On March 12th, 2026, a terrorist drove his explosive-filled car into Temple Israel, one of the largest Reform congregations in the United States, located in West Bloomfield, Michigan, a Detroit suburb. Thanks to the quick action of the temple’s security team, the attacker was killed, and thankfully, the explosives didn’t detonate, thereby preventing what would have been a tragedy of horrific proportions as about 140 children were inside the building at the time of the incident. It remains a tragedy, nonetheless, as it reminds all of us Jews of the hate that abounds and of the need for always vigilant security in our houses of worship, our schools, and any place where we gather.

In the immediate wake of this attack, we Jews need to be reminded that it is okay to focus on Jewish lives, especially when Jew-hatred surges, attacks on synagogues grow more frequent throughout the Diaspora, and bombs target Israel from Iran and Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy just over Israel’s northern border in Lebanon.

While we are still catching our breaths from the disaster averted in Michigan, this may come across as an unusual sentiment, but hear me out. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, there is an overabundance of empathy, an almost toxic level of empathy emanating from Jewish voices, Jewish organizations, and Jewish sources aimed at comforting everyone but our own. To be clear: empathy, in general, is important. Jews should, and do, care about others deeply. However, this is meant as a wake up call. Just as we are instructed to do on planes, we must put our own oxygen masks on first.

Even while Jewish leaders and rabbis around the globe are rightly expressing their devastation about the attack, many feel compelled in their statements and/or social media posts to reference other faith communities who face hate and other houses of worship that have been targeted. Some posts point out that American Jews are not responsible for Israel–I even saw one that went on about how many American Jews don’t support Israel’s government, or its wars, or even pay much attention to Israel. While I know this is sadly somewhat true (though not how I feel), I also know the need to say this to garner sympathy when Jewish preschoolers so recently, thankfully, escaped carnage, is not a good look for us. And it begs the question: Do proudly Zionist Jews like me deserve the threats, the hate, the violence?

In the coming days and weeks, many rabbis in the United States and beyond will express similar sentiments in their sermons. And for me, this just proves my point—that we have lost the ability to speak out as Jews, and just as Jews, even when the moment so painfully calls on us to do exactly that. We seem to feel that doing so undermines our collective humanity. That it confirms what those who hate us claim, namely that Jews are insular, tribal, and care only about ourselves. Certainly, at some level, we know this is wrong. We never expect other communities to reference Jew-hatred when speaking out about their own pain. Just so, our leaders, our clergy should be shouting from their pulpits and podiums that targeting Jews, that plotting to kill our children, whether in Israel or in Michigan, is heinous, full stop.

That said, this reflex to think of others first is both commendable and understandable. Afterall, we have been called on to do just that for millenia. As Rabbi Hillel’s oft cited quote reminds us: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I?” While Hillel told us to stand up for ourselves first, not second, the mainstream, secular, and Reform American communities to which I belong have devoted themselves to the latter and in so doing have given short shrift to the former. We must, especially now, prioritize taking care of ourselves both to stand together as a people and to withstand the onslaught of global Antizionism and Jew-hatred that has boiled over in recent years. As Hillel warned us, failing to stand up for ourselves ensures no one else stands with us.

Interviewed not long ago on Jonah Platt’s excellent Being Jewish podcast, Dr. Einat Wilf put it thus: “Right now, we need to take care of our own until the world wakes up from this insanity that it’s being kind of mass manipulated into. And I know that it’s a tough message because, for a lot of Jews, the notion that we have a duty and a sense of responsibility to our people is one that many have forgotten or [were] not even raised on.” 

As evidence of how internalized this phenomena is, I feel compelled to note that I’m not calling on Jews and/or Israelis to turn a blind eye to the plight of Gazans. Let’s just stop acting as if it’s a lack of empathy on our part that is responsible for the suffering of Palestinians. It’s enough already–a dearth of empathy on the part of the world’s tiny Jewish population is not The Problem with anything, let alone the cause of Middle Eastern conflicts. And an abundance of empathy on our part won’t solve any of the world’s problems either.

Moreover, lacking empathy or compassion are not characteristics of Jewish people or a feature of Jewish life. I, like every Jew I know, continue to care about the lives of others and other communities. Empathy is not a zero sum proposition. Indeed, I challenge anyone to find a human rights movement in which Jews have not been deeply involved. American Jewish participation in the Civil Rights movement is just one such example. Jews have been dedicated to acts of service and to justice just about anywhere we’ve ever lived in freedom and in sizable numbers. Tikkun Olam is a foundational aspect of what it means to be a Jew for many of us, and I, for one, am very proud of the way we practice our values. And yet, we are doing a better job supporting others than sustaining our own. And in so doing, our capacity for self-care and self-preservation has atrophied.

I was struck by this behavior even before October 7th when this often took the form of universalizing Jewish messages, holidays, and prayers, seemingly to make clear that we aren’t  thinking merely of our own people. Personally, I’ve never been clear why centering Jews on our holidays, in Jewish spaces, and among mostly Jews is a problem, but clearly, in certain circles, it appears to be. There are now even Jews and Jewish groups that can’t seem to acknowledge the Holocaust without also mentioning the non-Jewish victims of World War II. 

And in the two plus years since the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, this trend toward self-effacement has continued. During this period, I have attended many Jewish events, whether at congregations, Jewish communal organizations, or on college campuses, and especially during those first months after 10/7, on Zoom. At these gatherings, and even on social media, I have been called on, almost relentlessly, even in the immediate aftermath, to express concern for Palestinians rather than to mark our pain, mourn our dead, or simply marinate in our collective and particular Jewish experiences. The willingness of so many Jews to engage in this contextualizing or to emphasize allyship, even while parents were still searching for their children, children were still searching for their parents, and when no one even knew how many hostages had been taken, was deflating and eye-opening in the worst way.

For me, this began so soon after 10/7 that it surprises me even now. By the summer of 2023, my family had left the Reform congregation to which we had belonged for years, and so we’d found ourselves on Zoom for the High Holidays that year, listening to services at a congregation known as Liberal, warm, and inclusive. We had truly enjoyed the experience. And so, that first Shabbat after October 7th, we turned to their virtual service again to feel connected to the Jewish community, to Jewish people, and to hear some words of solace in what had quickly become a very scary world. The rabbi began in that vein, as he reflected on the horrors, sought to harness a comforting message, and then there was the “but.” That brief pause somehow lingered, as I fruitlessly hoped he wasn’t going where he went. In that moment, I watched my teen’s face mirror my own sadness and disbelief as the rabbi proceeded to malign Israel’s role in setting the stage for the massacre, as if there is ever a justification for such barbaric genocidal violence against anyone. We quickly turned the service off. But the damage had been done. The trust we had in Jewish leaders to be purely, simply Jewish in such moments shattered, and for me at least, remains tattered.

Unease with public displays of support for Israel have become a feature and not a bug of Jewish life, at least in many places. Another rabbi I know (a wonderful human being for whom I have high regard) quickly displayed a Ukrainian flag on a personal Facebook page right after Russia first invaded Ukraine but has never posted an Israeli flag–or the equivalent. This rabbi’s expressions of support for Jews after 10/7 read more like the written equivalence of dodging landmines—of course, all violence is abhorrent, and Israelis are lovely and deserve our support, except for Prime Minister Netanyahu—you get the idea. [Don’t get me wrong, to paraphrase former U.S. Sen. Al Franken, I like Netanyahu more than most people I know, and I can’t stand him.] 

Even more soul-crushing for me is that this same rabbi pursues interfaith work with a local imam whose personal social media pages are filled with disgusting and hateful blood libels of the Jewish people and of Israel (this imam clearly believes Israel is the manifestation of evil and should not exist). Anyone espousing such hate toward any other group would never be welcomed into this rabbi’s synagogue, and yet, this imam has been there on at least a couple of occasions in recent years. How or why the rabbi values this relationship is beyond me. 

To be clear, there are plenty of Reform rabbis, and many Reform Jews, able to speak up for the Jewish people without qualifying their support by criticizing Israel, Israeli policies, or worse yet, giving voice to modern day blood libels such as charging Israel with genocide. But there are too many rabbis who seem to feel that criticizing Israeli government policies and calling out the settlements are a necessary element of best rabbinical practices.

Unfortunately, Jews like these rabbis can be found in too many congregations, in too many Jewish communal organizations, and on too many bimahs. I do understand the tension that many of us experience, at least at times, between our Jewish selves and what some might describe as our more broadly secular selves through which we may interact with the wider, non-Jewish world. The fact of this gap, however, is evidence of the othering of us that these so-called universal human values should render moot. This has been driven home in the silence and scorn Jews now face from so many, and most especially from so many supposedly dedicated to human rights and social justice. 

Empathy Properly Understood

For Diaspora communities in multifaith, pluralistic, and western societies like the United States, interfaith work remains important, especially because so many Americans have never met a Jew and have absolutely no understanding of Judaism. These efforts reflect who we are as Americans (in my case), as Jews, and as citizens of purportedly liberal societies. My husband and I, in fact, volunteered some years ago to be a part of a Jewish group assembled for outreach to a local Muslim community. We told the organizers that we were happy to be involved, as long as the Muslims participating accepted Israel’s right to exist. We were never invited back. Working with those who refuse to acknowledge Israeli sovereignty (which is really a settled point as Israel does, thankfully, exist) is not valuable. Instead, I believe it undermines the very purpose of such efforts as it requires many Jews to sublimate a deeply held Jewish value in service to others. It also opens the door to mainstreaming what are actually extremist ideas, namely that Jews are not indigenous to the land of Israel, that there is something pernicious about modern Israel’s origin story, and that the very existence of Israel is somehow open for debate.

Sadly, a certain segment of the Jewish community has internalized elements of these ideas, namely that robustly criticizing Israel is a badge of honor. Even some rabbis have declared publicly that they no longer include the Prayer for the State of Israel in their services while others may leave it out quietly. We know, from polls and our own social networks, that many younger Jews (I’ll unscientifically include the roughly under 45 crowd in this group though there are many exceptions, of course) question Israel in a way that was incredibly uncommon years ago. Some suggest that these younger Jews are less supportive of Israel because they were taught, at Jewish camps and/or in religious schools, that Israel is some sort of utopia. At some point, they learn something about the settlements and the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and feel they were misled. I don’t particularly buy that story–at least as driving much of this. Rather, I think a bigger problem is how many Jews have heard from so many Jewish figures, whether rabbis or not, that we must prioritize speaking out for others instead of learning our own history. When countless sermons, newsletters, youth group advisors, and others spend almost as much time talking about other communities, whether Palestinians or different minorities in our home countries, the implication is that we should discount our own needs, our own stories, and our own pride. The compassion for others that we are never allowed to leave aside undermines the idea that it is not only okay, but indeed essential, to prioritize our needs.

In the context of Israel, this practice extends the Jewish gaze to the Palestinians and away from our fellow Jews and our own story. In addition, many younger American Jews have embraced the ideas fed to them through false social justice narratives, namely that white settler colonialism drives most wrongs, and that Israel is a white settler colonial force in the Middle East. For these Jews, pointing out that Palestinians, and the wider Arab world, are responsible for the plight of the Palestinian people is both Islamophobic and self-serving, rather than self-interest properly understood.

The damage caused by this is both deep and wide: Polls consistently reveal that support for Israel among younger Jews has declined substantially and many reject the label Zionist without seeming to understand what the term means; even Jewish Studies departments (not to mention so many other academic departments and professional organizations) are often replete with faculty, some Jewish, who do not support Israel in any way and/or are too cowed to speak out against growing Antizionism; and Reform congregations to which many American Jews gravitate grapple with building cohesion for Jews with vastly different views on Israel—to name but a few such examples. We certainly don’t need to agree wholeheartedly about every action of the Israeli government (just as we don’t agree about every action of any U.S. government). But growing Antizionism, with feeder roots in some Jewish congregations and organizations, challenges our ability to work together. And that internal division makes it even more difficult for would be allies to figure out just how best to support us.

Not surprisingly, Israel education in Reform Jewish congregations and the secular Jewish world is sorely lacking too. Yes, Holocaust education is still taught in most religious and/or Hebrew schools (and in many, but not all, states), but even in Jewish spaces, it leaves so much out, often ending not with the rise of Israel but with the destruction of European Jewry. Typically missing, for example, is any mention of Arab violence in pre-state Israel during the 1920s and 1930s as well as the Arab alliance with the Nazis. This matters because it was this violence that led the British to close the doors to Jews seeking refuge in British-mandate Palestine during the Holocaust. Most of us are unaware, for instance, that more than 50,000 Jews fleeing Europe either before, during, or even after the Holocaust, were interred by the British in Cyprus in often terrible conditions for years. Tens of thousands, and possibly more, were sent back to their deaths in Europe.

I’m also pretty sure most American Jews don’t know that it was almost impossible for Jews to immigrate to the United States not only before the Holocaust, beginning with the 1924 Immigration Act, but afterward as well. Upwards of 250,000 Holocaust survivors were forced to live mostly in displaced persons (DP) camps in Europe, which often were located at sites of what had been concentration camps. None of the western allies, including the United States, took in survivors in large numbers. Many survivors languished in these DP camps for years, until, guess what, Israel was reborn as a modern state in 1948. In fact, it was literally easier to immigrate to the United States after WWII as a former Nazi soldier than as a Holocaust survivor. This doesn’t even take into account Project Paperclip, a secret U.S. government program implemented to bring as many German scientists to the United States as allied troops could locate in the waning days of the war. Yes, that’s how former Nazi officer Wernher Von Braun wound up leading the space flight program at NASA.

Don’t get me wrong, empathy and compassion have their place and are key ingredients of what makes us human—I am not cold hearted though I’ll admit to being a bit numb since 10/7. I was not raised to hate, and I did not raise my proud Jewish Zionist kids to hate. In May of 2021, my daughter was in Israel on a school trip. That was a tense time though nothing compared to what was to come. While Gazans lobbed bombs at civilian centers in Israel that May, global outrage condemned any Israeli efforts at self defense. In retrospect, this provided a window into the extent to which Jew-hatred and Antizionism already colored so much reporting about Israel. And yet, in spite of all that, the first thing my daughter told me about her trip was how moved she had been to hold a very young Gazan baby recovering from life-saving surgery in Israel. My heart grew to hear that.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)