Opinions My Own

A Memorial Day Message

It’s Memorial Day evening in New York with a slight breeze fluttering napkins at outside bistro tables. Forks scrape plates as couples, families, and friends catch up, eat out, and connect, the sun finally warming the city sidewalks. It looks like any other soon-to-be-summer night, but beneath the “dressing on the side” and “oh honey, let’s split a pizza” lies a lethal toxicity.

A few days ago, I was standing at my bathroom sink, brushing my teeth, rushing to get the kids to school on time, when I opened Instagram, and gasped. A couple I didn’t know were murdered for being Jewish (or, half-Jewish, as it turns out). The refrain that’s become so progressive chic — “free Palestine” — was used as justification for murder.

And then, I went into a blind rage. Still, my chest sizzles.

I’m mostly incensed by the brazen, pervasive hatred that has led to this egregious, inhumane act, hatred that the majority of the world sanctions. No, praises!

As law-abiding, upstanding citizens, we Jews don’t act out in response to this murder. No, we behave. We do what we do best. We write, think, plan. But make no mistake: we are all enraged. Devastated. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right.

One of the worst parts is that instead of condemning this heinous act of murder, people — not just people; our colleagues and “friends” — continue to post anti-Israel screeds with false information. Now. In the aftermath of Sarah and Yaron’s death. Some, even that day.

zibbyowens

A post shared by @zibbyowens

Has the world gone mad? Every day I see someone else post and think, “Another one bites the dust.” Another traitor. Another betrayal. Another person I respected who seems to believe the propaganda, who values being accepted (by I’m not even sure who) as more important than protecting their peers, people they actually know.

Another person who posts “free Palestine” and then closes the app and bops along in their day, complicit in a scheme far bigger than themselves, foolish pawns in a jihadist plot who believe what they read, act without much thought, and have no problem publicly selling us Jews out.

Are you kidding me? Like, seriously. What happened to all that intelligence and education? Didn't everyone learn about how the Holocaust happened? And didn’t we all kind of agree that was, like, bad?

And yet, when the same patterns happen now and we all point and say, “Look! It’s happening!” our peers sneer and post away against us. Bright people aren’t thinking for themselves which is dangerous. They are posting to protect people they’ve never met from places they didn’t even care about until it was all shoved down their throats and, in so doing, putting their neighbors at risk. Risk of death. Risk of murder. Here. In the States. And beyond.

And they’re so stubborn that even now they’re posting against us because this “cause” of protecting those in Gaza above their friends in the States is the sanctioned choice.

Okay, fine. I’m still mad. I’m mad because yes, of course, no one wants anyone to be killed and we all want peace.

But do you really hate Jews, you free-Palestine-TikTok-and-Instagram-posters? Do you? Because I’ve seen many of you all happily use Jews to advance your own careers. You have no qualms watching the movies we make, taking the medicine we create, reading the books we write, eating the food we make, using the technology we’ve invented, and then throwing us under the bus.

You had no specific problem with Jews until you were brainwashed. Could you please stop for just one moment and think this through and entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe, you’ve made a mistake?

And that’s okay! We’ll happily welcome you back.

But please know: when you buy into the whole trendy oppressor/oppressed rhetoric, you are being used. You’re a pawn in a system that has played you. And no one from Hamas will roll out a red carpet for you after they’re done trying to eliminate us and have moved on to you.

We see you, those of you who have abandoned us. I mean, you don’t even try to hide it! You brazenly broadcast your Jew hatred with everything you upload.

We see you, other Jews, who sell us out by focusing only on far-away victims and undermining the plight of our dear friend Israel, the homeland that will always accept you, the place where Jewish sons are fighting to protect us, you, and our tribe, of which you are a part, lest you forget, which you are a beneficiary of, and yet no. You can’t be bothered to stand up for Israel because some ill-informed celebrity thinks Israel is “bad.”

We don’t have to agree with everything Israel does, but we are a family. A mishpacha. And when our brothers and sisters are attacked, we stand firmly on their side. How dare you sell the rest of us out to seem “cool” and “righteous?”

zibbyowens

A post shared by @zibbyowens

Your actions have consequences. Your actions have resulted in the murder of two innocent people. Don’t you feel bad? Because you all joining in this cacophony of chaos and siding with someone who could care less about you makes those of us who actually do care at risk.

Like, for our lives.

And we are at risk. Jews in America, Canada, Australia, France, the UK, Brazil, Amsterdam. All of us. Everywhere. At risk.

And even if you’re not posting, but you’re just not bothering to take the time to pay attention and stand up for us, then you are making a choice.

You’re not actually helping Palestinians in Gaza by posting about them, you know. But you are actually hurting us. Your Jewish friends, neighbors, colleagues. You are actually participating in the rise in antisemitism and Jew hatred and crimes like the double homicide this week.

Your apathy and blind eye is like the Germans watching the Nazis take power. Your posting against us is like showing the Nazis where we live. And your brazen, public hatred is like being a Nazi yourself. Is that what you’re going for? When history is recorded, is that really the side you want to be on? Because jihadists are using “free Palestine” as a way to undermine our society.

So for those of who you blindly accept whatever is — dare I say it — woke, which happens to be hating the Jews, shame on you. Wake up. Think for yourself. “Do the work.” Learn the history. If nothing else, watch “October 8” so you can at the very least understand what you’re participating in: a large-scale take-down of democracy itself.

And you’re letting it happen.

This Memorial Day, we are supposed to be celebrating those who have given their lives to fight for America and whose sacrifices have allowed us to be free. Those soldiers who fought in World War II knew what was up. They saw the risk of the Nazis and their rise to power and they fought against it. They gave their lives to protect us. And in thanks, you’re using this as just another day off of work as you post about Gaza with the freedom that has been so hard-won.

Shame on you. Those soldiers deserved more than this.

Never forget? Oh, we won’t.

Happy Memorial Day.