Most of me agrees with this: but there’s something I’ve yet to put my finger on that bothers me. Can’t yet put it into words… shall reread and think, but initial feelings - and I’m happy to be wrong - give me the impression that although other places are mentioned, diaspora as described here = mainly the US, and there feels like an assumption that most diaspora Jews are liberal, if not Liberal(That may be an age thing… I’m old)
I’m thinking back to the early 70s when I was a student, and imagining how things might have been at college if this had happened then. I’m fairly certain that I was probably the only Jew there. Apologies if this is a bit random and muddled, but I am random and muddled these days. The main thing, though… October 7th changed me: I began to speak up, and I lost a lot of friends; one in particular started it(too long to go into, much as I’d like to)… and I have no regrets about that loss. They never were friends anyway.
Excellent essay, ty! I am one of those former leftie Jews, always standing up for the underdog- then Oct 7, 2023 happened, and all those groups I had aligned with suddenly wanted me and my people dead. What a revelation: the complete lack of compassion for those Israelis slaughtered and for the hostages by so many globally, the total obsession and condemnation of Israel as it fights for its very survival, the propaganda and blood libels by mainstream media (sources that I once relied upon like the NYT and WP)- all this has shocked and shaken me to the core. I am no longer interested in supporting any groups now except for my own. This is about Survival and MORE. For me, it's about God and our relationship as a Nation, to God. I am learning Hebrew for the first time. I am reading Torah with a deep curiosity and interest that I never had before. Torah is answering my questions as to WTF is going on in this crazy, upside-down Israel-obsessed world! I feel closer to God and my people. I feel as if Oct 7 awakened something in me a deep connection to my ancestors, to those who stood in God's presence at Mt. Sinai. I yearn to go to Israel- to the Holy Land that God gave to us. As a people, God endowed us with Brilliance- but also with courage and strength. We are Warriors- and I feel as if God is calling forth these traits in every one of us. Sometimes, I feel as if my faith is being tested. Will I answer the call, or will I be like the spies in Torah who were sent by Moses to survey the Land given to us by God, only to return faithless, claiming the task was impossible because our enemies were too strong? We are truly living in Biblical times.
Go to Israel. You have to see it with your own eyes. A miracle in the desert in just 78 years. The young people are strong and beautiful. A sight to behold. You will be so proud to be part of them. ❤️🇮🇱
My journey is similar, though now I’m just politically homeless, not feeling aligned with any one political philosophy and totally alienated from the radicalization creep happening in both groups.
I hope to see some containment of the antizionism & antisemitism by next elections, but I’m not naive enough to think that’s likely to happen before it plays itself out.
I will vote for candidates who have a track record of support for Israel and who remain unafraid to stand with Jews.
"Without the means to defend ones self, morality becomes performance art.". I love it. There is nothing that quite focuses the mind than getting shot at and missed. Diaspora Jews should come together, get over their aversion to what is required for self-defense, and practice on a regular basis.
I can appreciate your dilemma. Personally, I look at the means of self defense not as a "war toy" but as tools. The tools can be used for the just purpose of defending self, family, and community or, in the hands of the terrorists, the unjust purpose of destruction. Many tools can be scary until one masters their operation and positive use. Hopefully you will one day develop the skills with confidence. G-d forbid but one day your life or the life of someone close to you may depend on it.
Thank you Joshua for your spot on essay. Simply magnificent. I can confirm that Jewish Americans are indeed training up. Krav Maga training is increasingly available and subscribed. The numbers of American Jews with licensed firearms is not publicly available. At our firing range and all of my continuing trainings, orthodox and non Orthodox Jews are openly present. Seeing American Jews living like Israelis warms my heart. Thank you for keeping us so well informed. Gratefully. Gary
All true. As I have noted before many times on this website, the Genocidal Ideology of Nazism has in fact always been Virulent since 1945 in high places here in The West, with all of the Genocidal AntiSemitic Hatred, and the Nazi Alliances with Genocidal Hating Islamism against The Jewish People which goes with Nazism: These facts are verified and proven and in the record here in the Diaspora, and with the Authorities, by us monitors. Am Israel Chai.
If after Oct. 7th of '23 as many as 40% of NYC Jews vote to install an open Israelophobe, then what was learned or felt about Jewishness. Could 40 % of Blacks vote David Duke if he promised free bus rides? Virtually no Jews who are FB "friends" will comment on or even like what I post or share about Israel. A number of celebrity Jews can't find enough praise and superlatives for the anti Zionist Jew Hater for mayor of NYC. The 83 year old "wind bag" as I heard him referred to, the Polish American atheist from Vermont is still a rock star with young voters. Yes, we had a moment of sympathy for dead Jew....and it evaporated. Jews who are never going to visit Israel are still lecturing Israelis on their alleged apartheid, theocratic and anti democratic Jewish supremacist ethno state while they book tours of the NIle. And the Greek islands or the coast of Turkey. Will visit China. Anywhere but Israel. Which offends their liberal and progressive ideology.
I've been trying to get my Lefty Jewish friends in NYC to vote against Mamdani but they are simply helpless against anyone who claims to be a "socialist", it disarms their critical faculties and moral reasoning.
NYC Jews of the 20th century gave their hearts and souls to "universal brotherhood" and "socialist liberation" and no matter how many times these shiny slogans have been revealed to be hiding some darker undercurrents, esp in re Jews and Israel, they have been too conditioned to change. I think they may be ethnically Jewish but their real sacred beliefs involve Leftism and its claims of being about universal compassion etc.
When I explain Mamdani's history of devoting his entire adult life to attacking the Jewish state and spreading so much hate and lies about it, they quickly move to defend him or even hide behind the familair canard of: he might hate Israel but not Jews. As if he has ever attacked any other country or people!
My feeling lately is that Jews have lived so many centuries as strangers and guests in other people's lands, whose tolerance could be (and usually was) revoked any moment, has given Jews (most esp Ashkenazim) a form of Stockholm Syndrome, where they opt for a survival strategy of keeping their heads down, not ever pushing for the rights of their people and going along with whatever political trend promises them acceptance if only they dissolve their particularness in some form of universalism.
It might take another decade or so of brazen public Jew hate plus the dying off of the generation of old Commies like Bernie and Chomsky and their disciples to change this.
Unity is our strength 💪
Most of me agrees with this: but there’s something I’ve yet to put my finger on that bothers me. Can’t yet put it into words… shall reread and think, but initial feelings - and I’m happy to be wrong - give me the impression that although other places are mentioned, diaspora as described here = mainly the US, and there feels like an assumption that most diaspora Jews are liberal, if not Liberal(That may be an age thing… I’m old)
I’m thinking back to the early 70s when I was a student, and imagining how things might have been at college if this had happened then. I’m fairly certain that I was probably the only Jew there. Apologies if this is a bit random and muddled, but I am random and muddled these days. The main thing, though… October 7th changed me: I began to speak up, and I lost a lot of friends; one in particular started it(too long to go into, much as I’d like to)… and I have no regrets about that loss. They never were friends anyway.
Excellent essay, ty! I am one of those former leftie Jews, always standing up for the underdog- then Oct 7, 2023 happened, and all those groups I had aligned with suddenly wanted me and my people dead. What a revelation: the complete lack of compassion for those Israelis slaughtered and for the hostages by so many globally, the total obsession and condemnation of Israel as it fights for its very survival, the propaganda and blood libels by mainstream media (sources that I once relied upon like the NYT and WP)- all this has shocked and shaken me to the core. I am no longer interested in supporting any groups now except for my own. This is about Survival and MORE. For me, it's about God and our relationship as a Nation, to God. I am learning Hebrew for the first time. I am reading Torah with a deep curiosity and interest that I never had before. Torah is answering my questions as to WTF is going on in this crazy, upside-down Israel-obsessed world! I feel closer to God and my people. I feel as if Oct 7 awakened something in me a deep connection to my ancestors, to those who stood in God's presence at Mt. Sinai. I yearn to go to Israel- to the Holy Land that God gave to us. As a people, God endowed us with Brilliance- but also with courage and strength. We are Warriors- and I feel as if God is calling forth these traits in every one of us. Sometimes, I feel as if my faith is being tested. Will I answer the call, or will I be like the spies in Torah who were sent by Moses to survey the Land given to us by God, only to return faithless, claiming the task was impossible because our enemies were too strong? We are truly living in Biblical times.
Go to Israel. You have to see it with your own eyes. A miracle in the desert in just 78 years. The young people are strong and beautiful. A sight to behold. You will be so proud to be part of them. ❤️🇮🇱
My journey is similar, though now I’m just politically homeless, not feeling aligned with any one political philosophy and totally alienated from the radicalization creep happening in both groups.
I hope to see some containment of the antizionism & antisemitism by next elections, but I’m not naive enough to think that’s likely to happen before it plays itself out.
I will vote for candidates who have a track record of support for Israel and who remain unafraid to stand with Jews.
AMEN!
"Without the means to defend ones self, morality becomes performance art.". I love it. There is nothing that quite focuses the mind than getting shot at and missed. Diaspora Jews should come together, get over their aversion to what is required for self-defense, and practice on a regular basis.
I hear you Richard but I’m still not over the “no war toys” time in my earlier life.
I can appreciate your dilemma. Personally, I look at the means of self defense not as a "war toy" but as tools. The tools can be used for the just purpose of defending self, family, and community or, in the hands of the terrorists, the unjust purpose of destruction. Many tools can be scary until one masters their operation and positive use. Hopefully you will one day develop the skills with confidence. G-d forbid but one day your life or the life of someone close to you may depend on it.
Truth.
Thank you Joshua for your spot on essay. Simply magnificent. I can confirm that Jewish Americans are indeed training up. Krav Maga training is increasingly available and subscribed. The numbers of American Jews with licensed firearms is not publicly available. At our firing range and all of my continuing trainings, orthodox and non Orthodox Jews are openly present. Seeing American Jews living like Israelis warms my heart. Thank you for keeping us so well informed. Gratefully. Gary
Spot On!
All true. As I have noted before many times on this website, the Genocidal Ideology of Nazism has in fact always been Virulent since 1945 in high places here in The West, with all of the Genocidal AntiSemitic Hatred, and the Nazi Alliances with Genocidal Hating Islamism against The Jewish People which goes with Nazism: These facts are verified and proven and in the record here in the Diaspora, and with the Authorities, by us monitors. Am Israel Chai.
If after Oct. 7th of '23 as many as 40% of NYC Jews vote to install an open Israelophobe, then what was learned or felt about Jewishness. Could 40 % of Blacks vote David Duke if he promised free bus rides? Virtually no Jews who are FB "friends" will comment on or even like what I post or share about Israel. A number of celebrity Jews can't find enough praise and superlatives for the anti Zionist Jew Hater for mayor of NYC. The 83 year old "wind bag" as I heard him referred to, the Polish American atheist from Vermont is still a rock star with young voters. Yes, we had a moment of sympathy for dead Jew....and it evaporated. Jews who are never going to visit Israel are still lecturing Israelis on their alleged apartheid, theocratic and anti democratic Jewish supremacist ethno state while they book tours of the NIle. And the Greek islands or the coast of Turkey. Will visit China. Anywhere but Israel. Which offends their liberal and progressive ideology.
I've been trying to get my Lefty Jewish friends in NYC to vote against Mamdani but they are simply helpless against anyone who claims to be a "socialist", it disarms their critical faculties and moral reasoning.
NYC Jews of the 20th century gave their hearts and souls to "universal brotherhood" and "socialist liberation" and no matter how many times these shiny slogans have been revealed to be hiding some darker undercurrents, esp in re Jews and Israel, they have been too conditioned to change. I think they may be ethnically Jewish but their real sacred beliefs involve Leftism and its claims of being about universal compassion etc.
When I explain Mamdani's history of devoting his entire adult life to attacking the Jewish state and spreading so much hate and lies about it, they quickly move to defend him or even hide behind the familair canard of: he might hate Israel but not Jews. As if he has ever attacked any other country or people!
My feeling lately is that Jews have lived so many centuries as strangers and guests in other people's lands, whose tolerance could be (and usually was) revoked any moment, has given Jews (most esp Ashkenazim) a form of Stockholm Syndrome, where they opt for a survival strategy of keeping their heads down, not ever pushing for the rights of their people and going along with whatever political trend promises them acceptance if only they dissolve their particularness in some form of universalism.
It might take another decade or so of brazen public Jew hate plus the dying off of the generation of old Commies like Bernie and Chomsky and their disciples to change this.