I cannot tell you how often I have stared at this prewar photograph of my uncle Chaim, the youngest of five children in the family my grandfather lost. My father shared little about him — only that his siblings were all crazy about Chaim and would fight over who got to hold his hand.

That was all I knew. Until now.

This farewell took place inside the Chełmno death camp. My grandfather escaped… Chaim did not. My grandmother and my two aunts Rachel and Sarah, were killed there too. My father and uncle Wolf were well into their hell of forced labor.

Fischel wrote:

“When I said goodbye to my youngest son, Chaim, of blessed memory, he asked me:

‘Why do they want to kill me? I am still only a little child. I do not even know what sin is. Why are they coming to kill me?’

He said to me again:

‘Papa, Papa, can’t you do anything so that I can stay alive?’

At that moment, we all cried — and so did all the people who heard him asking.”

Of blessed memory indeed.

As I sit with Chaim’s words, I cannot stop contemplating: How did “Never Again” become so easily cast aside? How did the promise to remember, to recognize the warning signs, and to protect human life become so fragile?

My grandfather tried to understand events through faith. A deeply religious man, he struggled almost desperately to make sense of his devastating odyssey through that lens.

My father, in contrast, relayed what he endured without faith as an anchor — instead he shared his experiences plainly, pragmatically, almost forensically. He was an atheist.

And here I am, agnostic, standing somewhere between them. My relationship with God over all that happened then and all that is happening now remains unsettled.

What I inherited was not necessarily either man’s belief. Only their unerring need to bear witness.

My grandfather invoked God often as he recounted horrors. My father, my man of steel, preserved the facts. I am trying to bring both of their voices forward — while also shining a light on the truths of our own time.

Three different relationships with God. The same refusal to look away.

The sacred inheritance was never a particular degree of faith. I think the thread running l’dor v’dor — from generation to generation — is the drive toward truth-telling.

The drive to bear witness transcends belief. It is profoundly Jewish, and immensely human.

Political correctness remains the order of the day: above all, do not offend the constituents cheering the growing alliance between Islamists and socialists.

I now know many lifelong Democrats who no longer identify as Democrats. Whether that proves merely anecdotal or reflects a broader political shift will become clearer in November. But my hunch is that most Americans, Jewish and non Jewish alike, do not want extremists — including DSA candidates — to win.

Silence did not serve the party well. And this goes far beyond making your concern about Herr Piker clear. Speaking up only when the s—t show becomes impossible to ignore — or when vital elections loom — comes across more as political damage control than moral courage. It is better than remaining silent, certainly, but voters understand the difference.

I also believe there is still time to rehabilitate the party and clean up its messaging.

Many Americans — who still have something called ‘a conscience’ — would welcome sincere apologies from multiple corners (a tall order, I know) for the devastating politics of silence and for allowing horrific libels and anti-Israel hostility to take hold. They would welcome an unequivocal condemnation of Hamas propaganda that has indoctrinated so many young people, an honest call for everyone to unite around one thing only — truth — and a serious effort to remind Americans what those truths actually are. And what they are not.

There. Pot stirred. Pass the salt and pepper.

In December 1949, my father, Jacob Breitstein (widely known to friends and family as simply Poppy), stood before a Frankfurt court and gave a sworn account of his imprisonment. His history was reduced to typewritten lines: dates, ghettos, camps. Neat. Bureaucratic. Like, not much to see here. Just all the places he was dragged to, enslaved, whipped, starved, raped (yes, that too, at one “camp”…) and witnessed countless horrors prior to arriving at Auschwitz.

Superman may have had nothing on this man of Steel.

Decades later, he returned to these documents and annotated them in his own hand. I don’t know exactly when or why. He may have been reviewing his history in connection with the testimony he would later give.

At the top of one German government document, he wrote in red, in his distinctive handwriting that I remember so well:

“CONCENTRATION LIST — 12 CAMPS.”

Since October 7, I have thought about the fragility of the historical record. We have watched events documented in photographs, videos and eyewitness testimony become disputed, denied, minimized, inverted…

Paper trails can be incomplete. Records can disappear. Narratives can change.

But then memory prevails.

As many know by now, my grandfather Fischel (Zsha Zsha to me) remembered. Over the span of postwar decades, he left behind some 600 pages of handwritten Yiddish memoir.

My father kept remembering, as reluctant as he was to. He much preferred chess, ping-pong swimming… just about anything else. Still, his own detailed and exceptionally vivid Shoah Foundation testimony will also be part of the story I am assembling.

And now, lo and behold, I remember his old documents.

L’Dor V’Dor. From generation to generation.

So I return to a three-generation memoir: my grandfather’s words, my father’s testimony, and my effort to preserve and understand what they left behind.

Memory can prevail long after the paper trail fades.

Perhaps that is why bearing witness is not only about remembering the past. It is also each generation’s warning about the future.

He’s a liberal, vehemently anti-Trump, DSA candidate supporter who apparently believes that my increasingly vocal criticism of the Democratic Party is helping people whose politics I largely oppose.

I could have dismissed him. (A quick peruse of his social media not too surprisingly produced the usual: zero Jewish & Israel advocacy or posts about and since 10/7. The always creepy and chilling Silence to all Jewish suffering.)

Yet the comment still bothered me. So I thought I would take a closer look …

Because I think anyone who spends this much time criticizing other people’s political blindness has an obligation to occasionally ask: What if I’m the one who isn’t seeing something?

So I thought about it.

I thought about what I have actually been doing since October 7, and frankly, I have been waving red flags well before, since about the time of the Women’s March. In those years, the complacency was fully and sadly entrenched while antizionists were quietly and effectively growing their movement.

As things were relatively quiet, I could keep my political affiliation without suffering from a (best described as) latent anxiety over it. Time and sensitive-to-the-people politicians, i.e. Democrats, would sort things out, I believe was my thinking. I advocated and voted for Hillary. I voted for Biden. I endorsed Kamala.

It is only in the last year or so that my relationship with the Democratic Party has deteriorated to what feels like a point of no return.

And it is not that I have become a Republican. I registered as Independent. So no, I haven’t become MAGA. Not even close. Donald Trump still does not represent my values and I find his presidential style and choices deeply disturbing at best. In right wing corners, antisemitism and antizionism are hardly absent. I an acutely aware of that too and watching it closely.

Something basic did change for me however: I could not pretend that I don’t see what is happening on the left. So I just got more vocal about it as the dangers and ravages of an antizionist movement started to crystallize.

To the fellow who lodged the useful idiot charge at me:

A “useful idiot” is useful because he doesn’t examine very much. He accepts the narrative supplied by his political tribe and repeats it. He becomes a vehicle for somebody else’s agenda without recognizing that this is what has happened.

We watched as people poured into streets and onto campuses repeating words and slogans about one of the most complicated conflicts on earth. Spouting blood libels while waving signs that promote violence: “From the River to the Sea” “Resistance by Any Means” and “Globalize the Intifada” among others.

Some of the people using those words know exactly what they mean. Some have studied this conflict extensively and have reached conclusions profoundly different from mine. I can disagree with them without pretending they are ignorant although their circuitous arguments and Holocaust inversion does leave me scratching my head about how they got their degrees. The degree of intellectual dishonesty around this topic has been nothing short of astounding.

There are also enormous numbers of people who have absorbed a handful of slogans from social media and their political communities and repeat them with passionate certainty.

We have witnessed our own advocates pose basic questions to them about the history, geography, previous peace negotiations, Hamas, October 7, or the meaning and history of some of the phrases being shouted, only to be met with remarkably dim-witted answers or blank stares, or both.

And yet I’m the useful idiot?

Ok. So if I am going to ask it of myself, everyone else should be willing to ask it too.

Am I overlooking or downplaying things on the right because I am frightened by what I see happening on the left. Those are fair questions. Here’s another one:

Are people who spent decades warning about right-wing extremism now minimizing extremism on the left because acknowledging it would require them to reconsider their own political alliances?

And another:

When prominent Democrats embrace candidates and movements whose rhetoric about Israel and Zionists many Jews experience as threatening, am I obligated to keep voting for those Democrats because the alternative might be worse?

At what point does “the other side is worse” become its own kind of political obedience game?

I don’t have every answer. But I do know that I don’t want to replace “vote blue no matter who” with “vote red no matter who.” I will not allow Jew hatred on the right to disappear from my field of vision because Jew hatred on the left has become more frightening to me. Donald Trump and his flirtation with fascism is still not acceptable simply because Democrats have disappointed me. Ultimately, I hope not to be put in some horrible position of considering MAGA candidates who, say, reject reproductive choice and sensible gun violence prevention laws but who support Israel, against Democrat Socialists who could potentially & simultaneously whittle away at or altogether erase the safety net for Jews at home while threatening Israel’s very right to exist and hastening new terrorism.

So perhaps the best defense against becoming anyone’s ‘useful idiot’ is not choosing the ‘correct’ political tribe.

It’s refusing to place all my hopes and dreams so fully into one party that I stop seeing what is directly in front of me.

The right does not get a pass from me. Neither does the left.

I don’t feel any of that makes me a useful idiot but feel free to hurl your insult at me as much as you wish.

The End.

Hope that’s useful.

I remain in shock at the degree of betrayal.

I am no fan of Trump or MAGA. I still hold many of the values that kept me a Democrat for most of my life.

But I now view the DSA agenda of demonizing Zionists — translating for the perpetually clueless: that means most Jews — and vilifying those who stand with us as a far more immediate threat.

This movement is not merely criticizing Israel. It is helping create an environment in which Jews and our non Jewish allies are increasingly treated as suspect, unwelcome, and legitimate targets of hostility AND violence simply because we believe Israel has a right to exist.

Jews are in a fight for our lives.

We need to start acting — and voting — accordingly.

So what’s the problem, their supporters ask?

Here’s the problem.

It has become increasingly common for antizionists to condemn antisemitism. But it is a selective condemnation … The real question is whether they recognize how antizionist rhetoric and activism can fuel hostility toward Jews — and whether they dismiss Jewish concerns when those concerns become politically inconvenient.

If a candidate repeatedly accuses Israel of genocide, embraces many of the movement’s core narratives, aligns with some of its most strident voices, and then ALSO condemns antisemitism, that doesn’t really tell us a whole lot.

Jewish constituents who hear politicians condemning antisemitism may take comfort in their words. They may believe they are hearing a promise: I see you. I care about you. I will stand up for you. Non Jews who otherwise support the person are all in on hoping that puts that charge to rest.

But they all should resist being pacified and make an honest attempt to look more closely at whom that concern actually includes.

Does it extend to Jews who do not share the candidate’s views on Israel and Zionism? To the many Jews who identify strongly with Israel? To Jews who reject the genocide accusation?

How about to Jews who believe that some of the very rhetoric the candidate embraces is contributing to the hostility and fear they are experiencing?

Caring about Jews cannot mean caring only about Jews who hold the “right” views about Israel.

Condemning antisemitism is important. But it is not, by itself, the test.

The test is whether you will stand up for Jews when their concerns collide with your own politics including when doing so requires you to question the rhetoric, people and movements you have chosen to embrace.

To date, we are seeing quite the opposite.

A fellow writer said something very much like that to me recently. I understood the frustration behind the remark.

When you spend time thinking, editing, and carefully choosing your words, only to be met by silence, it’s easy to wonder whether you’re simply spinning your wheels. It’s easy to conclude that the only people reading are the ones who already agree with you. I suspect every writer has felt that at one time or another.

It doesn’t help that we live in a world increasingly driven by slogans, memes, fifteen-second videos, and headlines stripped of context. Complex subjects compete with content designed to be consumed in seconds. Social media seems to reward speed and brevity. That can leave anyone who writes thoughtfully wondering whether depth still has a place.

I think it does.

The truth is, none of us really knows what happens after we hit “publish.” We don’t know whose mind we might change, when it might happen, or whether an essay disappears by tomorrow morning or stays with someone for months.

I know this because I’ve been that reader myself.

I read posts and comments from people with whom I strongly disagree. Most don’t change my mind. But every so often, a sentence catches me. A fact sends me searching. A perspective causes me to reconsider something I thought I had settled. I rarely announce those moments. I simply carry the thought with me.

That has made me wonder how many silent readers there are for all of us. They’re the people who never click “Like,” never leave a comment, yet may quietly bookmark an essay or return to an idea weeks or months later.

Real persuasion rarely happens in a single moment. More often, it builds over time through conversations, articles, books, essays, and thoughtful exchanges that slowly accumulate. No single piece of writing can explain decades of history, untangle a complicated conflict, or undo years of misinformation. But neither can a slogan. Understanding almost anything worthwhile takes time. So does changing a mind.

A neighbor/friend once sent me a message that my posts were too long for FB, that people don’t have the patience. Yet what I see online tells a different story. There are innumerable examples of longer form writing that are shared widely too.

Brevity, in my opinion, can be overrated. It can leave you hungry for more. A ‘fast’ message can be more easily misinterpreted because it leaves out nuance. That’s where we come in.

There’s another thought I’ve had.

Even if some of our writing reaches people who already agree with us, is that really such a bad thing?

Communities need encouragement too. Allies need information. People carrying the same burdens need reminders that they aren’t carrying them alone. Not every piece of writing has to persuade or be Pulitzer worthy. Sometimes its purpose is simply to steady someone.

We’ve also been taught to think that “preaching to the choir” is a failure. Nope. To the contrary, it bears all the attributes of a gift.

If our words educate someone new, wonderful. If they encourage someone who was already standing beside us but needed a little reassurance, that’s valuable too. In fact, sometimes I write with a single person in mind. Because something he or she said has weighed on me and I want to explore it in greater depth. Like now.

Communities aren’t built by persuasion alone. They’re also built by reminding one another why we showed up in the first place.

So if you’ve ever been told you’re preaching to the choir, I hope you keep writing anyway.

You may be changing a mind. You may be strengthening a friend. Or you may simply be helping one silent reader feel a little less alone.

To me, that’s reason enough to keep going.

They did not endure the unendurable so that I would be told to stay quiet, to be patient, to wait my turn to be heard while hatred keeps gathering strength again in plain sight.

I’ve tried reason and patience. I’ve tried extending the benefit of the doubt. But nothing I say seems to be enough.

So I’m taking off the gentler gloves.

I see the gaslighting. I see the omissions whenever Jew-hatred is discussed. I see the double standards and the suspicion that so many still reserve for Jews — and especially for Jews who refuse to apologize for existing or for standing up for themselves.

I see the smugness too.

History has taught my family something that too many people still refuse to learn: hatred rarely announces itself all at once. It climbs. It tests boundaries and it waits to see what decent people will tolerate. Once one group of Jews becomes acceptable to despise, the category expands. It always has.

To those who call themselves friends while excusing terrorist supporters, remaining silent, repeating libels and twisting themselves into pretzels to rationalize antisemitism… your silence was never neutrality. And selective empathy is not justice.

In some ways, I have more respect for people who state their hostility openly than for those who disguise it behind fashionable slogans, euphemisms, and endless rationalization of the irrational. At least honesty allows everyone to see what we are dealing with.

Antisemitism has always depended on people looking away, explaining it away, or convincing themselves it isn’t really happening.

I’m done pretending not to notice.

I am a Jewish woman still in mourning.

Stop talking over Jews!

Believe Jewish women, too, G-d damn it!

The playbook isn’t complicated. History’s victims have not only been Jews of course. But in the case of Jew-hatred and hatred of Israel, the pattern can be remarkably easy to recognize.

Stage 1: Turn a minority into the villain. Repeat the accusations often enough so that suspicion begins to sound like and feel like common sense. As in the targeting of “Zionists” today. In many ways described widely at this point, New York City appears to be well into this stage.

Stage 2: Exploit — or manufacture — a crisis to justify extraordinary measures. Kristallnacht, for example, followed the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath, a crime the Nazi regime exploited as the pretext for a nationwide pogrom against Jews. This is in no way a direct comparison but I do worry Mamdani threatening to arrest Netanyahu smacks of “crisis manufacturing” — it can trigger a showdown and turn violent.

Stage 3: Once the public tolerates one outrage, escalate. Each act that goes unanswered makes the next one easier to justify. After October 7, Yahya Sinwar, encouraged by the celebration of the massacre among Hamas supporters and others, vowed to repeat it again and again. Thanks to the IDF allying with the U.S., more evil intentions were thwarted… for now, at least. They have not and may never be fully erased.

History doesn’t repeat itself in exactly the same way.

But decent people — and principled leaders — can interrupt the pattern.

They can refuse to accept the scapegoat. They can explicitly condemn scapegoat tactics to their constituents. They can also condemn discrimination and worse early and often — not after or only if it becomes politically convenient.

The true measure of a just society is not how it treats its majority, but whether it has the courage to protect its minorities before it is too late.

Today’s betrayal of Jewish communities also raise a troubling question: if regimes like Nazi Germany had been more successful at influencing foreign societies — through propaganda, infiltration, or financial leverage — could they have shifted public opinion enough to change the course of history?

Food for thought but also a window into what a difficult situation we find ourselves in today.

During my years as a local publisher, I didn’t hide my politics. I first arrived on my Facebook page supporting Occupy Wall Street. I covered local DEI initiatives and made them a cover story. I attended and reported on rallies against gun violence, events to protect reproductive choice, etc. Basically, I expressed solidarity with progressive causes.

So if you had told me then that I’d be writing with profound concerns about a self-described democratic socialist promising affordability and housing, I’d have told you I had a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

Only now, I’d probably tuck my Magen David into my shirt before walking across it.

That’s the part too many people still refuse to grapple with.

This isn’t really about affordable housing or about public transit. It isn’t even about democratic socialism.

It is about what many Jews have witnessed over the nearly three years since October 7: an explosion of antisemitism — and an antizionist movement that acts as a vehicle toward anti-Jewish hate.

This is no longer merely a battle of slogans or rhetoric. Across campuses, city streets, synagogues, businesses, and public spaces, too many Jews have experienced harassment, intimidation, threats, vandalism, and violence simply for being Jewish or for being perceived as Zionists.

Against that backdrop comes a mayor whose record and rhetoric have done little to reassure us.

This is a man who has repeatedly declined to unequivocally condemn calls to “globalize the intifada” — a phrase that many Jews do not hear as abstract political speech. We hear it as a slogan associated with violence against Jews and Israelis. Because that’s what it is! If you genuinely want to understand why so many Jews and our allies are terrified, maybe start there?

So no, many Jews are not reassured simply because he says he condemns antisemitism.

We are looking for moral clarity.

We are looking for leaders who recognize that antizionist rhetoric has too often translated into real-world hostility toward Jewish people, who understand why chants glorifying intifada are terrifying, and who are willing to say so without hesitation.

Anyone who genuinely wants to understand why Mayor Mamdani’s rise has sent ripples of fear through New York’s Jewish community — and far beyond New York — has to stop dismissing those fears as overreaction or partisan politics. Many of us don’t fit neatly into little red boxes. We come with concerns from across the political spectrum.

You do not have to agree with every criticism of Mayor Mamdani to understand why fear exists.

Empathy begins by asking why people are afraid, not by explaining why they shouldn’t be.

History shows that during periods of economic hardship — such as high unemployment, inflation, housing crises, and financial instability — societies often start looking for someone to blame.

But the warning signs go beyond economics. They appear when influential voices begin framing Jews— or any minority — as responsible for society’s problems, and when that rhetoric becomes normalized instead of challenged.

Today, in too many places, it appears those spears are once again being aimed at Jews.

When it comes to the scapegoating of Jews in particular, historians say to watch for more than economic indicators. Pay close attention to how it unfolds:

• Rising conspiracy theories and libels. I believe much of today’s hate-filled antizionist rhetoric has become the main vehicle for recycling ancient myths in modern forms.

• Dehumanizing language. I have shared the vile messages Jews receive simply for being Jewish or for supporting Israel’s existence. They are intended to intimidate.

• Exclusion from civic life. As I work on my grandfather’s Holocaust memoir, I was recently told by a prominent editor that, because of the current publishing climate, I may have difficulty finding a publisher. Whether or not that prediction proves true, it made me intensely sad. A story that should be judged on its historical and literary merit now seems likely to be judged, and possibly thrown out, at least in part, through the lens of today’s politics.

• The normalization of discrimination and harassment… and worse. Enough said. It is daily and increasingly commonplace.

• Leaders who benefit politically by directing public anger toward a minority. Party affiliation is no safeguard against this.

So what can we do?

• Speak out against misinformation and conspiracy theories whenever we encounter them.

• Challenge dehumanizing language and stereotypes whenever we encounter them.

• Stay informed, ask hard questions, and keep encouraging critical thinking.

• Hold leaders accountable when they exploit fear or prejudice for political gain.

History does not repeat itself exactly. But it does leave warning signs.

The question is whether we will recognize them in time — and whether we will have the courage to respond before they become something far worse.

For 22 years as a local publisher, I didn’t just cover community events — I was often part of them. Some were historic moments in the storied towns I served. Being public came naturally to me, and I loved it.

After October 7, I made a different choice.

I chose to speak up for Jews and for Israel, devastated by the massacre and the ongoing hostage nightmare. At the same time, I chose to say no — to antisemitism, to antizionism, to the hatred spreading here at home.

Not long after selling my company in early 2025, I found myself doing something I never expected:

I deliberately began making myself smaller.

No recent photographs. No videos. Just words.

I’ve declined invitations to appear on several podcasts. I considered starting one of my own, then decided against it. I convinced myself that perhaps words on social media pages, via a Substack column, Facebook and Instagram; and so almost entirely self published, were enough — that I could quietly do my part, refuse to be silent, and leave it at that.

What I never anticipated was the community that would begin to form around those words.

It has been comforting to discover that I’m not alone in trying to make sense of this madness. As the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, I find myself catching unsettling glimpses of how ordinary societies can begin sliding toward something much darker.

At the same time, I’ve been immersed in my family’s Holocaust memoir, spending countless hours with the voices and experiences of those who lived through history’s worst catastrophe.

Those two journeys have changed me.

I am not the same person I was before I began to understand the nature of the antizionist movement and the role I believe it is playing in fueling hatred against Jews today.

Yesterday, I shared one particularly vile comment directed at me.

It was hardly unique. I’ve received others, both publicly and privately. Every single Jewish advocate with any platform size at all has been on the receiving end of such comments which are not being addressed adequately by Meta and the site owners. They are rampant. That needs to change.

Meanwhile each message is instructive as to where we are and reinforces the same conclusion.

Taking precautions isn’t hysteria. It’s common sense. And only you can decide what that looks like for you.

Let’s be clear though: The people spreading this hatred are normalizing the idea that Jews — and Zionists in particular — deserve contempt, exclusion, and eventually worse.

History teaches us that violence rarely appears out of nowhere. It is prepared for. Rationalized. Normalized. Then, one day, it arrives.

I feel sadness over the adjustments I’ve made to my own life. I resent that they feel necessary. And on some level, I know they may not ultimately protect me anyway.

That’s the part I find hardest to accept.

But while I lay low, I still keep my head held high.

I had posted about leftists being on a campaign to shut down dissent (shocker!) and labeling anyone identifying as an Independent or a centrist “MAGA Lite.”

That weighs heavily on my heart… not. (Though I have to admit, MAGA Lite would make a great name for a diet soda.)

Jokes aside, if your objective is to pull the Democratic Party dramatically to the left, Republicans aren’t your greatest obstacle. They were never going to vote with you anyway. The real obstacle is the Democrat who still believes in the political center, because persuade — or intimidate — that person, and you’ve changed the party itself. That helps explain why these intraparty battles have become so relentlessly vicious.

What concerns me even more is how this connects to another possibility. I wonder whether some progressives privately recognize that antisemitism has become a serious problem within parts of their coalition but have convinced themselves it’s a problem that can wait. First win. First gain power. First enact the agenda. The rest, they assume, will work itself out.

That assumption is the fantasy at the heart of all of this — the belief that you can defer confronting something corrosive and still expect it to remain contained, that power will somehow purify after you were unwilling to challenge it on the way to obtaining it.

History offers remarkably little support for that assumption.

Again and again, people have persuaded themselves that confronting hatred could be postponed because larger political goals demanded unity. They convinced themselves the prejudice was temporary, exaggerated, or simply the unfortunate byproduct of an otherwise righteous cause. It was always something to be dealt with later.

Later has a habit of never arriving.

Whether under Stalin, during the long struggle against segregation, or in countless other movements across history, prejudice endured because too many people who recognized it chose not to make it the fight that mattered most. Every generation seems to create its own version of the same comforting illusion: once we’ve won, once we’re in power, once society is finally fairer — then we’ll deal with the extremists.

But hatred rarely waits patiently for a more convenient time.

It grows while decent people reassure themselves that someone else will eventually confront it. It spreads while moral compromises are explained away as political necessities. And by the time many people finally acknowledge the danger, it has already become far more difficult to contain.

Maybe I’m wrong, and I genuinely hope I am. But history has left me deeply skeptical of political movements that ask us to postpone moral clarity until after victory.

Because political fantasies don’t merely lose elections.

Sometimes they cost lives.

Respectfully, do you really think lifelong Democrats don’t already know what’s at stake? We do. We are weighing our choices now, and they are unbearably heavy on both sides.

Meanwhile, rather than confronting why so many Jews — and countless non-Jewish allies — are alarmed and frightened to our core, and why so many lifelong Democratic supporters have lost or are losing confidence, many people are expending enormous energy making increasingly convoluted arguments for why we should stay put.

Let me be clear. We know exactly why we became Democrats in the first place and where our values have always been. We have not abandoned those values. But many of us are now placing greater weight on safety and security because, under the circumstances, we believe that is the rational thing to do.

If making the case requires such intellectual gymnastics to explain away what we’ve been experiencing over the past several years, perhaps that is the real signal that something is terribly wrong. Address the signal — not the eyes and ears receiving it.

The problem isn’t that concerned Jews and many of the non-Jews standing beside us have suddenly changed.

In fact, many of us are grieving these changes and the predicament they have created.

The problem is not us.

The problem is that too many people refuse to honestly confront the outright cruelty toward Israel— and the dangerous impact that is having on Jews here and around the world — within parts of their own political coalition.

Until that happens, no amount of guilt, fearmongering, or public and private shaming is going to win us back.

Nor is it surprising that they are following a familiar historical pattern.

History teaches us that when societies become consumed with blaming and persecuting Jews, they are often avoiding far more difficult questions about their own failures.

During the Black Death, Jews were falsely accused of poisoning wells rather than confronting the reality of a devastating pandemic. In Weimar Germany, Jews were blamed for military defeat, economic collapse, and national humiliation instead of failed leadership and political instability. Under Stalin, fabricated conspiracies about Jewish doctors helped divert public attention while consolidating authoritarian power.

Time and again, Jews became the convenient explanation for problems they neither created nor controlled.

Today, the language has changed, but the pattern is recognizable.

Israel is routinely portrayed by antizionists — and by those who enable or amplify those narratives — as genocidal, colonialist, and an apartheid state. These accusations are often presented as settled fact, accompanied by an outright refusal to grapple with history, context, or complexity. There is active maligning and ostracizing of all those who disagree. It is propaganda masquerading as moral certainty and it is all a means to an end. Ours.

At the same time, Jews around the world increasingly find themselves expected to answer for the actions of the country that is its indisputable homeland in ways no other diaspora community has been. Many have been harassed, excluded, threatened, or attacked — not because of anything they have done, but because they are Jewish or because they are presumed to support Israel.

History teaches us to pay attention when a society becomes fixated on a single people as the embodiment of its moral outrage.

Scapegoats are seductive. They simplify complicated problems. They redirect anger away from rising extremism, failed leadership, corruption, ideological intolerance, economic anxiety, and the difficult work of confronting a society’s own shortcomings.

The spotlight belongs where it always should: on the real problems and on those who benefit from keeping the public focused on a convenient scapegoat instead.

History has shown us where the other path leads. It has never ended well for the Jews. We know that.

But it also has not ended well for the societies that chose them as the scapegoat.

I agreed then. I still do. I shared their outrage.

So why, when it comes to antisemitism, antizionism, and the rise of Islamist extremism, did “both sides have a point” become the preferred response?

Yes, innocent Palestinians deserve peace, dignity, freedom, and hope.

Yes, innocent Israelis deserve exactly the same.

That has never been the issue.

The issue is whether we are willing to distinguish between those who seek peace and coexistence and those who glorify terrorism, celebrate the murder of civilians, and subject not only Jews, but anyone who rejects their worldview, to an ideological or religious purity test.

One vision imagines Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace — if only the ugly vitriol, incitement, and promises of more violence would stop.

Since October 7, many who once believed that vision was within reach have come to question whether it is possible without a profound transformation in the ideology, leadership, and behavior that continue to glorify terror and reject coexistence.

The other side has too often elevated, excused, or remained silent about Islamist movements whose stated objective is not coexistence, but the destruction of Israel and the elimination of those they deem illegitimate.

There is no moral equivalence between defending a democratic society — even one whose policies can and should be debated — and celebrating or excusing an ideology that glorifies terrorism and the murder of civilians.

This is not about choosing between Israelis and Palestinians.

It is about choosing between pluralism and fanaticism. Between democracy and Islamist extremism. Between those striving for peace and those who reject peace unless everyone submits to their ideological or religious purity test.

History teaches that neutrality in the face of extremism is rarely neutral at all.

Sometimes “both-siding” an issue is simply a way of avoiding the harder moral choice.

Moral clarity is not bigotry.

It is the willingness to say that some ideas are incompatible with a free and humane society — and to say so consistently and unequivocally.

Still, the results felt significant.

Several candidates backed by the Democratic Socialist movement scored notable victories, suggesting that a growing number of Democratic voters are willing to overlook concerns that many Jews regard as existential.

There were encouraging exceptions. Cait Conley’s victory in the 17th Congressional District offered a reminder that another path still exists. In that race, voters chose among candidates who all expressed strong support for Israel. Congressman Ritchie Torres, one of Israel’s strongest Democratic supporters of Israel, also prevailed in his primary, as did New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, whose record of standing with the Jewish community spans many years. Their victories remind us that principled allies still exist within the Democratic Party.

But what struck me this morning was something larger than any individual race.

For several years, Jews have been trying to explain what we are seeing: the normalization of antisemitism, the demonization of Zionism, the harassment of Jewish students, the targeting of Jewish institutions, and the growing social acceptability of rhetoric that would be unthinkable if directed at almost any other minority group.

Instead of listening, much of society has looked away.

Remember the outrage over Melania Trump’s jacket?

“I Really Don’t Care. Do U?”

The reason it provoked such outrage was that people believed it communicated indifference toward a vulnerable group.

With a painful glimpse at yesterday’s results, I could not help thinking about that jacket.

Not because the candidates literally share that sentiment.

But because after years of pleading to be heard, many Jews are receiving what feels like the political equivalent of exactly that message:

“Go away. We have other priorities.”

I hear some friends say: “I like Mamdani.” Perhaps they do. But liking someone is not an answer to the concerns being raised about him.

Admiration has never required blindness. The question is not whether you like a politician. It is whether you have taken the time to understand why so many Jews are alarmed.

And increasingly, I am forced to wonder whether many people simply do not care.

Not enough to ask, or listen… and reconsider. Not enough to apply the same fierceness and passion to addressing Jewish concerns that I observe for other marginalized groups.

Yet if you are a Jew with your eyes open, antisemitism disguised as antizionism is no longer theoretical. The harassment, intimidation, vandalism, assaults, murders and social ostracism are already here.

What many Jews fear is not today’s reality. It is tomorrow’s.

Bottom line: Jewish concerns are losing political relevance in circles where they once were afforded respect.

When respect is lost — such as what we witnessed happen at the Poetica Cafe to Dan Goldman… and Mamdani’s lukewarm response — trouble brews loudly and that should alarm everyone.

Jews don’t worry in large numbers for no reason. We have not become politically orphaned for no reason. We carry a long memory and have seen what happens when warning signs are dismissed, when hatred is excused as activism, when threats are minimized, and when those sounding the alarm are mocked as hysterical.

The question nagging me too is not whether New York changed yesterday because it clearly did.

The question is whether New York is an outlier — or a preview.

If it is a preview, then what happened yesterday will not remain confined to New York.

And if that proves true, many of the people dismissing Jewish concerns today will one day insist nobody warned them.

The tragedy is that we already are.

It is a question I have been pondering for some time.

There has been no shortage of criticism directed at Israeli public relations. I’ve heard repeatedly that Israel simply does a poor job of telling its story.

Perhaps. But I sometimes wonder if the problem runs deeper than that.

Israel often highlights its contributions to the world— its innovations, medical breakthroughs, humanitarian aid, scientific achievements, and democratic institutions.

For a long time, while that message invoked a sense of personal pride, I struggled to understand why it also stirred anxiety. After all, these accomplishments are real and worthy of recognition. They are achievements of which any people would be proud.

Then I realized my unease had less to do with Israel’s successes than with a lesson history has taught repeatedly: success does not always inspire admiration. Sometimes it inspires resentment.

History offers a sobering lesson. Jewish success has rarely insulated Jews from hatred. Often, it has intensified it.

Indeed one of the more troubling aspects of prejudice is that it is not always fueled by fear. Sometimes it is fueled by resentment.

There is another question that has been haunting me: How do ordinary people come to believe they are morally entitled to usurp what another people have built, and how do they expect to live with themselves with the prospect of tearing down what others spent generations creating?

The answer, I suspect, is that they rarely see themselves as destroyers. Before people can tear down what another people have built, they must first convince themselves that those people never truly deserved it in the first place.

They tell themselves stories — that the success was unfair, that the prosperity was illegitimate, that the achievement came at someone else’s expense, and that the people who built it are somehow less deserving.

Only then can taking something away begin to feel like justice. Only then can resentment masquerade as morality.

This is how resentment evolves into something far more dangerous. Once people become convinced that another group’s success is undeserved, cruelty no longer feels cruel.

It feels righteous.

And acting on it through vicious rhetoric and inevitable cruelty and violence can even feel euphoric — a phenomenon that is the most troubling of all.

The downfall of the resented becomes a source of pleasure. Their humiliation feels deserved. Their suffering becomes evidence that justice has finally been served.

Not everyone is susceptible to this of course.

Many people are capable of celebrating the accomplishments of others, even when those accomplishments evoke feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, or envy. They resist the temptation to diminish what they did not build.

But enough people for reasons worth exploring by mental health professionals further succumb to that temptation so much that history has repeatedly been shaped by it.

That is what makes it worth examining.

I once watched a dramatization of Nazi-era Germany in which a group of women excitedly compared the furs, jewelry, and luxury goods confiscated from Jewish families. What struck me was not merely the theft. It was their giddiness and pleasure discussing the human suffering that accompanied the pillage.

The victims had been so thoroughly dehumanized that their possessions no longer seemed stolen. They felt deserved.

That scene has stayed with me because it captured something unsettling about human nature.

Hatred creates moral permission. It allows people to convince themselves that humiliation is righteousness, that hurting others is fairness, and that cruelty is virtue, something deserving of celebration. Much like the candies passed out post 9-11 and again post 10-7.

The Good News

Resentment and envy may have a long and ugly history. But so does Jewish survival.

For generations, those who have insisted that whatever Jews built was undeserved, and that their future was temporary, turned out to be wrong. Dead wrong.

We are still here.

So is Israel.

Strange as it sounds, to me they seem like the most useful analogy for understanding some of today’s dynamics.

Not because I believe we are literally reliving Salem or even medieval Europe, but because I keep returning to a troubling question: If mass hysteria was possible then, what happens when the same human instincts collide with social media?

We often comfort ourselves by imagining that people centuries ago were uniquely susceptible to irrational fears. They lacked modern education. They lacked access to information. They lived in a world shaped by rumor, superstition, and limited communication.

But human nature has apparently not changed nearly as much as we would like to believe.

The same species that once became convinced that women were consorting with the devil now spends its days consuming an endless stream of emotionally charged content curated by algorithms designed to maximize engagement.

The technology is new. The human beings and our deeply wired impulses, our unmistakable impressionability buttons, are not.

But the antizionist obsession with Israel is just criticism, right?

“Every nation should be subject to criticism.” That is a line so many of us have felt strangely compelled to repeat again and again — but only when the conversation turns to Israel.

Which is perhaps the first clue that criticism is not really the core issue at all. The issue is fixation. It is the singular focus. It is the raw hate residing inside it all disguised as criticism.

Many of us have spent the past 20 months trying to warn that Israel occupies an outsized space in the public imagination while countless other conflicts, atrocities, and human rights abuses barely register. We point out that people who cannot locate Israel on a map often speak about it with absolute certainty. Meanwhile, accusations spread with astonishing speed and are repeated thousands of times before anyone pauses to ask whether they are true.

During the witch hunts, people became consumed by a narrative. Once enough people accepted it, evidence became secondary. Doubt itself became suspicious. The pressure to conform became stronger than the impulse to question.

The frightening thing about mass hysteria is that it never feels like hysteria to the people caught up in it.

It feels like moral clarity.

If someone is convinced that witches are real and pose an existential threat, extraordinary measures begin to feel justified. If someone is convinced that Israel is uniquely evil, guilty of every imaginable crime, and responsible for the world’s suffering, extraordinary conclusions begin to feel justified there too.

The lie comes first. The moral verdict follows.

And once the moral verdict has been rendered, almost anything can be rationalized in its name.

The participants in Salem believed they were exposing evil. They believed they were standing on the side of righteousness. They believed their cause was so self-evidently just that ordinary skepticism no longer applied.

What concerns me is not simply that these dynamics still exist. It is that we have built machines capable of amplifying them on a scale our ancestors could never have imagined.

A lie once traveled by word of mouth. Then by pamphlet. Then by newspaper.

Now it can reach millions of people before breakfast.

The libels of earlier centuries spread from village to village. They took time, but they traveled and reached their intended audiences. Today’s libels spread around the globe in minutes. They are repeated, reposted, algorithmically amplified, and absorbed by people who often have little knowledge of the history, facts, or context surrounding what they are consuming.

If human beings were capable of contagious hysteria centuries ago, why would we assume we are immune today?

In fact, we may be living through the most efficient delivery system for mass hysteria ever created.

That possibility should concern all of us. Not because the target is always the same, but because the mechanism is.

Human vulnerability to that mechanism is what gets tapped.