An October 7th Reflection
It has been three years since October 7, 2023. And how the world has changed.
Three years ago, I apologized to my children. I told them I had been wrong. Monsters actually do exist. What I didn’t understand then was just how brilliant those monsters would prove to be. They murdered, raped and kidnapped Jews, and somehow managed to convince much of the world that they were the victims and the Jews were the aggressors.
The youngest victim of October 7 was not even born when she was attacked. Naama Abu Rashed, a Bedouin-Israeli baby, was shot while still in her mother’s womb. Doctors delivered her alive, but she died 14 hours later. Nine-month-old Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel were kidnapped alive from their home in Nir Oz. Israeli authorities later concluded that both boys were murdered in captivity.
A baby and a toddler. And somehow, three years later, they say we are the monsters.
About two months ago, I was asked to write about online antisemitism and how it affects Jewish-owned businesses. I had the privilege of interviewing Jewish business owners and comparing stories about Jew hatred. What struck me most was how casually it appears.
I remember reading a thread in Chowdown Cincinnati, a local foodie group. Someone asked where to get good baklava. Two Jewish-owned restaurants were recommended. The replies came quickly: “Owners are Zionists.” “Owners served in the IOF,” using “Israeli Occupying Forces” instead of Israel Defense Forces. “Owners support genocide.”
It was a conversation about baklava. I thought about my own business. We eventually had to turn off commenting on some of our social media because posts about Krav Maga would inevitably attract some version of: “Don’t train here. They teach you to kill innocent children.”
Apparently, we can’t even make baklava or teach self-defense without people losing their minds over Jews and Israel.
But there is another part of this that I am frankly tired of. How often are Jews, especially online, practically forced to begin an opinion by first establishing where we disagree with Israel? Before our opinion can even be considered remotely valid, we are expected to offer some criticism of the Israeli government, condemn some policy or assure everyone that we are not one of those Zionists.
Why should a Jew have to criticize Israel as the admission price for being heard? Why should I have to establish my moral credibility by first telling you what Israel does wrong? No other community is routinely expected to begin a conversation by publicly distancing itself from another part of its own people.
And frankly, I am tired of doing it. I am a Zionist. I am connected to Israel. I lived there. I served there. I love Israel. None of that requires an apology, a disclaimer or a qualifying statement before my opinion deserves to be heard. Jewish connection to Israel is not some embarrassing association that we need to minimize in order to make ourselves acceptable.
That is precisely why the baklava story matters. The problem is not that these Jewish business owners were associated with Israel. The problem is the belief that being associated with Israel makes a Jewish business worthy of condemnation in the first place.
Monsters do exist. The frightening part is that many of them have absolutely no idea they have become monsters.
We often ask how ordinary Germans allowed the Holocaust to happen. We look at photographs and newspapers from the 1930s and wonder how people could read those words, nod along and still consider themselves decent human beings. But hatred did not begin with Auschwitz. It began by convincing ordinary people that Jews were uniquely evil, collectively guilty and responsible for the suffering around them.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if you took today’s news commentary and social media posts, translated them into German and printed them on yellowed newspaper. How much would you really have to change before someone could no longer tell whether the words were written in 1939 or 2026? Whether the author was a Nazi propagandist or a modern commentator? A far-right white supremacist or a far-left political activist?
“The Jews control this” becomes “the Zionists control this.” “Don’t buy from Jews” becomes “don’t buy from Zionists.” Jews are once again accused of controlling governments and the media, possessing divided loyalties and being collectively responsible for whatever crime the world has decided to assign us.
The vocabulary changes. The obsession does not.
“Zionist” has become the perfect word for making old-fashioned Jew hatred sound socially acceptable. Say “Jew” and people might recognize what you are doing. Say “Zionist” and suddenly Jewish restaurants can be boycotted, Jewish students can be harassed, Jewish organizations can be excluded and Jews can be told they are unwelcome, all while everyone involved insists this has absolutely nothing to do with antisemitism.
Three years after October 7, the people who raped teenagers at a music festival, murdered families in their homes, kidnapped a nine-month-old baby and a four-year-old toddler, and dragged Jews into Gaza somehow became the victims in much of the world’s telling of the story.
Meanwhile, Jews are once again being told that there is an acceptable kind of Jew and an unacceptable kind. The acceptable Jew condemns Israel on demand, distances himself from Zionism and makes everyone else comfortable.
The unacceptable Jew refuses. I refuse.
I will not apologize for believing Jews have the right to self-determination in our ancestral homeland. I will not begin every conversation by listing Israel’s faults so that someone else can decide whether I have earned the right to speak. And I will not pretend that replacing the word “Jew” with “Zionist” magically transforms hatred into social justice.
That is perhaps the most disturbing lesson of the last three years. The monsters are not always hiding in the shadows. Sometimes they are standing in the light, speaking the language of justice, applauding themselves for their compassion and demanding that Jews prove we are the right kind of Jews before we are worthy of being heard.
When they are finished demanding our disclaimers, our apologies and our silence, they will still call themselves the good people. That is how hatred survives. Not by convincing people that hatred is good, but by convincing them that their hatred is virtue.
So what do I tell my children now? I tell them to be proud. I tell them about their people, their culture and their faith. I send them to school wearing their Magen David necklaces. I volunteer to teach their classmates about our holidays and traditions. I teach them to love Israel openly. I will not teach my children that safety depends on making themselves smaller, quieter or more acceptable to people who have already decided they are guilty.
Three years ago, I apologized to my children and told them monsters were real. Three years later, I owe them another lesson: monsters rarely believe they are the monsters. And I owe them one more: never let the monsters convince you to be ashamed of being a Jew.
