America—You’re Letting Your Jews Down | Opinion

This is hard to write. It’s hard to say or even think.

So many of you, our neighbors, have let us down. We are sad, hurt, and even surprised. As religious leaders, we haven’t spoken to you about this in an open and honest way, but we cannot hold our tongues any longer.

Even as Jews gather in significant numbers to our synagogues for the holiest of days on the Jewish calendar, we find ourselves feeling isolated.

We know each other well—or at least, we thought we did. We have stood together so many times before. We have marched together, advocated for one another, supported each other, held each other.

When there was an opportunity to raise our voices for civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ inclusion, we were there.

When there was a need to protect the most vulnerable—through the labor movement, in responding to climate change, around immigration—we were ready, willing and able to help.

We have been raised with the biblical understanding that we are morally obligated to stand not only for ourselves, but for justice everywhere.

Yet, in our greatest hour of need since the Holocaust, we feel like you have let us down and remained silent. Too often, you didn’t stand up against blatant antisemitism. You didn’t correct misinformation and outright lies. You didn’t take the time to find the nuance in an impossibly complicated situation.

We want you to understand how we feel so that—we hope—you will be there for us going forward. We are your allies in the fight for justice and we need you to stand with us now in our just fight.

In our combined 50 years’ experience as congregational rabbis, we have never written such words. We have never felt this way before: alone, dislocated, and deeply hurt.

Within hours of the horrific terrorist attacks on October 7—attacks which targeted not only Jews but also Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Druze—some of you began to justify the murder, rape, torture, and kidnapping as legitimate acts of “resistance” against colonialist oppressors.

Echoing the most spurious blood libels of the past, some of you turned what happened completely upside down. Relying on data supplied by actual terrorists—Hamas and the Gaza Health Ministry which it controls—some of you have accused Israel of war crimes and the ultimate evil: genocide. Some not only questioned Israel’s right to exist but called for its elimination.

Let us be clear: We respect your right to criticize the policies of this or any other Israeli government. We surely have criticized Israel’s government ourselves. But if the only reason you raise your voice is to criticize Israel’s response to these acts of terror without expressing your sympathy and outrage for the more than 100 human beings still languishing in captivity in Gaza and for the more than 1,200 slaughtered that day, what are you really saying?

We share your concerns and heartbreak for the suffering of innocent Gazan civilians, but we place the blame for this suffering squarely on the shoulders of Hamas. If Yihyeh Sinwar were to surrender and release the hostages, the fighting in Gaza would instantaneously come to an end.

Where is the outrage for what so many Jewish college students, including our own children, have had to endure over the past year? Violence on campuses for Jewish students simply expressing their identity; faculty conducting classes inside of the encampments surrounded by signs that say “Globalize the Intifada” with chants of “From the River to the Sea” sounded in the background; overt antisemitism including calls for Jewish students to “go back home to Poland”.

Nearly a year has passed since October 7 but the forces that committed and supported those atrocities are alive and well. Many are funding the hateful propaganda focused against Israel and the broader Jewish community.

As we enter our New Year, during which all Jews are expected to look ourselves in the mirror and strive to be better, we ask you on this anniversary of the atrocity to stand with your Jewish friends, your neighbors, your fellow human-beings who have been there for you again and again.

It’s not too late. We need your support, your empathy, and your friendship.

As we enter this New Year, we implore you to stand with us.

Matthew Gewirtz is Senior Rabbi of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, New Jersey. Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback is Senior Rabbi at Stephen Wise Temple in Los Angeles.

The views expressed in this article are the writers’ own.