The Jewish community in general, and the Zionists among them in particular, are understandably high-strung right now. Political opposition to Israel and intellectual opposition to Zionism have morphed with old-school, publicly displayed antisemitism and progressive doctrinairism to create the most threatening environment for Jews in a generation. Following the October 7 massacre, even before Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza, demonstrations in major cities and universities across the world were calling for an end to Israel and a globalization of the intifada. Political leaders, actors, musicians, activists, and students all rallied around the Palestinian flag (and sometimes even the Hamas flag), jumping on the biggest global political bandwagon in my living memory.

Jewish shops, schools, and synagogues are routinely graffitied and attacked, pro-Israel voices are doxed and harassed, and vicious attacks on Jews across the world continue to multiply, from Boulder to Washington, D.C. to Manchester, England. It is no wonder that many in our community are in a state of despair.

So, it should not come as a surprise that, one week after the murderous Bondi Beach attack in which Jews celebrating Chanukah were gunned down, Jewish social media spaces erupted over the killing of an MIT professor of nuclear science, Nuno F. Loureiro, who was widely described online as Jewish and pro-Israel.

The Facebook page “Jewish Lives Matter” wrote, in a 16 December post that was shared almost 4,000 times:

“Another Jewish life lost. Are Jews being........

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