How Jewish Is Too Jewish?

Like so many others, I’ve found myself with a renewed connection to my Jewish identity post-October 7th. Sure, I grew up going to Hebrew school and Jewish summer camp. I became a bat mitzvah and felt comfortable parading around our synagogue as the cantor’s daughter. But I never shouted my Jewishness from the rooftops. So why do I feel compelled to do that now? It’s pretty simple, really.

Because it feels like my life depends on it.

With antisemitic violence and harassment at an all-time high, it’s a scary time to be a Jew. But you know what feels even scarier? Being a silent one.

Being silent means agreeing with all the lies being told about us. It means accepting what’s happening around the world as normal and okay. It means signing our own death warrant.

I never thought we would be here—I went the first 40 years of my life without experiencing a hint of antisemitism. Yet, the notion of history repeating itself now feels more like a foregone conclusion than an abstract idea.

Can’t they see this is how it started? And how easily it escalated into total disaster when nobody cared enough to speak up? We have a blueprint of what this situation can turn into, and I think I speak for all of us when I say: no thank you. I refuse to accept that fate for myself and for my children. I refuse to be silent out of respect for my late grandfather, his tattooed numbers etched in my memory as permanently as they were etched onto his arm. Never again.

So where does this leave me in practical terms? Every day I wake up and see more discrimination, bias, and violence against Jews than any other group would ever be expected to tolerate. And I find myself asking the same question: how much can I speak up about it without alienating the people around me?

Silence isn’t an option, as we’ve already established. But if I go overboard, will my friends (and hopefully allies) start to ignore me? Will they begin to gloss over the content or even hit the unfollow button as I try to convey the pain and injustice we’re facing on a daily basis? Exactly how many cute photos of my kids and dog will balance the scale? It feels like a bad version of One Bid from The Price is Right—stand up for yourself as much as you can without going over! Precisely how Jewish am I allowed to be?

Those on the other side seem to have no qualms about proclaiming their hate loudly, both with their words and actions. They call for a violent intifada, shatter the windows of Jewish-owned businesses, set fire to our synagogues, and hunt us down in a premeditated pogrom. So why is there such deafening silence on the side of the good guys? Why are we letting the bullies run the show?

I’m enormously grateful for the accidental activists who’ve emerged since October 7th—they’ve saved my sanity during this horrific time. But we need more. We need more people who aren’t afraid. We need more people who have moral clarity and the chutzpah to speak up. We need more Elphabas.

Do You Support Israel’s War?

A friend recently asked me if I support the war and the way Israel is fighting it. I stopped in my tracks, completely thrown by the question. Do I support the war? You mean the one we didn’t start, never wanted, and would end tomorrow if they simply returned the hostages? The one that if we don’t fight, we’ll be all but conceding to another October 7th (or worse)? We’re fighting for our survival, there is no alternative.

Do I support the way Israel is fighting? Like how they’re dropping leaflets and making phone calls to warn civilians to evacuate? How they’re being meticulously strategic to avoid civilian casualties? Tell me what other army would do this and still receive worldwide criticism. We know a thing or two about genocide (the word was literally created to describe the Holocaust). If that’s what we intended to do here, we’re really bad at it. (And G-d forbid anyone criticize Hamas for hiding among civilians, stealing aid, or refusing to return the hostages to end the war that they started.)

The bias is clear, the double standards are plentiful, and the propaganda is effective. I’ve seen even the most well-intentioned ally have their heartstrings tugged on by an artistically beautiful Faces of Gaza photo essay, swept up with so much sympathy they felt the need to repost it. They don’t understand that even this seemingly benign post translates to one very clear message, same as all the others: blame the Jews. They don’t think about the people who may see this and choose to act on it. They don’t realize it poses a very real threat to our families, or how the security guards at my kids’ (Jewish) school now carry massive machine guns on a daily basis. They don’t know when I share photos of my children, I crop out the school name embroidered on their uniforms…just in case.

Being a Jew is special. We’re good people—do I even have to say that? But we are. We believe in peace and tikkun olam (repairing the world). We give tzedakah and perform mitzvot. We contribute positively to society and support other minorities in their time of need. We pray together. Celebrate simchas together. Grieve together. We have an inherent shared experience of resiliency in the constant fight for our survival as 0.2% of the world’s population and the crime of being born a Jew. While they call for intifada and tear down American flags, we gather hand in hand to sing Hatikvah, call for the return of the hostages, and pray for peace. Can’t they see we’re the good guys? Why are we the last people on Earth to earn the world’s sympathy and understanding, even behind terrorists? I will never understand.

It all feels like a bad dream I can’t wake up from. I want the hostages to come home and the war to end. I want people to stop being taught to hate us from birth. I want to go back to worrying about mundane things that have no bearing on my right to exist. I want to remember what life was like before.

Until then, I’ll pray good triumphs over evil. I’ll hope more people will seek the truth and speak up for us. And I’ll keep being a proud Jew, for there is no other path I could ever choose.

A version of this op-ed was originally published on The Times of Israel