Lastly, we Jews must re-recognize what our parents and grandparents told us- that our collective strength lies within Jewish institutions.

Maybe something other than money held you back from donating to Jewish causes last year, or the year before, but right now, in this moment, it's critical to give your time and money to the institutions that keep Jewish life going.

As *one of* the benefits of this can go into the world as Jews and either do good work, or just be visibly Jewish, as being Jewish, or being recognizably Jewish is now a radical act. As such we must do so together, as a group, for our own safety, but also under the banner of our people.

What we can't do is let our existence be a "political issue".

We know what happens when our existence is a political issue.

4/4

@RadicalGraffiti

This "killing children" trope is part of the blood libel trope

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel

If it wasn't, then we would see more talk about the Hamas murder and beheading of children, and even infants.

But this "Child Killers" trope only applied to Jews is a sign of an ancient antisemitic trope, and "spotting it" in the wild is about as "radical" to Jews as a swastika is.

Ultimately though, these are our discussions to have. Threatening a Jew's life, vandalizing their property, shooting their school, or killing someone in LA or Toronto does not change those discussion, other than to remind Jews of just how at risk we are.

In other words, if you're not part of one of the effected communities, then my sincere ask of you is "Don't make it worse." That's all. I'm not asking you not to care. I'm not asking you not to have opinions. I'm not asking you not to get involved. I'm only asking you Don't Make It Worse.

Sympathy and empathy are not zero sum. Neither is love.

Getting involved will make you angry. That's a normal human response. It seeing death and destruction doesn't make you angry, I'm not sure what to tell you. Not making it worse is a loving act.

#DontMakeItWorse

That's all.

5/5

Half the world's Jews live in Israel, and the connection between the Israeli and diasporatic communities is always dynamic.

Ultimately, though, that is a discussion that Jews will have to have within ourselves. It is not the role of outsiders to impose their will on us, either as a people or individually.

We have a very difficult set of situations to navigate- the largest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, an ongoing set of rocket attacks in Israel, an ongoing hostage crisis, the fragility of Jewish life in Israel, the already high and rising risk of both institutional and physical violence in the diaspora, a right-wing government in Israel that does not reflect most diasporatic Jews values (probably not most Israeli's either), and the very real situation of both destruction and death in Gaza, and the rising levels of Islamophobia in the West.

4/