The Sweetest Revenge Against Antisemitism

This Rosh Hashanah, let's stop fighting antisemites and start loving thy Jewish neighbor. In our post-October 7th world, Jewish unity is no longer optional. Our very survival depends on it.

photo: Raman Shaunia/Unsplash

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Rosh Hashanah is a season of reflection and renewal. We crown God as King, taste the sweetness of apples and honey, and pray for life in the year ahead.

But perhaps the most radical act of renewal we can commit to this year is the decision to love ourselves as Jews — openly, unapologetically, and joyfully.

Because hatred of Jews is nothing new. Antisemites will always find a reason to despise us, to slander us, to try to erase us. That’s their job — one they’ve embraced across centuries and continents, from Pharaoh to Haman, from the Inquisition to the Nazis, and in our own day, from campus mobs to hostile parliaments.

The hatred of Jews mutates like a virus, attaching itself to different rationales in each generation, but its core remains the same. We cannot control it, and we cannot cure it. What we can control is how we see ourselves.

Too often, Jewish life is spent on defense — defending Israel in hostile forums, explaining away slanders, proving to others that we are “good” or “worthy,” trying to buy acceptance through donations and volunteering. It is exhausting. Worse, it is reactive. It cedes the terms of our Jewishness to our enemies, as though their opinion of us should matter more than our own sense of dignity.

But Rosh Hashanah reminds us: We are created b’tzelem Elohim — in the image of God. Our identity is not contingent on the approval of others. Our worth is not dependent on anyone’s permission.

History shows us that Jewish self-love has always been the antidote to antisemitism. When we were exiled to Babylon, we created the Talmud. When the Greeks outlawed Torah, the Maccabees rededicated the Temple. When Europe expelled us, we carried Jewish learning and trade networks across continents. When the world said we did not deserve sovereignty, we rebuilt our homeland in Israel and revived Hebrew from a language of prayer into a language of life.

Every act of Jewish continuity has been an act of defiance and love.

But there is another truth worth naming: Antisemites relish in Jews who are unconfident or weak. They smell fear and hesitation, and it fuels them. They mock the Jew who apologizes for existing, who hides his kippah, who lowers her voice. They respect strength — even when they still hate us for it. The strong Jew unsettles the antisemite, because he cannot be controlled, cannot be shamed into silence, cannot be erased.

That is why the most powerful response to antisemitism is not pleading or explaining, but standing tall, living proudly, and meeting their hatred with unbreakable confidence in who we are.

Yet the harder task is not only standing tall before the world, but learning to stand tall with one another. Too often, our people waste precious energy not just defending ourselves against our enemies, but turning on each other. The secular Jew looks at the religious Jew and sneers at his “old-fashioned” devotion — when in truth, he should admire the courage it takes to walk openly Jewish in a world where being visibly Jewish now makes you a target.

The diaspora Jew sits in the comfort of New York, Toronto, or Melbourne criticizing what Israel does or does not do in Gaza — when in truth, he should look with awe at the courage of young Israeli soldiers, risking their lives to ensure that Jews everywhere will always have a safe haven.

The Israeli rolls his eyes at diaspora Jews who cannot speak Hebrew fluently or who marry non-Jews — when in truth, he should respect that in countries of freedom and assimilation, Jews still choose to light Shabbat candles, send their children to Jewish schools, and defend their people publicly, even at great social cost.

What if, instead of diminishing one another, we trained ourselves to admire the Jewish strength in each other? What if every act of Jewish living — whether in Jerusalem or Los Angeles, whether through Torah study or activism, whether in Hebrew or English or French or Russian or Spanish — was seen not as a mark of weakness or difference, but as a mark of courage?

If antisemites will always try to divide us, then the greatest act of Jewish love is to refuse to be divided.

Hence, the greatest danger we face does not come from the next version of the Nazis, whether they rise from the Right or from the Left, from Europe or North America or the Middle East. History teaches us something darker: What destroys us is not the hatred of others, but the hatred of our own. Jew-on-Jew hatred — in the form of infighting, delegitimization, or the endless tearing down of Israel — is what weakens us more than any outside enemy ever could.

A people divided against itself cannot endure. When Jews hold Israel to impossible standards, when they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those who demonize it, when they sneer at their own people in order to curry favor with others, they do the antisemites’ work for them. They turn the knife inward. That is the betrayal that history records as fatal. The destruction of the Second Temple came not from Rome alone, but from Jewish factionalism and baseless hatred. The lesson is the same in our time: We will survive the haters outside, but what we cannot survive is hatred within.

If antisemites hate us for being Jewish, then the most powerful response is to love thy Jewish neighbor even more. To embrace the Jew who looks different, prays differently, votes differently, or lives in another land — and to see in them not a rival or a threat, but a partner in our shared destiny. Every act of solidarity, every moment of admiration instead of suspicion, every gesture of Jewish unity is a declaration to the world that we will not be broken. The antisemite thrives when Jews are fractured; he despairs when Jews stand together.

To love ourselves as Jews is not a vague slogan. It means building strong Jewish communities, investing in modern forms of Jewish education, celebrating our cultures, speaking Hebrew, studying Torah, supporting Israel, and proudly wearing the symbols of our people. It means not hiding our Jewishness at work, on campus, or online. It means turning the energy we waste fighting hatred into energy that builds love.

We may disagree, as all families do, but disagreement must be rooted in care, loyalty, and shared destiny.

And central to that love is a living, breathing relationship with Israel. For too long, Israel has been treated by some Jews as though it were merely a foreign government to critique, rather than the beating heart of our people’s story. Israel is complicated, but it is ours. It is the only place in the world where Jewish time is national time, where the Hebrew calendar shapes daily life, where the language of our ancestors lives on the lips of schoolchildren, and where Jewish sovereignty has been restored after 2,000 years of exile.

There is also a deeper truth we must reclaim: There is no separation between Judaism and Zionism. The two are woven together in our story, our prayers, and our destiny. Zion is not a modern invention, but a 3,000-year-old heartbeat. Every day Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Every Passover we declare, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Every wedding ends with the breaking of a glass and the vow, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem.” Zionism is nothing more and nothing less than the Jewish People fulfilling those prayers and promises in our time.

To claim Judaism while rejecting Zionism is to cut Judaism off from its roots and its future. It is to imagine a body without a heart. A Jew can struggle, wrestle, and even argue with Israel — as Jacob wrestled with the angel — but to deny Zion altogether is to deny the very covenant that has sustained our people. You can abandon Judaism, just as one can abandon any identity, but you cannot sever Judaism from Zionism and still pretend to hold onto an authentic Jewish self.

This is not about politics or policies, and it is not about any one government or politician. It is about the essence of Jewish peoplehood. Judaism without Zionism is like a soul without breath. And if antisemitism tries to strip us of our dignity, then our answer must be to root ourselves even more deeply in both: in Judaism and in Zionism, indivisible, eternal, and alive.

That is why, today, it is no longer enough to simply “support” Israel from afar with words, statements, or slogans. Love of Israel must be lived. That means engaging with Israeli life in tangible ways: watching Israeli films and television shows, reading Israeli literature, buying Israeli art, learning more about Israeli history, making more Israeli friends, cooking Israeli food, visiting Israel not once in a lifetime but as often as we can, investing in Israeli companies and technologies that are shaping the future.

Every act of engagement makes Israel less of an abstraction and more of a daily presence in Jewish life. To know Israel, not only as a headline or a crisis, but as a culture, a society, and a home, is to deepen our love for it — and to remind ourselves that Israel is not just a country “over there,” but part of who we are, wherever we live.

For the diaspora Jew, that love means gratitude: gratitude that Israel exists as a safe haven, as a shield, as a promise that Jews will never again face annihilation without a refuge or the ability to defend themselves. For the Israeli, that love means recognizing that diaspora Jews, even in their struggles to remain Jewish in free and open societies, are fighting a battle of their own: keeping the flame alive where assimilation threatens to extinguish it. To love Israel is to weave together the strands of our peoplehood — homeland and diaspora, sovereignty and dispersion — into a single fabric of Jewish continuity.

And when we do this, we send a powerful message to the world: Judaism is not merely a religion of survival; it is a civilization of joy, creativity, and life. Our story is not one of victimhood, but of resilience and rebirth.

Rosh Hashanah is not only the Jewish New Year; it is Yom Hazikaron — the Day of Remembrance. We remember who we are and who we want to be. We practice teshuvah, returning to our essence, to our covenant, to our dignity.

Jewish self-love is a form of teshuvah: the choice to return not to fear or apology, but to pride and joy. Avinu Malkeinu, kaht-vay-noo bih-say-fair cha-yeem toe-veem — Our Father Our King, inscribe us in the Book of the Good Life. This prayer echoes through our synagogues during the High Holidays. To love each other as Jews is to inscribe ourselves in the story of life, not as a people who bend to the hatred of others, but as a people who build a future of strength, sweetness, and belonging.

In our post–October 7th world, Jewish unity is no longer optional. The massacre of that day and the war that has followed ripped away any illusions that Jews can afford to be divided. The threats we face are not theoretical; they are brutal, immediate, and global. In such a world, every Jew must see themselves as bound to every other Jew, regardless of denomination, geography, or politics. To indulge in division is to play directly into the hands of those who want us broken. Our survival now depends on a simple truth: We rise or we fall together.

So let the antisemites do their job. They have always done it and they will continue to.

And we must also do ours. Our job is to build, to bless, to sing, to study, to laugh, to commune and collaborate, to fight when necessary, and above all, to love each other as Jews. That is the truest way to enter the new year — with courage, with sweetness, and with pride.

Shanah Tovah U’metukah. May it be a good and sweet year — a year where we stop living in reaction to hatred, and start living in the fullness of Jewish love.

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