Estrich: Stand up to antisemitism in United States

But make no mistake. The war against Hamas is not the root of the problem. Last year, the Anti-Defamation League tracked 3,697 antisemitic incidents in the U.S., an increase of 36 percent over the year before, and a record that will be easily broken this year. “Jews will not replace us,” the white supremacists in Charlottesville chanted in 2017; contrary to what Donald Trump said, there were not “good people” on both sides, and while he boasted of his Jewish grandchildren, he also dined with an outspoken Jew hater and accused Jewish Americans of having dual loyalties to the United States and Israel.

The far left has its own share of haters, as the recent statements from The Squad and some outspoken academics (including a Cornell professor who claimed to be “exhilarated” by the massacre) have made painfully clear.

The war against Hamas is taking place against a backdrop of hate and tapping into that well. And are we supposed to ignore that, to pretend that we are all reasonable people?

Students were outraged when employers rescinded job offers to those who sided with the terrorists. They were angry when their names were made public. Too bad. Did they really think that free speech meant not facing the consequences of their words? Who wants to work with haters and apologists who do not share our fundamental values? Appease the haters? Why?

Of course innocent civilians will die when Israel defends itself against mass murderers. That is what happens in war. But Israel didn’t start this war. Israel gave warnings of what was to come. Can Hamas pretend it did not know that there would be consequences to its own from murdering us? Or did they simply not care? There may be no fuel for the hospitals, but Hamas still has fuel to fire their rockets toward Israel.

Growing up, I was surrounded by the reality of antisemitism. My Hebrew schoolteacher had a number tattooed on his arm. We read the poems and looked at the pictures done by the children in their very own concentration camp. We lived in the part of town where Jews were allowed, not in the parts where they weren’t. There were the clubs we couldn’t join because they were “restricted,” meaning no Jews allowed.

We must stand up to antisemitism, call it for what it is, use our power to stop it, to resist and to fight back, and to those who resent us for that, the blame is on them. Never again, my parents’ generation said. Never again is now, and now is the time to fight back. We will respect the law in fighting back, which is more than the haters do. But we must fight, and we must win.