This article is very well written, and right on the money. I would only add one thing. October 7th also revealed that the Jews have some real friends in the world, and I am one of them.
For me, beyond the tragedy of October 7 itself, what changed was personal. I was a Canadian and American dual citizen, patriotic toward both countries and grateful to both. After October 7 and everything that followed, I no longer feel that way. I live in Canada, and I used to live in the United States, but my true home is Israel — even though I have never been there.
That may sound strange, especially with Israel at war, but it is the only place where Jews are truly with their own people. It is the only place where Jewish safety depends on Jewish strength, not on the goodwill of others.
What shocked me most was how quickly things turned. I have experienced plenty of antisemitism in my life, but it always felt like it came from the fringe. It was never mainstream. I never imagined seeing what we are now seeing across Canada, the United States, and the West.
The hard truth is that there is no permanently safe place for Jews except Israel. No matter how much we contribute, how patriotic we are, how embedded we become in the culture around us, history keeps teaching the same lesson. Germany should have ended the illusion forever, but many of us still wanted to believe things had changed.
Fellow Canadian here. I was saying the other day that I miss the "normal" anti-Semitism of old when it was just a handful of ragtag skinhead types. Now that we are experiencing the results of the modern Left's long march through the institutions the Jew hate is on a whole other level. Jew hate need not be hidden any longer and is actually currency for belonging in many institutions.
I live in small town Ontario -- I left Toronto in 2020 -- and at least here it still looks and feels like the Canada in which I grew up. However, I have two alternative residencies and a home in one of those countries so I am teed up to leave if it becomes necessary. Canada is in a downward spiral.
Nachum, you forgot one word. That word is "nuanced." It seems to be the favorite word coming out of the mouths of the Jews of New York (specifically) and the Jews here in the U.S. (generally) who are trying to explain away their votes for radical Jew-hating politicians (Mamdani in NYC comes to mind) and their barely disguised disgust for Israel. They remind me of the "arrogant child" at the Passover Seder table. They will not be included in the community of fellow Jews if they don't turn it around. And one final thought. Jews with guns! Oh, my! Practice, practice, practice.
One of the best descriptions I have read of the road both Israelis and diaspora Jews have traveled since October 7th. As a Jew that moved to Israel in the aftermath of October 7th, the world view ( so magnificently manipulated by Hamas) is striking. We will never return to the dream we held for so long that Jews were accepted in the world. We are reviled. Only Israel’s destruction will put that hatred to rest.
When I breathed my first breath into this life ...throughout the JEWISH world the living and those of our people asleep
in the dust was voiced
ZACHOR.
To heart I receive it in all its aspects.
I pray we shall NEVER FORGET nor forgive
what we have in concert witnessed
ever knowing the truth may we awaken; though betrayed we are strengthened, the Ner Tamid kindled within our gifts
- that without JEWISH light in the world (should G-D will the outcome for the antisemitic raging crowd of liars lives of chaos & darkness as has begun- the vile hellscape they so hunger ferociously for...
THE CREATOR of all that is,
was, and ever shall be removes from us all delusion and self hatred so influcted upon us
by HIS vehicle to illuminate (the wicked thorns in our eyes.
We were softened by desire to be 'accepted' but clearly this is not the lesson, quite the opposite. The truth is we are far beyond that, we are alone and the tribes, our mishpoca must unite. We were seduced into to -and after the Holocaust still,
to blind ourselves from
truth;
NEVER will this occur again.
We must remember the in-humanity, the centuries if humiliations, the poisoning of our minds, bodies and spirits , the monsterous tortures...the blood libels and how all the all the world still is turning their backs on us..... to them JEWISH blood is cheap. Not to us!!!!!!!
REMEMBER this,
ZACHOR!
We stand out in the rain alone, together, we feel the tears
of G-D awakening in 5786 ing this night entering The Three Weeks. Tears of Ayin Sof bringing Gevurah into our beings, ridding us of the unholy
poisonous venom.
I have taught many times throughout my life since the first breath; as was taught to me by my Grandfather
of blessed memory, a healer Elieizar David bar Yehudah Aryeh זייל ........
"All is predestined whilst
free-will is given.".
from the bitterest edge of
the diaspora I write this sohould G-D once more take my breath.
1 STATE 🇮🇱.
May all our days of fasting turn into the predestined days of the heralding of YOUR return.
Important considerations as we gain understanding. How do we change the perceptions of those who’ve concocted the rhetoric? Somehow the pattern should be broken.
It’s our joint Jewish silence that will prove our undoing.
As an early on registrant at the first, University of Illinois “Black American History course (Chicago Campus, 1965 under the tutelage of esteemed Black Poet Arna Bontemps; I was told multiple times how Black Activists for their civil rights were directly influence and learned from our Jewish History. That said all these years latter should I run across one of my former activist, African American students, I think their comment to me might include today’s Jews learned nothing from our struggle as they appear to kowtow to silence while waiting for someone else to step up and assume our individual “Shomer”responsibility.
Sadly,
Bruce Portnoy, Opinion Journalist/analyst
Author of the geopolitical thriller,
“First, the ‘Saturday People’, and then the…” ;regular contributor regarding anti-Israel and anti-Jew biases to U.S. Congressional Representatives’ Senior advisors; House and Senate; both sides of the Aisle.
Bruce your comment resonated with me. Back in the 70s during the black liberation movement I attended a speech by Rabbi Kahane of the JDL at my college. The auditorium was packed with at least 1,000 students. Sitting next to me were two black men wearing their liberation berets. I thought this was going to be interesting given the friction between the black power groups and the Jewish community. Kahane’s theme was simple…fight back when attacked and take no crap. At the end of his speech, one of the black men said to his compatriot…”the Rabbi is spot on…and he is alright”. My point is that no laws, policies, pleading will garner respect if you are as a community not willing to physically defend yourselves.
Marc, I too had the opportunity to talk relatively briefly, one on one, with Rabbi Kahane, as well. He suspected that one day I was going to do something special for our People and tiny refuge in the Middle East. Don’t think I let him down.
Thank you kindly for your wisdom, your light and courage.
Tonight within the Fast and throughout the Three Weeks I am going to immerse myself in the writings of Kahane. To me he was a visionary and clearly a prophet.
And now we are approaching July 4th... I cannot tell you how grieved I am to realize that the many JEWS in the military... I often officiated their burials and had been on every Navy vessel in Pearl Harbor. 21 gun salutes in those days and such comraderie ... pushed into the backdrop on every front... left, right and center. I pray to keep their memory in writings I leave for future generations after my end in this lfe. I have not the strength tto make Aliyah alone yet my heart is in ISRAEL. G-D bless you with all that is good.
Respected colleague in our joint efforts to seek Justice for our Jewish People under conditions reminiscent of those endured by our predecessors within Germany from the late 1920’s through the 1930’s and thereafter we find our People as we speak enduring the same calculated hate rhetoric and opportunistic violence, both psychological and physical, but sadly and in too many situations met by orgizational
silence rather than public and legal demands for equal treatment under the law; thereby further emboldening our oppressors.
Unlike our African-American brothers and sisters who on August 28, 1963 assembled some 200,000 in Washington D.C. to publicly demand their rights and not waiting for someone else to step up for them. Such bravery motivated young whites to join them not only physically but emotionally. Courage breeds courage. Such resulted in the 1964 Landmark Civil Rights Act and its applicable Title VI and title IX.
Even though it was not easy for Blacks, they drew a. Line and would not go backwards.
So I bring this
It is from this and other supportive actions that I learned in my1965 first Black History Class under esteemed Professor and Poet, Arna Bontemps that African Americans learned from Jew’s history to model their difficult path to Justice.
Yet, years later it was sadly alluded to me that today’s Jews are not modeling our struggle after the above Black experience, who set by example their perseverance, whether they got help from others or not!
Rabbi this fierce independence seems to be lacking within our People, who seemingly back off too easily. Such is my concern, nothing of which was construed from your response to me.
To Witt, I respectfully inquire of you, where are our Jewish equivalents to Dr. Martin Luther King, who I had the pleasure of meeting at an impromptu meeting as aforementioned.
I will end with so what are you and our organized Rabbinate going to do about our Jewish plight as well as the multifaceted threat building unopposed against our tiny refuge in the Middle East, “Eretz Yisrael”, which if G-d-Forbid fails would surely seal the fate of “Am Yisrael.
Have we learned nothing from the Shoah/Holocaust; which if DePodesta dooms us to repeat it? If we do not stand up for ourselves; who will stand for us? And”If not now; then When?
Best,Bruce Portnoy, O.D. (Ret.)
Opinion Journalist Independent Analyst
author of the 2015 prophetic Geo-Political thriller, “First, the ‘Saturday Pe’, and then the…”
As a longtime subscriber, I have great koved for the readers and devotees of this site — but less for Future of Jewish itself. The title alone is confusing for a publication that so rarely looks forward.
The regular posts are well written, well reasoned, and clearly well intentioned. But they are, unfortunately, just another recitation of our daily reality: worldwide hatred, anti-Zionism, and anti-Israel sentiment. There are already over 12,000 websites, magazines, publications, and Jewish organizations tracking this onslaught. Is this site one more voice just keeping tabs?
Where is the call to arms? Where is the definitive rethinking of legitimate pushback, the aggressive strategy, the bold leadership, the actual plan of action? Future of Jewish should be at the forefront — identifying what's needed, screening for it, and drafting real change in how we fight and how we live. No more assimilation to, and no more pandering toward, enemies and so-called allies who gladly turned their backs on us after we initiated, funded, and supported their causes.
When will this site do more than name hatred of our people and religion — and instead help stop it in its tracks, I need answers , at least new and aggressive ideas and efforts! Please tell me when and how do we cast off those within our own community, jews by birth only, who serve, willingly, as apologists for the purveyors of antisemitism?
Is this just another one of the 12,000-plus unified-in-name-only, largely ineffective Jewish organizations — compiling statistics and hosting cocktail parties for elite hobnobbing? Or will it actually become a place that defines our future?
Let me know because I'm fucking done just reading about my problems.
Current Jewish leadership (speaking broadly) was created during a time of peace and optimism, where (excepting Israel) the biggest issues involved political alliances, funding streams and the occasional battle against Jew-hating rednecks sans institutional power.
But the current cohort are too old, cossetted and deluded to realize what they're up against and imagine that with a few well-written editorials and election wins, we (Jews and other Americans) can return to the safe and sane 1990s. All these people are far too comfortable (both in thought and social position) and too tolerant and forgiving for our current moment.
Peacetime leaders rarely make good wartime leaders, especially as the ground shifts so quickly these days. Some brave and smart young person/people (hopefully) will stand up to the Mamdanis and their cheap lies and fake concern for the "Palestinians" of their imaginations, and people will follow their lead.
It just most likely won't be an Ivy Leaguer this time, as that's the last place you'll find bravery of thought and expression, and Ivy leaguers seem to have more loyalty to each other and their status than to any faith or nation.
But until some kind of champion arises, there is no one...
Well stated, but there will be no change coming from the the same Jewish organizations. Their thinking is too myopic and not grounded in reality, but the problem is not limited to our lay organizations. We see the same paralysis among our religious leaders.
There is a book that every American Jew needs to read right now: Betrayal: The Failure of American Jewish Leadership.
This book is a deeply researched, well-documented look at a decades-long failure. It exposes how our community's elites have let us down. While sitting on billions of dollars raised from guilt-ridden, non-observant Jews, the "cocktail party set" has spent years networking and fighting for every cause imaginable—except our own.
Where Are Our Leaders?
The results of this failure are clear. We have to ask the hard questions:
When will organizations like the ADL, AJC, and the Federations finally step up and be effective? We don't need any more surveys or letter writing campaigns! We need aggressive effective and unified leadership.
When will they demand that the Democratic Party clean up its growing antisemitism?
We all know the truth: if this hatred were coming from the political Right, these legacy organizations would be all over it. Instead, their silence on the threats facing us from the political Left is deafening.
It is time to hold our leadership accountable. Read Betrayal, get informed, and let's start demanding real action from the people who claim to represent us.
The best thing about October 7th - from the Wall Street Journal May 20. 2026
"The Israeli agents, after failing to prevent the Oct. 7 attack, approached the head of Shin Bet to set up a task force they named NILI. It is a Hebrew acronym for the words, “The Eternal One of Israel Doesn’t Lie.” The name, first used by a band of World War I-era Jewish spies, signified that no one identified in the attack would be forgotten.
Noa Argamani, who was seized less than a week before her 26th birthday, spent 245 days captive in Gaza. After she was freed in a rescue mission, two men seen in the video holding back Argamani’s boyfriend were tracked down by Israeli intelligence officials and killed in separate airstrikes.
The men were crossed off a list of thousands of names kept by an Israeli task force created for one job—to kill or capture all who planned or joined in the Oct. 7 attack, said current and former Israeli officials. Hundreds have been struck from the list, in one of the most personal and highly technical targeting campaigns in the history of warfare. The campaign continues amid the demands of the war with Iran and a cease-fire agreement in Gaza.
No participant is deemed too insignificant—down to the man who drove a tractor through a border fence that day. Nearly two years after he breached the border, the tractor driver was identified, located and blown up in an airstrike as he walked a narrow urban street in Gaza, according to footage released by Israel’s military.
The campaign spans the rank-and-file to Hamas’s top leaders. On Friday, Israel killed Ezzedin al-Haddad, one of the last living senior militants from the group’s military leadership that planned the Oct. 7 attacks. He had been Hamas’s military commander in Gaza since 2025.
"The IDF will continue to pursue our enemies, strike them and hold accountable everyone who took part in the October 7th massacre,” Israel’s military chief Eyal Zamir said Saturday after Haddad’s killing was confirmed."
Israel is taking out every person who crossed the border into Israel on October 7, 2023 and eliminating them one by one by one.
This is how you do it. My sympathy level for these vermin: ZERO.
“…October 7th taught us a different lesson: Be vigilant, lucid, and loyal to our people.”
Yes, October 7th and its shameful aftermath has revealed much that was either hidden or not accurately or fully understood in the world. Those revelations are continuing to expand and sharpen as time passes, and none of them can be considered ‘good’ to any right-thinking, good-hearted person with a properly adjusted moral compass.
Yet, as revoltingly disgusting, deeply troubling, and heartbreakingly painful as these revelations are, to those who love the truth, it is a blessing to see the world as it truly is, rather than as we may have been deceived into believing it is, or might wish it to be.
But, now what?
The truth may, depending on one’s response, set a person free. But the process of encountering and following it as the implications of that freedom are progressively realized can be very painful, and force many difficult decisions to be made.
What is becoming more and more clear, is that a storm of unprecedented force is brewing in our world today, and many are wondering what to make of it; how to respond to the threat they sense it poses.
The Bible, by which I mean the Old (Tanakh) and New (Brit Hadasha) Testaments, holds and reveals the essential truths concerning our world’s past, present, and future reality. But only a relative few understand and accept that it reliably serves as “…a lamp to [their] feet and a light to [their] path. (Psalms 119:105)
Hosea 4:6a
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
Proverbs 14:12
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”
Isaiah 5:20-21
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!”
So, they stumble on, groping in the darkness for a way to make sense of what is senseless; to rationalize what is, and always will be, irrational - apart from the revelations of the Creator, Sustainer, and final Judge of all reality.
He is reality; He is Truth; He is Sovereign, and His will shall be done. All that He has declared to come, will come to pass. Nothing, and no one, can prevent that from being realized. The only question that truly matters, is what side of His sovereign will a given person ends up on; whether His preferential will of eternal life and joy unimaginable, or His reluctant but permissive will, resulting in conscious, unending torment of death through eternal separation - each the fruit of one’s own choice.
This is a time of choosing. And, as the light continues to expose what has been hidden, there is no escape from the responsibility of exercising the gift of free will in response. To not choose, is to choose, so choose wisely.
Deuteronomy 30:19
“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live…”
Zechariah 1:2-3
“The LORD has been very angry with your fathers. Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Return to Me,” says the LORD of hosts, “and I will return to you,” says the LORD of hosts.”
Matthew 7:13-14
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
John 14:6
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
This article is very well written, and right on the money. I would only add one thing. October 7th also revealed that the Jews have some real friends in the world, and I am one of them.
Thank you. 🙏
Absolutely. Thank you.
Nachum, wonderful article. It is dead on.
For me, beyond the tragedy of October 7 itself, what changed was personal. I was a Canadian and American dual citizen, patriotic toward both countries and grateful to both. After October 7 and everything that followed, I no longer feel that way. I live in Canada, and I used to live in the United States, but my true home is Israel — even though I have never been there.
That may sound strange, especially with Israel at war, but it is the only place where Jews are truly with their own people. It is the only place where Jewish safety depends on Jewish strength, not on the goodwill of others.
What shocked me most was how quickly things turned. I have experienced plenty of antisemitism in my life, but it always felt like it came from the fringe. It was never mainstream. I never imagined seeing what we are now seeing across Canada, the United States, and the West.
The hard truth is that there is no permanently safe place for Jews except Israel. No matter how much we contribute, how patriotic we are, how embedded we become in the culture around us, history keeps teaching the same lesson. Germany should have ended the illusion forever, but many of us still wanted to believe things had changed.
After October 7, I don't believe that anymore.
Fellow Canadian here. I was saying the other day that I miss the "normal" anti-Semitism of old when it was just a handful of ragtag skinhead types. Now that we are experiencing the results of the modern Left's long march through the institutions the Jew hate is on a whole other level. Jew hate need not be hidden any longer and is actually currency for belonging in many institutions.
I live in small town Ontario -- I left Toronto in 2020 -- and at least here it still looks and feels like the Canada in which I grew up. However, I have two alternative residencies and a home in one of those countries so I am teed up to leave if it becomes necessary. Canada is in a downward spiral.
Please stay in the USA and fight for our country.
I agree wholeheartedly. ✍🏻RL
Nachum, you forgot one word. That word is "nuanced." It seems to be the favorite word coming out of the mouths of the Jews of New York (specifically) and the Jews here in the U.S. (generally) who are trying to explain away their votes for radical Jew-hating politicians (Mamdani in NYC comes to mind) and their barely disguised disgust for Israel. They remind me of the "arrogant child" at the Passover Seder table. They will not be included in the community of fellow Jews if they don't turn it around. And one final thought. Jews with guns! Oh, my! Practice, practice, practice.
Absolutely. From a good friend's perspective from overseas: somehow this could be a blessing in disguise.
Become as indispensable as you can in the world but also strongly independent and make money!
You are the builders and survivors of the world. We don't deserve you.
Keep speaking your truth and have no time for ridiculous Westerner fantasies.
I am looking forward to your glittering golden future 🙏💪🇮🇱💙🌹
This is a brilliantly insightful essay.
To expand on Dara Horn’s insightful thesis: if there’s one thing people love more than dead Jews, it is defenseless ones.
One of the best descriptions I have read of the road both Israelis and diaspora Jews have traveled since October 7th. As a Jew that moved to Israel in the aftermath of October 7th, the world view ( so magnificently manipulated by Hamas) is striking. We will never return to the dream we held for so long that Jews were accepted in the world. We are reviled. Only Israel’s destruction will put that hatred to rest.
When I breathed my first breath into this life ...throughout the JEWISH world the living and those of our people asleep
in the dust was voiced
ZACHOR.
To heart I receive it in all its aspects.
I pray we shall NEVER FORGET nor forgive
what we have in concert witnessed
ever knowing the truth may we awaken; though betrayed we are strengthened, the Ner Tamid kindled within our gifts
- that without JEWISH light in the world (should G-D will the outcome for the antisemitic raging crowd of liars lives of chaos & darkness as has begun- the vile hellscape they so hunger ferociously for...
THE CREATOR of all that is,
was, and ever shall be removes from us all delusion and self hatred so influcted upon us
by HIS vehicle to illuminate (the wicked thorns in our eyes.
We were softened by desire to be 'accepted' but clearly this is not the lesson, quite the opposite. The truth is we are far beyond that, we are alone and the tribes, our mishpoca must unite. We were seduced into to -and after the Holocaust still,
to blind ourselves from
truth;
NEVER will this occur again.
We must remember the in-humanity, the centuries if humiliations, the poisoning of our minds, bodies and spirits , the monsterous tortures...the blood libels and how all the all the world still is turning their backs on us..... to them JEWISH blood is cheap. Not to us!!!!!!!
REMEMBER this,
ZACHOR!
We stand out in the rain alone, together, we feel the tears
of G-D awakening in 5786 ing this night entering The Three Weeks. Tears of Ayin Sof bringing Gevurah into our beings, ridding us of the unholy
poisonous venom.
I have taught many times throughout my life since the first breath; as was taught to me by my Grandfather
of blessed memory, a healer Elieizar David bar Yehudah Aryeh זייל ........
"All is predestined whilst
free-will is given.".
from the bitterest edge of
the diaspora I write this sohould G-D once more take my breath.
1 STATE 🇮🇱.
May all our days of fasting turn into the predestined days of the heralding of YOUR return.
Important considerations as we gain understanding. How do we change the perceptions of those who’ve concocted the rhetoric? Somehow the pattern should be broken.
A most excellent piece, Nachum. Every word resounds within me because it's the stark truth.
It’s our joint Jewish silence that will prove our undoing.
As an early on registrant at the first, University of Illinois “Black American History course (Chicago Campus, 1965 under the tutelage of esteemed Black Poet Arna Bontemps; I was told multiple times how Black Activists for their civil rights were directly influence and learned from our Jewish History. That said all these years latter should I run across one of my former activist, African American students, I think their comment to me might include today’s Jews learned nothing from our struggle as they appear to kowtow to silence while waiting for someone else to step up and assume our individual “Shomer”responsibility.
Sadly,
Bruce Portnoy, Opinion Journalist/analyst
Author of the geopolitical thriller,
“First, the ‘Saturday People’, and then the…” ;regular contributor regarding anti-Israel and anti-Jew biases to U.S. Congressional Representatives’ Senior advisors; House and Senate; both sides of the Aisle.
https://muckrack.com/bruce-portnoy/articles
Bruce your comment resonated with me. Back in the 70s during the black liberation movement I attended a speech by Rabbi Kahane of the JDL at my college. The auditorium was packed with at least 1,000 students. Sitting next to me were two black men wearing their liberation berets. I thought this was going to be interesting given the friction between the black power groups and the Jewish community. Kahane’s theme was simple…fight back when attacked and take no crap. At the end of his speech, one of the black men said to his compatriot…”the Rabbi is spot on…and he is alright”. My point is that no laws, policies, pleading will garner respect if you are as a community not willing to physically defend yourselves.
Marc, I too had the opportunity to talk relatively briefly, one on one, with Rabbi Kahane, as well. He suspected that one day I was going to do something special for our People and tiny refuge in the Middle East. Don’t think I let him down.
Best,
Bruce
Thank you kindly for your wisdom, your light and courage.
Tonight within the Fast and throughout the Three Weeks I am going to immerse myself in the writings of Kahane. To me he was a visionary and clearly a prophet.
And now we are approaching July 4th... I cannot tell you how grieved I am to realize that the many JEWS in the military... I often officiated their burials and had been on every Navy vessel in Pearl Harbor. 21 gun salutes in those days and such comraderie ... pushed into the backdrop on every front... left, right and center. I pray to keep their memory in writings I leave for future generations after my end in this lfe. I have not the strength tto make Aliyah alone yet my heart is in ISRAEL. G-D bless you with all that is good.
✍🏻RL
Rabbi, you are a man to be respected! Be well !
Dr. Bruce
On the walls of my congregation were the JEWISH guys who fought alongside those in the south... their kin were there..
as well as the coach's wife from the ISRAELI athletes massacred.
It is beyond reason that a mighty black movement for JEWS and ISRAEL has not been born.
Most of my congregation there aee buried in the cemetery that has been, along with others there desecrated!
Respected colleague in our joint efforts to seek Justice for our Jewish People under conditions reminiscent of those endured by our predecessors within Germany from the late 1920’s through the 1930’s and thereafter we find our People as we speak enduring the same calculated hate rhetoric and opportunistic violence, both psychological and physical, but sadly and in too many situations met by orgizational
silence rather than public and legal demands for equal treatment under the law; thereby further emboldening our oppressors.
Unlike our African-American brothers and sisters who on August 28, 1963 assembled some 200,000 in Washington D.C. to publicly demand their rights and not waiting for someone else to step up for them. Such bravery motivated young whites to join them not only physically but emotionally. Courage breeds courage. Such resulted in the 1964 Landmark Civil Rights Act and its applicable Title VI and title IX.
Even though it was not easy for Blacks, they drew a. Line and would not go backwards.
So I bring this
It is from this and other supportive actions that I learned in my1965 first Black History Class under esteemed Professor and Poet, Arna Bontemps that African Americans learned from Jew’s history to model their difficult path to Justice.
Yet, years later it was sadly alluded to me that today’s Jews are not modeling our struggle after the above Black experience, who set by example their perseverance, whether they got help from others or not!
Rabbi this fierce independence seems to be lacking within our People, who seemingly back off too easily. Such is my concern, nothing of which was construed from your response to me.
To Witt, I respectfully inquire of you, where are our Jewish equivalents to Dr. Martin Luther King, who I had the pleasure of meeting at an impromptu meeting as aforementioned.
I will end with so what are you and our organized Rabbinate going to do about our Jewish plight as well as the multifaceted threat building unopposed against our tiny refuge in the Middle East, “Eretz Yisrael”, which if G-d-Forbid fails would surely seal the fate of “Am Yisrael.
Have we learned nothing from the Shoah/Holocaust; which if DePodesta dooms us to repeat it? If we do not stand up for ourselves; who will stand for us? And”If not now; then When?
Best,Bruce Portnoy, O.D. (Ret.)
Opinion Journalist Independent Analyst
author of the 2015 prophetic Geo-Political thriller, “First, the ‘Saturday Pe’, and then the…”
As a longtime subscriber, I have great koved for the readers and devotees of this site — but less for Future of Jewish itself. The title alone is confusing for a publication that so rarely looks forward.
The regular posts are well written, well reasoned, and clearly well intentioned. But they are, unfortunately, just another recitation of our daily reality: worldwide hatred, anti-Zionism, and anti-Israel sentiment. There are already over 12,000 websites, magazines, publications, and Jewish organizations tracking this onslaught. Is this site one more voice just keeping tabs?
Where is the call to arms? Where is the definitive rethinking of legitimate pushback, the aggressive strategy, the bold leadership, the actual plan of action? Future of Jewish should be at the forefront — identifying what's needed, screening for it, and drafting real change in how we fight and how we live. No more assimilation to, and no more pandering toward, enemies and so-called allies who gladly turned their backs on us after we initiated, funded, and supported their causes.
When will this site do more than name hatred of our people and religion — and instead help stop it in its tracks, I need answers , at least new and aggressive ideas and efforts! Please tell me when and how do we cast off those within our own community, jews by birth only, who serve, willingly, as apologists for the purveyors of antisemitism?
Is this just another one of the 12,000-plus unified-in-name-only, largely ineffective Jewish organizations — compiling statistics and hosting cocktail parties for elite hobnobbing? Or will it actually become a place that defines our future?
Let me know because I'm fucking done just reading about my problems.
Current Jewish leadership (speaking broadly) was created during a time of peace and optimism, where (excepting Israel) the biggest issues involved political alliances, funding streams and the occasional battle against Jew-hating rednecks sans institutional power.
But the current cohort are too old, cossetted and deluded to realize what they're up against and imagine that with a few well-written editorials and election wins, we (Jews and other Americans) can return to the safe and sane 1990s. All these people are far too comfortable (both in thought and social position) and too tolerant and forgiving for our current moment.
Peacetime leaders rarely make good wartime leaders, especially as the ground shifts so quickly these days. Some brave and smart young person/people (hopefully) will stand up to the Mamdanis and their cheap lies and fake concern for the "Palestinians" of their imaginations, and people will follow their lead.
It just most likely won't be an Ivy Leaguer this time, as that's the last place you'll find bravery of thought and expression, and Ivy leaguers seem to have more loyalty to each other and their status than to any faith or nation.
But until some kind of champion arises, there is no one...
Well stated, but there will be no change coming from the the same Jewish organizations. Their thinking is too myopic and not grounded in reality, but the problem is not limited to our lay organizations. We see the same paralysis among our religious leaders.
There is a book that every American Jew needs to read right now: Betrayal: The Failure of American Jewish Leadership.
This book is a deeply researched, well-documented look at a decades-long failure. It exposes how our community's elites have let us down. While sitting on billions of dollars raised from guilt-ridden, non-observant Jews, the "cocktail party set" has spent years networking and fighting for every cause imaginable—except our own.
Where Are Our Leaders?
The results of this failure are clear. We have to ask the hard questions:
When will organizations like the ADL, AJC, and the Federations finally step up and be effective? We don't need any more surveys or letter writing campaigns! We need aggressive effective and unified leadership.
When will they demand that the Democratic Party clean up its growing antisemitism?
We all know the truth: if this hatred were coming from the political Right, these legacy organizations would be all over it. Instead, their silence on the threats facing us from the political Left is deafening.
It is time to hold our leadership accountable. Read Betrayal, get informed, and let's start demanding real action from the people who claim to represent us.
The best thing about October 7th - from the Wall Street Journal May 20. 2026
"The Israeli agents, after failing to prevent the Oct. 7 attack, approached the head of Shin Bet to set up a task force they named NILI. It is a Hebrew acronym for the words, “The Eternal One of Israel Doesn’t Lie.” The name, first used by a band of World War I-era Jewish spies, signified that no one identified in the attack would be forgotten.
Noa Argamani, who was seized less than a week before her 26th birthday, spent 245 days captive in Gaza. After she was freed in a rescue mission, two men seen in the video holding back Argamani’s boyfriend were tracked down by Israeli intelligence officials and killed in separate airstrikes.
The men were crossed off a list of thousands of names kept by an Israeli task force created for one job—to kill or capture all who planned or joined in the Oct. 7 attack, said current and former Israeli officials. Hundreds have been struck from the list, in one of the most personal and highly technical targeting campaigns in the history of warfare. The campaign continues amid the demands of the war with Iran and a cease-fire agreement in Gaza.
No participant is deemed too insignificant—down to the man who drove a tractor through a border fence that day. Nearly two years after he breached the border, the tractor driver was identified, located and blown up in an airstrike as he walked a narrow urban street in Gaza, according to footage released by Israel’s military.
The campaign spans the rank-and-file to Hamas’s top leaders. On Friday, Israel killed Ezzedin al-Haddad, one of the last living senior militants from the group’s military leadership that planned the Oct. 7 attacks. He had been Hamas’s military commander in Gaza since 2025.
"The IDF will continue to pursue our enemies, strike them and hold accountable everyone who took part in the October 7th massacre,” Israel’s military chief Eyal Zamir said Saturday after Haddad’s killing was confirmed."
Israel is taking out every person who crossed the border into Israel on October 7, 2023 and eliminating them one by one by one.
This is how you do it. My sympathy level for these vermin: ZERO.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes or FAFO.
It never was.
“…October 7th taught us a different lesson: Be vigilant, lucid, and loyal to our people.”
Yes, October 7th and its shameful aftermath has revealed much that was either hidden or not accurately or fully understood in the world. Those revelations are continuing to expand and sharpen as time passes, and none of them can be considered ‘good’ to any right-thinking, good-hearted person with a properly adjusted moral compass.
Yet, as revoltingly disgusting, deeply troubling, and heartbreakingly painful as these revelations are, to those who love the truth, it is a blessing to see the world as it truly is, rather than as we may have been deceived into believing it is, or might wish it to be.
But, now what?
The truth may, depending on one’s response, set a person free. But the process of encountering and following it as the implications of that freedom are progressively realized can be very painful, and force many difficult decisions to be made.
What is becoming more and more clear, is that a storm of unprecedented force is brewing in our world today, and many are wondering what to make of it; how to respond to the threat they sense it poses.
The Bible, by which I mean the Old (Tanakh) and New (Brit Hadasha) Testaments, holds and reveals the essential truths concerning our world’s past, present, and future reality. But only a relative few understand and accept that it reliably serves as “…a lamp to [their] feet and a light to [their] path. (Psalms 119:105)
Hosea 4:6a
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
Proverbs 14:12
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”
Isaiah 5:20-21
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!”
So, they stumble on, groping in the darkness for a way to make sense of what is senseless; to rationalize what is, and always will be, irrational - apart from the revelations of the Creator, Sustainer, and final Judge of all reality.
He is reality; He is Truth; He is Sovereign, and His will shall be done. All that He has declared to come, will come to pass. Nothing, and no one, can prevent that from being realized. The only question that truly matters, is what side of His sovereign will a given person ends up on; whether His preferential will of eternal life and joy unimaginable, or His reluctant but permissive will, resulting in conscious, unending torment of death through eternal separation - each the fruit of one’s own choice.
This is a time of choosing. And, as the light continues to expose what has been hidden, there is no escape from the responsibility of exercising the gift of free will in response. To not choose, is to choose, so choose wisely.
Deuteronomy 30:19
“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live…”
Zechariah 1:2-3
“The LORD has been very angry with your fathers. Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Return to Me,” says the LORD of hosts, “and I will return to you,” says the LORD of hosts.”
Matthew 7:13-14
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
John 14:6
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Am Israel Chai, to the glory of God!
Absolutely right
Good read.