31 Oct ISRAEL HAS CHANGED FOREVER, HAVE YOU?

While the primary
horrors and atrocities in
Israel occurred on
October 7, the fallout and
aftershocks are
continuing every single
day. Despite Hamas
literally videoing,
promoting, and memorialize their brutal and
heinous attack using all kinds of media, there are
still people questioning the scale and depravity
of the massacre. In response, Israel held a
stunning session for the international press
sharing gruesome images of the atrocity so that
journalists could document in an undeniable
way what happened. Eylon Levy, an Israeli
government spokesman, in a video announcing
the session, said, “As we work to defeat the
terror organization that brutalized our people,
we are witnessing a Holocaust denial-like
phenomenon evolving in real time as people are
casting doubt on the magnitude of the atrocities
that Hamas committed against our people, and
in fact recorded in order to glorify that violence.”
The infiltration, casualties, number of hostages,
relentless barrage of rockets, continuous attacks
from Gaza and from Lebanon are indeed great
reasons for concern, prayers, effort, and support.
The world is coming to learn what Israel has
known for a long time: she is surrounded by
enemies who seek her utter destruction and
annihilation. The infamous Hamas charter,
written in 1988, doesn’t speak of disputed
territory, it reads like the Protocols of the Elders
of Zion and calls for a genocide against Jews.
Hezbollah, Iran and other terror organizations
and individuals in the West Bank and elsewhere
speak of “from the river to the sea,” a non-subtle
euphemism for the destruction of all of Israel.
The last two weeks have seen countless
headlines and analyses of the risks of a ground
invasion, potential implications for the North in
the event of a full-scale war and the possibilities
of other nations like Iran or Syria getting
involved. Indeed, there is so much to worry
about, work on, daven for, and care about.
But, here is the thing. While I daven, advocate,
and lose sleep over the safety and security our
brothers and sisters right now, I am not worried
about the long-term future of Israel. Israel is
incredibly resilient, capable, powerful,
tenacious, fierce, smart, cunning and strong.
Israel will persevere, the IDF will triumph, the
people, though deeply wounded, will bounce
back. These horrific atrocities have brought the
people of Israel together, fostered a united
country and people. (I had the privilege to
represent our shul and our community this week
by bringing supplies, goods, toys, hugs, and love
to IDF soldiers and displaced citizens this week.
I saw with my own eyes resolve, achdus, and
energy the likes of which cannot be believed. I
look forward to sharing more with you about
this trip in the coming days.)
The people of Israel have revealed that
underneath the important, often vociferous
debate, is a nation of profound faith, unity and
conviction. Israel will emerge stronger than
ever.
This week’s Parsha is filled with pesukim and

stories that feel so relevant today: Avraham first
settling in Israel, Hashem promising the land to
Avraham and his descendants, the birth of
Yishmael and the fateful promise about his
future. One of the central highlights is the Bris
Bein Habesarim, the “Covenant of Parts,” in
which Hashem tells Avraham about the destiny
of his descendants: the slavery and suffering
they would endure, and the subsequent
redemption and settlement in Israel. The Torah
describes how Avraham cut up a calf, a ram, and
a goat, but בתר לא הצפור ואת – he did not cut the
turtledove that was part of the covenant. Rashi
explains that Psukim in Tanach compare other
nations to calves, to rams, and to goats, and the
Jewish people are compared to doves. The
animals representing the other nations were cut
up, representing their eventual demise. Why
רֶמֶז שֶׁ י ִּהְיּו י ִשְֹרָאֵל קַי ָּמִין לְעֹולָם ?cut bird the t’wasn
– To symbolize the promise of the Jewish
nation’s everlasting future.
A video clip was circulating this week of an
address given by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
zt”l, whose third yahrtzeit is next week. So
many have expressed how much we miss Rabbi
Sacks at times like these, and it brought such
comfort hearing his voice at an AIPAC policy
conference ten years ago, delivering chizzuk
with remarks that sound like they could have
been given this week:
I have to tell you that what we grew up with,
“never again,” is beginning to sound like “ever
again.” And at the heart of it is hostility to Israel.

Of course, not all criticism of Israel is anti-
Semitic. But make no mistake what has

happened.
In the Middle Ages Jews were hated because of
their religion. In the 19th century and the 20th,
they were hated because of their race. Today,
when it’s no longer done to hate people for their
religion or their race, today they are hated
because of their State. The reason changes, but
the hate stays the same. Anti-Zionism is the new
anti-Semitism. …
Today what is at stake in Israel’s survival is the
future of freedom itself. Because make no
mistake, this will be the defining battle of the
21st century, which will prevail: the will to
power with its violence, terror, missiles, and
bombs; or the will to life with its hospitals,
schools, freedoms, and rights. …
Every time I visit Israel I find among Israelis,
secular or religious, an absolute unswerving
dedication to Moshe Rabbenu’s great command
Uvacharta Bachayim, “Choose life.” Israel is the
sustained defiance of hatred and power in the
name of life because we are the people who
sanctify life. …
Judaism is the defeat of probability by the
power of possibility. And nowhere will you see
the power of possibility more than in the State of
Israel today. Israel has taken a barren land and
made it bloom again. Israel has taken an ancient
language, the language of the Bible, and make it
speak again. Israel has taken the West’s oldest
faith and made it young again. Israel has taken a
shattered nation and make it live again. Friends,
let us not rest until Israel’s light shines
throughout the world, the world’s great symbol
of life and hope.

While we must not stop davening, donating,
supporting and visiting, Israel will ultimately be
ok. The real question is what will happen next
for those Jews living outside of Israel? While
even before October 7, everyone knew about the
enemies surrounding Israel, few of us truly
knew how many enemies were living in our
midst and how, given the opportunity, they
would boldly and brazenly rear their ugly heads
and ideas.
Surely, we thought, taking sides on an issue so
clear and obvious like supporting innocent
civilians, elderly, children and women who were
victims of a series of pogroms and systematic
murders versus associating with and
sympathizing with, or full-on endorsing wicked
and evil terrorists, the choice would be clear.
Even if one was regularly critical of Israel and
supportive of Palestinian statehood, surely it
would be simple to condemn objective atrocities
and express sympathy for butchered civilians
and kidnapped hostages.
Instead, the last two weeks have been an
enormous wakeup call to Jews of the Diaspora.
Ivy League universities, once considered
bastions of intellectualism, centers of
sophistication, capitals of progress and
advancement have abandoned their Jewish

students, failing to protect them from Hamas-
sympathizing fellow students and professors.

Long considered spiritually dangerous for Torah
Jews, college campuses and others are now
literally dangerous physically for those who
proudly identify as Jews or supporters of Israel.
Every day seems to bring new stories that should
shake us all. An Israeli at Columbia got beaten
with a stick. Jewish students at Cooper Union
were locked in a library while a horde of
threatening students, some encouraged by
professors, banged on the doors and windows.
Jews on campuses across the country are being
threatened, harassed, and physically intimidated,
while the academics at these institutions issue
statements about “escalations of violence” at
best or simply casting Hamas’s atrocities as
“resistance” and blaming Israel for everything
that happened on October 7 at worst. One
professor at a prestigious college gave a
horrifying speech, captured on video, in which
he described feeling “exhilarated” watching the
events of October 7 unfold.
The images and videos of pro Hamas rallies in
cities across the US, Europe and around the
world is shocking, jarring, and downright scary.
They have included swastikas and actual calls to
“gas the Jews.” We learned that for some, while
Black Lives Matter and some other forms of
prejudice are so serious and have zero tolerance,
Jewish lives don’t matter and antisemitism is
open for debate, as organizations purportedly
devoted to civil rights and justice were
unashamed to celebrate terrorists who paraglided
into a rave killing 260 innocent people. We
experienced a legacy media that abandoned
journalistic principles and practices, all too
eager to swallow and regurgitate Hamas
propaganda without verification or
substantiation.
We witnessed elected Congresspeople stand
with the perpetrators over the victims and spread

a blood libel falsely accusing Israel of striking a
hospital, actions with real consequences.
Of course, we have also witnessed
extraordinary expressions and demonstrations
of support, from the majority of Congress who
passionately and compassionately stand with
Israel, to President Biden who has demonstrated
enormous support by traveling into a war, asking
for significant funding for Israel and steadfastly
supporting Israel’s right to defend herself, to
zealous advocacy for Israel from many elected
officials, including those who stand to alienate
themselves in their parties and caucuses,
including Congressman Ritchie Torres. We
have seen billionaires withdraw their funding
and their longstanding ties with universities and
institutions that are underserving of them. We
have experienced media who were moved to
tears over what happened in Israel.
Yes, there are reasons to be hopeful and
optimistic but with all the enemies that Israel
faces, the safety, security and rights of the Jews
in the diaspora feel the most vulnerable and
fragile of any point in my lifetime.

Of course, the simple answer to the now-
revealed condition of Jews around the world is

to move to Israel. Certainly, Israel is our
homeland, it is our destiny, and now more than
ever we should recognize it should be part of
each of our final destinations. Even if we don’t
live in Israel now, Aliyah must be a question not
of if, but of when, for all of us.
However, realistically, just as throughout our
history there were multiple centers of Jewish life
and Torah, the likelihood is that the millions of
Jews living in the Diaspora are not picking up
and moving tomorrow. So what will be? How
should we confront the new reality we have
seen? While spiritually and now physically
unsafe, are there consequences of having
universities and college campuses that have no
Jewish students, nobody to advocate for Israel,
no representatives of our people? Is there more
we can do to ensure terrorist sympathizers aren’t
elected to any office in this country? Is
cancelling subscriptions to legacy media that
has a clear bias enough or can more be done to
hold journalists accountable? And perhaps most
importantly, have the rallies and people
despicably tearing down posters of kidnapped
Jews changed our security considerations at our
Shuls, schools and Jewish communities? Do we
continue to trust our outstanding local law
enforcement and intelligence who protect us or
does our sobering new reality demand elevated
security measures for ourselves?
I don’t have answers to these questions, but
they need to be consistently spoken about and
considered. Israel has changed forever, but so
has the world of those who don’t yet live there