What is our Community Doing Wrong to Deal with Anti Semitism?

During the conflict with Gaza in May 2021, I noticed a lot of members of my Jewish community complaining about the lack of support from non-Jewish communities when it comes to violence against Jews and Antisemitism. I share that frustration and hypocrisy. But I also have to go inward to our own community and ask: “Where were you? Where were you when your brothers and sisters in Israel needed your support?”

I’m not saying to make aliyah or become a full-time activist. But with the same energy that you expect people to concern themselves with violent Antisemites locally, did you ever mention anything about condemning violent Anti Semites in Israel? Did you just try to make yourself look good by saying: “I just want peace in the Middle East, and I condemn extremists on both sides,” instead of saying, “I condemn an organization that is trying to kill another 7 million of my people and just shot indiscriminately 4,000 missiles with the attempt to kill as much as they can?”.

Clearly, so many members of our community are not clear that our people are being unfairly attacked. The Anti-Israel Marketing Machine doesn’t seem to change its tactic of clearly and confidently pushing the idea that we are genocidal psychos.

Based on that, if I had been a third-party observer, I would simply assume that the Jews were the bad guys and got what they deserved. If you want to fight Antisemitism, there is no room to separate it from Zionism.  In reality, all we are getting is just a small piece of what Israelis deal with every day.  Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism, and if you don’t defend your fellow Jews in Israel, you will end up experiencing the same yourself, and your hypocrisy will show. The only way to defeat Antisemitism and with that Anti-Zionism is by uniting and fighting this together.