Jewish in America, Lately
“What starts with us doesn’t end with us.”
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This is a guest essay written by David Bogart, published in the Judean People’s Front as well.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
I grew up as a typical millennial byproduct of the 1990s in a family of mixed religious backgrounds.
My father is an Ashkenazi Jew, and my mother is an Irish Catholic. Despite this mixed background, I have always identified as both ethnically and spiritually Jewish.
I am married to a converted Jewish woman, and we are active in a Reform synagogue. We are continuing to navigate the ever-changing waters of married life and raising our 2-year-old son in what is becoming an increasingly upsetting world. And I know that I am not alone in this feeling because the Pew Research Center polling data I have seen backs me up in this regard.1
The area where I grew up has more Jews than average, at about 10 percent of the city population compared to the U.S. domestic total which sits at about 2.5 percent. In my youth, I experienced very little antisemitism. I can think of maybe one, possibly two, outright incidents of antisemitic epithets thrown my way. Of course, as time went on, additional incidents did happen, but I would still characterize them as very infrequent. When they did occur, I made sure to forcefully assert myself.
When I think back to attending Hebrew school, I recall tales of Nazism (from firsthand experience) as told by my teachers to be … something of a relic. These firsthand stories were impactful for me to hear, but were mentally placed on the shelf of history. For me, it was an abstraction. This was something that we discussed in a historical context; I could not fathom such events being relevant to my present-day lived experience.
I recall my teacher discussing how, as a boy, he was smuggled out of Poland on a cargo ship in a crate — and he never saw his immediate family again. I recall an Israeli teacher of mine shouting at all of us, “Sheket bevakasha!” which is Hebrew basically for: “Shut up and listen!”
My teacher was distraught about her family back in Israel. At the time, Israel was undergoing the Second Intifada, which (among many other things) included waves of Palestinian suicide bombings in nightclubs, buses, restaurants, and other public places. It was a very deadly time; more than 1,000 Israelis (mostly civilians) died in the early 2000s.
I recall a photo of a Palestinian man who held his hands steeped in blood out of a building window to a cheering crowd. Even then, the outright unadulterated joy that I could see on the man’s face with bloody hands, smiling ear to ear, was chilling. There was a literal lynch mob that tore two Israeli soldiers limb from limb because they had taken the wrong turn traversing through Ramallah in the West Bank.
For context, 20 percent of Israel’s population is Arab/Muslim — but if two Jews go through Ramallah, they end up getting lynched.
Still, despite these early experiences, everything “antisemitism” was so far away from me personally. When it came to Nazis, it was emotional but mostly academic. When it came to Israel and/or Islamism and Jihad, I had no family in Israel that I knew of. (Turns out I do, of course, as DNA testing later became more widespread.) I do have cousins who fled to Israel sometime after leaving one of Joseph Stalin’s gulags after he died in 1953. They then went on to live in Ukraine, until antisemitism there became too extreme; at which time they emigrated to Israel.
I know that my father’s family fled the Belarus area roughly five years prior to the Russian Revolution which took place in 1917. Family folklore would have it that Cossacks on horseback were murdering Jews from village to village, and my great-grandfather who was a wheat farmer had thought it important enough to trade for a gun which they stationed near the front of their farm. When the men on horseback came for them, my great-grandfather killed them, and our family fled to North America where they entered through Canada and made their way to northeastern Ohio, finally settling.
It seems that nearly every Jew I know has a similar family story of a perilous journey made to the promised land — whether that be Israel, the United States, or any other Western country where they found some semblance of momentary peace. For nearly the last 80 years, we have lived in this Pax Americana dreamworld where all of us thought that we had evolved beyond (at least mostly beyond) petty tribal grievances and hostilities about religion or race.
It turns out we are not the enlightened beings we thought we were. And for Jews specifically, perhaps we are waking up to the reality that the last 80 years were merely an exception, not the rule. And there may not be any excuse for such ignorance and naivety, given we collectively have 2,000 years of history to look back on and learn from.
I do not say all of this to have an internet pity party. In fact, f*ck pity; I do not want it. The point of this is to emphasize that a wake-up call is needed. The day that October 7th happened, a day in which more than 350 people were slaughtered at a music festival and hundreds more murdered in utterly gruesome fashion across southern Israel, I was at a music festival with my wife in Texas. What are the odds? I later thought that could have been us. Why couldn’t it have been?
Ultimately, it is a simple difference in geography. We are all Jews. If our geography was different, there is no reason that could not have been us. Our son could have been an orphan. And for what, to satisfy some Jihadists’ bloodlust? I do not believe I speak for myself when I say that October 7th forever changed us as a people.
I can count on one hand how many people reached out to check in and see how I was doing. I don’t hold any ill will or grudges about that. I cannot reasonably expect non-Jewish friends or even family of mine to understand this feeling, or perhaps to begin to know what to say if, in fact, they wanted to say something. If you are reading this and you have felt “otherism” in a very real way, you begin to understand this feeling I have a hard time articulating. But I do not fault anyone for not reaching out or knowing what to say during this time. People have their own lives and problems; I understand that.
But for us Jews, our world has been upside-down. How am I doing, a few did ask. I was numb; I could not even be angry. Just numb and in disbelief.
We are only maybe 16 million people in a world of 8 billion. That represents 0.2 percent of the global population. When terrorists kill 1,200 people and kidnap 250 more, that has an immense impact on our collective psyche. For scale, the October 7th massacre represents 15 times the scale of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. when you compare the populations of both countries. If this is how I felt, I cannot even begin to imagine what the victims’ families were feeling.
There are images I saw on that day that I will unfortunately never forget, and I can only hope my children never have to see. But I also cannot bury my head in the sand and act like they do not exist. Every one of those victims deserves to have their stories told. I do not have the privilege of apathy or ignorance; I have skin in this game and what you will soon realize is that we all ultimately have skin in this game.
I cannot unsee the exuberance, the ecstasy of these so-called “uninvolved Gazan civilians” cheering at the sight of a dead girl’s corpse being paraded around their town as they spit on her and tore at her hair. I will never forget the charred bodies that had fused together as they clung to each other with their mouths open in pain. I will never forget the burnt bodies of women with their skirts lifted up and their legs spread apart. I will never forget a normal Gazan civilian chopping off a Thai farm worker’s head with a garden hoe as he screamed, “Allah Akbar!”
But mostly, I will never forget the lack of empathy: the global and local silence. I will not forget the gaslighting that people across many platforms want to convince us all that we had it … coming.
What’s worse, so many loved this day and took joy in it. Not even 24 hours had passed until the alarmingly ready and able mobs started marching globally for a “ceasefire” before a single IDF soldier had entered Gaza. The fires were still burning in southern Israel. People’s loved ones still did not know if their family members were dead, or on the run with a phone out of battery. How did they know, how were they so ready with these massive banners and collective organization?
And what did I do? I clung to the news cycle like a nutcase. I went to work, all the while thinking: “What the f*ck am I even doing here?” How trivial is my life in comparison to what is going on in the world, happening to my people? Why am I not going out and enlisting to fight?
I did not go out and fight. I did not do anything besides feel terrible. And you know what, my own personal pity party has come to an end. I do not intend to be silent; I do not intend to go quietly if things take a turn for our people once again.
Why am I ultimately sharing these stories? This is a call to action for me — and for you. And it does not just involve Jews (despite how personal I have made this). While Jews appear to be on the verge of existential threat yet again, you should know that what starts with us will not end with us. There is a Middle Eastern proverb that translates to: “After Saturday comes Sunday.” I will let you look into that proverb and analyze its meaning, but it essentially means that, after the Muslims are done with the Jews, they will come for the other non-believing infidels.
(Editor’s note: All you have to do is look at what Muslims have been doing to Christians in Africa to understand the very real-world implications here.)
Don’t let your eyes deceive you. What you have seen in our city streets and the ugliness of these “protests” represents a threat to civil society. Does that sound incendiary and sensational? Well, you be the judge.
Plainly, we have not seen this sort of thing dating back to the 1968 riots. Many successful national revolutions started as student-led protests. Most notably, look to the 1978 Iranian Revolution which now represents the regime that funds and coordinates most global terrorism; including the barbarians that committed the October 7th atrocities.
And don’t look away as the mask slips and the protestors chant: “Death to America!” Don’t look away when you cannot find a single solitary American flag among the sea of “pro-Palestinian” protestors. These are angry, disillusioned blood-thirsty cultists who have no future to look forward to but will do anything to ensure yours is ruined.
One cannot begin addressing a problem if it is not acknowledged. We have a very serious radicalization problem in this country and at the root of it is academia. When the U.S. government publicizes that Qatar and China are among the top-five in foreign donations among U.S. universities, that should more than raise eyebrows.2 This needs to be addressed and we must hold our politicians accountable.
Protestors on student visas who openly support terrorists and intimidate, assault, or threaten others should have their visas revoked full-stop. When the U.S. Department of Homeland Security self-discloses that upwards of 400 ISIS-affiliated migrants have crossed our border, that should raise alarm bells.3 Again, we must hold our politicians accountable and put partisan bullsh*t aside to address security concerns at the border.
If you are Jewish and reading this, you have a responsibility to your community to keep it safe. Take seriously your Second Amendment right to bear arms. You have a responsibility to your family to be physically fit and able to protect them from harm, along with your community. Counterprotest and do not go alone; do not be silent. Teach your children not to be silent in the face of antisemitism. The moment you go silent and remain a soft target, the further you embolden these nutcases.
If you are not Jewish and reading this, I thank you for coming this far. I realize this is heavy, so I do appreciate you sticking with me.
And I want to emphasize that it is not fear-mongering to say: “What starts with us doesn’t end with us.” There is a larger geopolitical chess game between East versus West, civilization versus barbarism. It is vital to be on the right side of history, or else you are setting up yourself and your future children to live in a society that is gripped by extremist ideology.
Unlike what appears to have already erupted in many European countries, there is still some hope yet for the United States of America — and, hopefully, the rest of the West.
“Satisfaction with democracy has declined in recent years in high-income nations.” Pew Research Center.
“(GENERAL-24-22) Updated Foreign Gift and Contract Data Reported by Institutions (February 2024).” Federal Student Aid: An Office of the U.S. Department of Education.
“DHS identifies over 400 migrants brought to the U.S. by an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network.” NBC News.
Every Jewish household should have at least one firearm in their home for each adult, and they should go to the range and become familiar and comfortable with it. We are lucky in the United States to have the 2nd Amendment, in addition to the 1st Amendment, which allows us to practice our faith as Jews and live our lives as Jews, and to arm ourselves for self protection and protection of others.
Shooting is relaxing, meditative, even peaceful. It will give you confidence and allow you to sleep comfortably at night. Turning weapons into plowshares is aspirational, but Israel should never put down its weapons, nor should Jews outside of Israel. To do so is folly.
thank you for writing this. I am sure that many other, like me, can relate. I experienced a lot antisemitism as a youngster growing up in a Deep South town with few Jews and though my fears faded after I moved to bigger cities, it came roaring back after Oct. 7th. I began having panic attacks at night when I reviewed the news of the day regarding protests and Jew Hate. So, I got involved with a few non-profit groups fighting antisemitism (which has become nearly a full-time job for me) and that has helped me a LOT because I feel like I am doing something, helping in some way. I guess that is called "empowerment." I still feel very concerned and sometimes stressed when I read the news, but the panic attacks have stopped and I can function much better. I will continue to work to fight antisemitism and spread the word about Islamic extremism and its threat to the civilized world. What else can we possibly do other than that?