Tempering the Good with the Bad 11/13/23

I should title my writing efforts "Blogging in Staccato" since I seem to start and stop in great frequency, abandoning efforts before I've had an opportunity to post. This is due to both outrage (armed "journalists" embedded with Hamas on Oct 7th, waiting for them at the border crossing, then standing by to record atrocities!) and some good old-fashioned positive distraction. I'll begin with the latter, because we could all use a bit of good news these days.

First, there is a beautiful movie called Sheva Brachot, or Seven Blessings, that is the recent winner of 10 Israeli Film Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It is Israel's official entry to the Oscars for Best International Feature Film. Days before their campaign tour was slated to begin, government backing was reallocated directly to military efforts. Aside from helping Israel with critical supply needs in the early days of the war, Tikkun Now's mission is to focus on the antisemitic rot on college campuses and cultural institutions. So, we don't play in the film space and will not donate funds to efforts outside our mission's parameters, but we did offer some human capital. We translated the press kit, organized media coverage and interviews, and helped them secure more appropriate funding sources; though they definitely need more if they're going to truly compete. Let's be clear, Israel is fighting a cultural war as much as a military one. An Oscar would be an undeniable confirmation of the film's artistic merit, but also Israel's greater cultural contribution to the world. This film also happens to debunk common tropes about Israel's struggle with race, class and socio-economic disparities. And we could use a lot more positive coverage like that right now. Israel is getting trounced on the social media platforms and it is hard to surmise how much of this rhetoric occurs in an echo chamber and how much impacts public opinion. I would love to have the federal of state governments conduct a poll about our citizens' beliefs, as opposed to the varying news networks.

Secondly, the visibility from working with Seven Blessings, as well as a well-received political critique I wrote when Moti was in Israel, set Tikkun Now on course for this next relationship. We have partnered with an Israeli network to co-create content for social media, television, and museum and campus exhibits. The goal is to create a common narrative thread that debunks Antisemitic tropes, mostly by following the money trail, and overlaying this storytelling across different sectors of interest. While it's still in the exploratory phase, the team and focus has been determined, as has the abbreviated timeframe. I will be delighted to share teasers and final products with you when they come to fruition. I am certain the headliner and our content will make a splash. 

Much of our pending content will function as a Middle Eastern primer. I'll save that commentary for a later blog. Let's face it: the Israel-Hamas War should come with a vocab list. There are so many nuanced terms being casually employed or misused, that it's dangerous. Words matter: how you say them, when you say them, and to whom you say them. Context has real-life implications. You don't have to be a Jew to feel the tangible climate change. Colonizer: nope, Jews have lived in Israel continually since Biblical times. Zionist: yep, but it simply means that Jews are entitled to a homeland, as are other peoples, nothing more, nothing less. The people who use–or rather, abuse– these words either don't understand their meaning or willingly distort them to create false narratives. 

Whatever their motivation, huge swathes of demonstrators are emboldened by this misinformation. It should be a crime to advocate for Hamas (not Palestinians): the US has long recognized this murderous lot as a terrorist organization. To Jews, these rowdy and increasingly violent marches are akin to watching a pro-al Queda protest immediately 9/11. We are living through a scary historical moment, when the scourge of Antisemitism is more virulent than at any time since the Holocaust. Think about this: the number of Jews in 2023 still does not equal the number of Jews pre-WWII. We're almost there, but our head is not fully above the population waterline; it feels like the hand of fundamentalism is trying to force us back under water. I have dealt with this hate in small doses my whole life, but I have never felt vulnerable until now. Whether it's someone shooting at Jewish schools, hate-filled university takeovers or Jews simply being killed without repercussions, I no longer feel safe. Surely American Jews aren't the only ones who feel this momentum? It is neither shrill nor premature to ponder how far along this trajectory of hate society will travel until Jews leave the US for the "safety" of Israel. Rest assured, Israel will win this war and those demonstrators will not dissipate, rather grow more frustrated and violent. The sneaky and insidious weed of antisemitism has been outed in the US and is not being cut back, rather taking further root. 

I am clearly not alone in this sentiment: the PTA's of the Jewish schools in Miami-Dade County have organized gun-training for moms. Dad's are welcome, but that's right, it's for mothers. Most of us have never held a gun, let alone own a firearm, but our schools and synagogues require back-up security in case the first wave of defense is down. Moms are on campus daily, and we need multiple layers of defense, so we're learning how to use the guns locked in school auditoriums or Schul prayer halls, in case there is an attack. Our campus also has weekly Krav Maga classes. From Kinder to High School, including school admin and parents, we're learning how to physically defend ourselves, because that's apparently what Jews have to do now: be on the lookout for physical attacks. 

I think about my dad, living in a self-induced bubble since the end of WWII. That's how he chose to cope: he simply elected not to cope. He refused to revisit the past. He wouldn't think about it, let alone talk about it, and it was never my place to question his survival strategy. My only worry was that something like Alzheimers would force him to relive those horrors, as opposed to dying from old age. This weekend, dad casually told me that he's "taking a breather" from the news, after hearing chants about colonization and how Jews should leave Israel (or be killed). He asked what every Jew asks: leave and go where? To the European countries, despite having lived there for centuries, that confiscated our homes, assets and passports (if we were even allowed one), and were unwelcoming after our release from the camps; the same European countries that Jews are currently leaving for Israel, despite the war? Or, to the Middle Eastern countries, in a great show of apartheid, that expelled one million Jews after the creation of the State of Israel, despite our living there for centuries? Jews have been refugees for millennia and we are done. Israel is not just our native home, it is the backstop for world Jewry. After that, as Golda Meir famously said, we have no where else to go. Talk about motivation. 

Am Yisrael Chai