American Jews. As long as they can cling to the old familiar phrase, they can avoid asking their audience the real question: Would you favour a sovereign Palestinian state if you knew it would be run by the Palestinian Authority (that pays a bounty for dead Israelis) or by Hamas or other Iran-sponsored radical terrorist organizations?
Vanessa, I think this is a wonderful article, and honestly I agreed with almost every point you made. The shift from “Never Again” to “Never Defenseless Again” was especially powerful. That is an incredibly strong observation because it moves Jewish thinking from memory alone to preparedness and responsibility.
And interestingly, I think that point itself actually shows why messaging still matters. Imagine if Jews everywhere began consistently repeating “Never Defenseless Again” the way other movements repeat their slogans. It is emotionally clear, psychologically strong, historically rooted, and immediately understandable.
The problem is not that messaging is unimportant. The problem is that messaging alone cannot solve civilizational hostility. But strategic messaging absolutely still matters, and frankly, Jews have often been extremely poor at coordinated narrative discipline compared to movements that understand slogans, repetition, emotional framing, and activism far better than we do.
That’s part of the frustration many Jews now feel: there is no unified strategic structure that takes powerful ideas like this and institutionalizes them broadly across organizations, campuses, demonstrations, media, and public discourse.
Still, overall, I thought the article was excellent, honest, mature, and extremely thought-provoking.