'Tikkun Olam' is a weapon against Jews.
This is not moral equivalency. This is moral distortion. Real "Tikkun Olam" means having absolute moral clarity.
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This is a guest essay by Ella Ben Emanuel, an educator, writer, actress, and comedian.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
I grew up in a town with barely enough Jews to fill a quorum.
Our giant synagogue, with its donor plaques, was almost empty most of the year. Our “kosher” supermarket supplied the mainstream community, with a handful of rabbinically approved products for the local rabbi and his family.
Against my will, elderly community members made it their business to teach me the Jewish basics. They knew little about pedagogy, and even less about children. My Bat Mitzvah ceremony had less to do with religion and more to do with a meaningless communal ceremony and a slap-up meal.
My Jewish identity was a topic of resentment, but never exploration.
As I approached early adulthood, I did my best to blend in with mainstream society. I never discussed my religion with strangers. Nobody would have hedged a bet on me marrying a Jew until I suddenly embraced Orthodoxy at age 22.
I am no longer religious in the traditional sense, but I probably spend more time reflecting on my Jewish identity than I did during all my Orthodox years put together. The question is why. After all, I’m here in Israel. I’m surrounded by Jews. They are my friends and colleagues. I teach them, I do business with them, and I yell at them on the bus.
Like others, I fell for the fallacy that, once in my homeland, the rest of the world would leave me alone. Here, our strange Jewish dietary laws are state-sanctioned (pork isn’t so easy to come by), and we are free to pursue religious pursuits (or not) undisturbed.
But, for some reason, our tiny country consistently trends on the world’s headlines playlist, on tireless repeat. I am surprised the world hasn’t gotten bored of us.
Whether or not you believe in God, the current scale and persistence of hatred against Israel defies reason, so much so that it borders on the supernatural. False claims against Jews, often state-sanctioned, have long justified countless historical atrocities. The lies about genocide and apartheid in Gaza and Israel, respectively, are (albeit shocking) mere ghosts of blood libels past. The books I’ve devoured on antisemitism all come to the same conclusion: Antisemitism defies logic.
Six million Jews were systematically murdered under the same narrative we hear from today’s Gaza apologists: that Jews, everywhere, are a threat to humanity. Europe was mobilized in a quest to erase Jews from the face of the earth; Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Hungarians, the French, and even some Jews willingly became part of a massive killing machine, convinced that they were doing the world a favor. And this was years before Israel had military power — long before the word “Palestine” had become a catchword for “post-colonial injustice.”
So, let’s be clear: History isn’t linear, it’s circular — the same classic antisemitism, now cloaked in new guises, amplified by social media, global outrage, and echo chambers.
The week after October 7th, my entire country seemed to sink into collective trauma. We moved like the shellshocked — unable to function, unable to focus. It wasn’t only the grief of profound loss or the horror of witnessing a massacre of unimaginable proportions. It was also the trauma of memory.
A few months earlier, our school principal had taken the teachers on a trip to the South — to Sderot, Ofakim, the Nova music festival site, and the stretch of highway now known as “The Road of Death.” One of our guides that day was a teacher colleague, Itamar, who, hadn’t yet publicly shared his war experiences as part of a search and rescue unit. He had been called up while the events of October 7th were still unfolding. His task was grim: to photograph every corpse he found, in the hope of later identifying them.
This man is usually a fountain of energy, with a quick wit and an easy laugh. On school trips, he’s the one striding ahead during long desert hikes, keeping morale high with his jokes. But what he saw that day was something no human should ever see. “I started counting,” he told us, his hand trembling as he gripped the microphone. He gestured toward the empty fields beside the road leading from the Gaza border into Israel. “I saw people I knew. I kept taking photographs. I counted corpses. When I reached 300, I gave up counting.”
Let that sink in. Then imagine photographs of piles of dead bodies in black and white. Piled like garbage. With numbers. From the not-so-distant past. This is all too familiar.
Yet we hoped. We hoped that finally the world would wake up and see the truth. A comedian joked about how the world’s reaction to October 7th came in the form of a parcel with a “do not open after” date. We thought there was a good chance that the world would suddenly understand, empathize, and act. But the clock was ticking. Against us. Again.
Listening to Itamar’s account, or showing the world videos of murder, brutalization, rape, and babies being burnt to death in ovens will not help us win in the court of public opinion. God knows we tried.
I have read articles online sympathetic to Israel, and others that scream the word “genocide” at us, blaming us for October 7th. The trauma rears its ugly head, again.
Outrage is cheap. Truth takes work — and most people can’t be bothered. As the saying goes: “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth puts its boots on.” And, in today’s outrage economy, those lies about Israel are not just faster; they’re weaponized by emotion, made immune to fact.
Before October 7th, my days revolved around classroom lesson plans, navigating tricky parent conversations, and deciding what to cook for Shabbat dinner. Now, I find myself grappling with my place as a Jew in a world that feels increasingly chaotic. Nothing seems to make sense anymore.
Recently, a close friend traveling to Sicily with her daughters asked me, “What country should I say I’m from when people ask?” In an era of artificial intelligence, social networks, and electric cars, her question evokes the fear Jews faced in the 1930s, hiding their identity to avoid persecution.
Yet there’s a larger force at play here. We must move beyond fixating on misguided influencers or conspiracy theories about political agendas. This tide of senseless hatred, spreading like wildfire across the globe, is merely a symptom of a deeper, more profound issue — one that transcends leaders like Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Benjamin Netanyahu, or Hamas, and certainly surpasses figures like Donald Trump.
If there’s one thing Jews have never been good at, it’s staying invisible. Our relentless drive to survive, learn, and contribute to society has made us disproportionately visible in nearly every sphere: economics, politics, science, and culture. I sometimes wonder what the world would look like without the contributions of great Jewish minds, let alone the advancements made by the modern State of Israel in so many fields.
In rabbinic literature, Tikkun Olam — literally “repairing the world” — emerges as a legal and moral principle, urging Jews to uphold justice, mend societal flaws, and foster global harmony. The term emphasizes “world” over “community,” pointing to a duty that extends far beyond Jewish borders.
When I was religious, I recited the Aleinu prayer each Shabbat morning, often glossing over its call to Tikkun Olam — a vision of eradicating idolatry and uniting humanity under a higher moral order. Today, idolatry isn’t just statues or passing TikTok trends; it’s the embrace of false ideals — cruelty, selfishness, or division — that severs our divine connection.
Tikkun Olam demands bold action, like young Abraham shattering his father’s idols to challenge an entire belief system. My Orthodox sons, however, view Tikkun Olam through Torah study, prayer, and service to God, believing these acts send mystical ripples to repair the world in ways we cannot fully see.
I’m not entirely opposed to my sons’ view of Tikkun Olam. I believe our actions (seen and unseen) carry consequences far beyond what we can measure, whether or not they are rabbinically prescribed. (That debate deserves its own essay.)
Fourteen years ago, I left Orthodoxy and never looked back, yet I’ve learned that goodness, devotion, and purpose transcend any single denomination. My secular and traditional students inspire me with their love for the land, their commitment to service, and their readiness to give of themselves, showing that faith alone doesn’t define virtue.
As my skin has sagged and my perspective has softened, I’ve come to see room in this small country and vast world for everyone — Orthodox or secular Jew, and non-Jew alike. Each of us has a role in Tikkun Olam, repairing the world in our own way. Never has this call to mend our broken world felt more urgent.
With the advent of the 20th century, Tikkun Olam became a cornerstone of Jewish thought and the foundation for Jewish social activism — this time with the idea that Jews bear responsibility not only for their own moral, spiritual, and material welfare, but also for the welfare of society at large. Tikkun Olam has become a defining principle of modern Jewish identity, framed not only as a personal or communal value, but as a global one.
Karl Marx, himself a Jew, was driven by a desire to address social inequality. The Communist Manifesto carries echoes of Tikkun Olam, a vision for repairing society and uplifting the oppressed. But the road to hell is often paved with good intentions.
In Marx’s case, the vision may have faltered because of a kind of spiritual reductionism: a deliberate severing of moral ideals from any higher spiritual authority. In destroying religion, individual thought, culture, and national identity, communism destroyed the spiritual element essential to Tikkun Olam.
Several years back, I took my students on a trip to MASHAV (Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation), established in 1958 on Shefayim, a kibbutz in central Israel. I wanted to show them what Israeli “soft diplomacy” looked like. MASHAV trains global leaders in water technology — how to use drip systems and other groundbreaking Israeli water conservation technologies. My students gaped, open-eyed, at this vision of Tikkun Olam in the wider world.
I do not doubt that these wonderful kids will continue to be torchbearers of Israel’s legacy. It is my sincere hope that they, too, will share technical expertise with nations in crisis or save lives with new medical technologies. They will do it because they want to make a difference, and not for political posturing — though I wonder how they’ll feel when the world twists their goodwill against us.
Our legacy of Tikkun Olam means it is hard for Jews to turn their backs on the suffering of others. Some groups invoke it as a call to advance Palestinian rights. They may conveniently choose to ignore the fact that, tragically, many of the victims of the October 7th massacre were themselves advocates for those very Palestinian rights. Survivors from kibbutzim rooted in coexistence and peace — embodying Tikkun Olam — now face a double betrayal: Their commitment to moral repair was met with unspeakable violence, exposing the painful fragility of idealism in the face of hatred.
Tikkun Olam may be a cure, but it’s also a weapon used against us. While we are at war with Hamas, the world insists that it is our moral duty to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza — even as Hamas continues to hold our hostages and fire rockets at our cities. The words “famine” and “mass starvation” are blasted over the internet, but at no time in history was it declared incumbent on an army to feed its enemy’s belligerent population. This is not moral equivalency; it is moral distortion.
The terrible aftermath of October 7th is still acutely felt in Israel. Wherever I go, I see yellow ribbons — a reminder of the hostages — on cars, clothing, posters, storefronts, and bridges. Each yellow ribbon is a pang of heartbreak. This fight to bring them home is Tikkun Olam at its core. The aforementioned talmudic text teaches that redeeming captives is a supreme sacred duty, an act that holds society together.
But I ask myself: How many more soldiers must die because we are forced to fight with one hand tied behind our backs, constrained by the desperate need to avoid harming the hostages? I wonder if this duty risks stopping us from fighting with the clarity we need, turning Tikkun Olam into a path of destruction rather than repair.
I remember the pictures of Gilad Shalit1 plastering billboards, the same way photographs of the remaining hostages occupy them today. The directive was to free this young man at all costs. Don't get me wrong, I was overjoyed, just as all of us were, when he finally came home. However, the Palestinian masterminds of October 7th were none other than the same murderous terrorists freed during the Shalit deal. Hamas learned that by kidnapping Israelis, they could hold an entire country hostage too.
I understand the root of the yellow ribbons. They stem from a deep desire to make the world better. But real Tikkun Olam means having absolute moral clarity. The ultimate act of rectifying the world that rabbinic literature refers to is not just about charity or kindness, but about confronting evil at its roots.
A regime that glorifies martyrdom and sacrifices its own children is no different from the worshippers of Moloch, who threw their babies into the flames. To defeat Hamas — and the jihadist ideology it represents — is not only a matter of survival; it is a moral imperative, a fight for life, freedom, and the future of humanity.
The world will not understand the moral equation simply because it was shocked into doing so. Tikkun Olam means Jews must wade through the swamp of evil and drain it themselves, risking malaria and other diseases in the process. Because that is what we do.
It is no coincidence that the Judeo-Christian tradition helped lay the foundation for the values that powered Western progress — human rights, education, the sanctity of life, and the pursuit of justice. While no civilization is without flaws, these values created fertile ground for intellectual, scientific, and social advancement.
The West is on the brink of a moral abyss. Mired in identity politics, fueled by outrage, deepfakes, and unabashed lies, we are all at risk of becoming unwitting converts to the faith of despair. The institutions that once promoted the values the West fought for during World War II are crumbling.
This is the moment to understand that our role — Jewish or not — goes far beyond signing petitions or sharing angry memes. Tikkun Olam may be a Jewish phrase, but its meaning belongs to everyone: repairing what is broken in the world. And in times like these, unity is not optional; it is essential.
A former soldier of the Israel Defense Forces who was kidnapped by Palestinian militants in a 2006 cross-border raid and held in Gaza for five years
I agree! I simply can’t understand why Christian Countries are no longer supporting you. 😢
I’m almost completely secular and from where I sit it looks like all Jews are being drawn back to the holy land. It seems super natural.