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Oct. 7 Forever Altered Jewish Life Worldwide

(The Hill) Sharon Nazarian - Oct. 7 and its aftermath forever altered the daily lives of every Jewish person around the world. For nearly a century, Jews in places like America, Canada, Great Britain and Australia took for granted their connection to and comfort within their homes and nations. Even if antisemitism still dwelt at the fringes of society, Jews in these places felt as though they had finally been woven into the very fabric of society and shared history. We found homes and places where we could let our collective guard down. It took a single day last year for that comfort and confidence to shatter. Our homes, businesses and places of worship suddenly became targets of hateful acts, slurs, screams of "go home," graffiti, assaults, gunshots and murder. At no point since World War II have so many Jews in so many places felt so insecure and untethered from the Western democracies in which they live. We have lost our basic sense of normalcy. Oct. 7 and its aftermath demonstrated to Jews around the world that the lessons of the Holocaust have not been learned effectively enough to prevent the replay of those very horrors. We learned that "Never Again" is not real. We learned that blacklists of Jewish authors, musicians and artists can sprout up again; that Jewish businesses can again be targeted, vandalized and destroyed; that Jewish schools and institutions must yet again rely on their own security to keep their children and community safe, while Jewish university students fear walking across campus alone. What 4,000 years of Jewish history have taught us is that if it starts with the Jews, it never ends with the Jews. It is an American, Canadian, French, British, Australian, Argentinian and South African problem. The writer is a former senior vice president for international affairs at the Anti-Defamation League.
2024-10-08 00:00:00
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