What can I do?

Postcards when I am not at the edge

Last night I went to Shabbat services at my lovely Reform synagogue. It is so beautiful, so calm. I have made friends. They are happy to see me. I feel… safe.

The Shabbat before Passover is, if I understand correctly, about freeing the captives. “In every generation… they try to kill us.”

As a non-Jew, who grew up in perhaps the most quiet time without as much violent, virulent antisemitism as Jews of all time have become accustomed to, I have to say now, yes, in our generation, they try to kill us.

Us isn’t exactly me but there are many places in the gas chambers reserved for Christian allies. I made my decision a long time ago.

My synagogue had a beautiful Seder table set with the names of the hostages. One of the Rabbis preached a sermon where he shared that when he and his wife were in their twenties and he was studying in Israel, they attended a music festival in the desert. Peaceful, fun-loving Jewish kids. He could not stop thinking that he could have been at the Nova Music Festival.

May G-d bless those who understand that it could have been us. It could be us. The hate that knows no national boundaries could have swallowed us up, and is still waiting to, if we give it a minute.

After the service we were invited to write postcards to the families of the hostages. I wrote three. We ran out of cards, so many of us wanted to write so many.

Why has the West turned against you, against ourselves, I want to ask? I’m so sorry, I want to tell them. I am doing all I can, but it’s so little.

Arnie says to pray. He is in Jerusalem. He knows from prayer. I pray.

On Tuesday I will attend a Second Night Seder. I think I may buy a lot of matzoh, eat it with butter and light every candle I have for the hostages on the first night of Passover and pray by myself in silent Zen Christian vigil for my Jewish family. Also, you may be an ally but not a Jew if you buy up all the matzoh on half price and eat it with mayo. I have witnesses.

My college roommate taught me how to say Am Yisrael Chai. I now repeat it in my meditation. When I get scared, I repeat it.

So many people want us to deny who we are. I had a conversation I’ll tell you more about later with a young man who thought he was very well versed in Middle East history. Tons of woke word salad flew out… settler colonizers, etc.

I want to ask these “progressives”: You know that Hamas wants the Israeli Jews, and all the Jews, and all the non-Muslims, to die, right? So why are you offering them help?

Because it’s the politically correct thing to do. Because they bizarrely align with what they think is the oppressed. I don’t get it. Anyone is welcome to explain it to me. Women, gay, trans, those with mental illness: do you really want to live under Hamas rule? If not, why are you supporting them?

The young man I spoke with basically said it was fine to be Jewish, just not a Zionist. No one should be threatened in this country for being Jewish. But apparently Zionists are fair game.

So every Jew has to declare their allegiance?

“Jews on campus, pick a side,” was the chant at a campus protest in the South.

In Nazi Germany, everyone had to pick a side, and most picked the side of Death. They turned in their Jewish neighbors and sent them to the concentration camps. Those who helped the Jews, if they were caught, ended up in those camps too. If you are picking the side of Hamas, asking for the destruction of Israel, glorifying rape and murder that they have promised to do over and over again as “resistance,” ask yourself how it feels to send your friends and neighbors to the death camps.

Those of you who pray for peace, advocate for peace, want to find a way forward to peace, I applaud you but urge you to realize how if you are not in Israel, your safety is your privilege and it blinds you. You ask others to live with the deaths and abduction of their loved ones from the safety of your living room couch where you order Door Dash.

Those who support Hamas, who glorify the attacks of October 7 as resistance: history will deal with you.

The God who parted the Red Sea will not take this spring and summer off.