Earlier this month, a congregant emailed me. Based on what she was hearing from friends at our temple, she wrote, “January 6 is much more on people’s minds than October 7.”
Whether or not her assessment represents the opinion of the larger congregation, let alone the broader American Jewish community, she identified with striking metonymy two critical challenges American Jews wrestle with today: how to address concerns for the state of American democracy and how to define and express Jewish identity considering rising antisemitism, threats to Israel’s security, and the policies of an Israeli government with which they may disagree.
For many American Jews, events in Washington have eclipsed in immediacy and relevance those in Gaza and on the college campus.
I can understand why. While terrifying and intimidating anti-Israel protests continue around the country, they now attract less media attention. While scores of Israelis remain Hamas captives, the grindingly slow pace of progress to free them has allowed our own attention to drift.
Some Jews have chosen to look away from the war either because they blame Israel for so much death and destruction or because wrestling with the painful moral questions of response proportionality in an asymmetric fight may lead them to uncomfortable conclusions about Israel’s culpability.
And, for them, January 6 now trumps October 7 because we are witnessing a reshaping of our own country’s institutions with, for many, a more personal impact.
Another congregant who runs a nonprofit shared that he had been directed to remove words like “minority,” “immigrant,” and “disadvantaged” from his website because such language reflected concern for diversity, equity, and inclusion that could result in a loss of government support.
“I have staff paid with federal grant funds, and I cannot put their livelihoods at risk,” he explained. “It’s a terrible dilemma.”
I have temple members in the medical and scientific communities whose practices and research may be jeopardized by proposed funding cuts from the National Institutes of Health. For some, new restrictions target their very identity as transgender individuals. For others, the safety of the undocumented caregivers to whom they entrust their own health or the well-being of their aging parents or young children is at risk.
Still, the concern that animates many in my Jewish community today is less personal and more sociopolitical: They fear for the nation’s stability as the balance of power in Washington concentrates in an executive branch they do not trust. While they recognize the necessity of law and order and fiscal responsibility, they worry about policies and rhetoric that denigrate and dehumanize.
They believe, rightly, that to be a Jew means to emphasize our universalist values of justice and compassion and to seek to apply them in society. They view current shifts in American politics as breaching those ideals, just as Israel’s right-wing government’s marriage of religious fundamentalism to ultranationalism has done through its attempts to undermine judicial independence, religious pluralism, and any hope of Palestinian self-determination.
If the Jewish people’s prophetic charge is to be “a light to the nations,” as the prophet Isaiah insists, we are failing in America and Israel alike, they claim. Thus, their focus on January 6 and the threats to democratic values it represents.
Why October 7 still must trump January 6
But October 7 must remain no less our priority for reasons both practical and ideological. First, Israel’s survival against physical onslaught and political and diplomatic assault should never be taken for granted. As events unfolded that horrific morning sixteen months ago, we in America did not know from the early news reports the extent of Hamas’s invasion and whether Israel would remain geographically intact. Today, though weakened, Hamas retains power.
Meanwhile, around the globe, and at some American universities, Israel is portrayed as the Goliath and Hamas as the heroic resistance movement. With the rest of the world already condemning Israel, someone needs to defend it.
And October 7 matters because we must never forget how easily hatred of Israel spawns violence against Jews. Today, American Jewry requires constant protection against those who would do us harm.
We are caught between the pincers of anti-Zionism on the Left and nativism on the Right, threatening our physical safety and our religious liberty. Neither legislation nor law enforcement, however well-intentioned, will shield us if we do not, ourselves, remain vigilant.
But beneath these concrete exigencies lies a more fundamental reason for guarding our particularist concerns. As Jews, we come to our universalist commitments through our distinctive historical experiences: the Exodus, the exile, the expulsion, and the Holocaust kindle our passion for freedom and justice. And when universalist ethics are anchored in spiritual identity, their application becomes not a matter of personal choice but rather the fulfillment of religious obligation.
Universalism without particularism rests on shaky foundations. Elie Wiesel concludes, “The Jew who repudiates himself, claiming to do so for the sake of humanity, will inevitably repudiate humanity in the end.” There is no heroism in self-abnegation.
We are living through a bewildering historic moment, and many Jews are struggling to align their religious ideals against the moral challenges they perceive. Scouts learn that it takes two points to orient oneself on unfamiliar terrain. January 6 and October 7 can be, for us, two orienting points. The line between them describes our Jewish responsibilities to others and to ourselves.
The writer, a rabbi, holds the Peter and Mary Kalikow Senior Rabbinic Chair of Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York.