To my non-Jewish friends:
It is heartbreaking to live through such a divided moment, where we seem to have lost the ability to truly see one another. And as a Jewish man, it has been devastating to watch so many people I care about become energized by Zohran Mamdani's rhetoric. Is it pointless for me to try to explain why? Probably. But here's what I have to say:
The Jewish people have been living under the threat of extinction for thousands of years. Not in some abstract way. Literally. For centuries, we were expelled, persecuted, massacred, and nearly wiped off the face of the earth. So when we finally had a tiny sliver of land where we could determine our own future, it became deeply sacred to us.
Its formation was imperfect and remains the subject of profound moral and political debate...one that I myself continue to grapple with. And today, we have a leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, whom I believe has made that reality even more painful. But here's the issue:
Many Jews are not looking at this moment solely through the lens of one leader, or even solely through the immense suffering and loss in Gaza. We are carrying the history of our people, not as history, but in our bones. And when politicians make Israel one of the defining moral issues of their public identity - while atrocities, dictatorships, and humanitarian catastrophes unfold across the globe... it rattles many Jews.
Not because we believe Israel is perfect. Not because we uniformly support Benjamin Netanyahu. And not because we are indifferent to Palestinian suffering. But because history has taught us what it feels like when the world's attention becomes uniquely fixated on the Jewish state - and, for many Jews, by extension, the Jewish people.
You may not see that connection. You may disagree with it. But before dismissing it, I ask that you try to understand where it comes from. So in closing: I'm not asking anyone to turn a blind eye to suffering. I'm asking you to carry our history into the equation, too. To understand that when many Jews react with fear, it isn't because we are incapable of seeing Palestinian suffering. It's because we are carrying thousands of years of Jewish suffering alongside it.
And to my fellow Jews: We will not stop speaking out. We will not stop standing with one another. We will not stop insisting that our history, too, deserves to be seen. We will find our way through this moment. And we will not let hatred define us.
