3rd Anniversary

October 7, 2023 changed me. Within a couple of hours, as the horror unfolded, I abandoned plans I had laid for years to go into academia and started Tikkun Now. It wasn't a new chapter, rather a new book, and Jews everywhere were handed its first page that day. My husband's decision came just as fast. Shortly after the attack he was on a plane to Israel, one of thousands who couldn't stand idly by, because Israel is the home of every Jew, Israeli or not.

I won't rehash the last three years because we all lived them. People write to me every week with the same question: I see what you and others are doing, but what can I do? The honest answer starts with admitting this is a stamina game, worse than being on hold with the insurance company, and the only plan that works is one built to outlast it. Did you ever wonder what you would have done in the 1930s? You are living that question now, and it calls for action, not just words.

Start with courage. Stop apologizing for Jewish identity or for the Jewish state, and never open a sentence with a disclaimer. Don’t dim your Jewish pride.

Build something that outlasts the news cycle. Maintain one standing thing, like a Shabbat table that includes your non-Jewish neighbors, or a monthly study group, and fund or sit on the board of an institution that will still exist when the headlines move on.

Show up where the decisions are small. School boards, teachers' union locals, library and museum boards, and curriculum committees are decided by a handful of people, and an organized handful beats a thousand posts. Join, vote in the internal elections, run, or recruit someone who should.

Ask in writing, and ask specifically. Does the diversity statement name Jews? Does the heritage calendar include Jewish American Heritage Month? Institutions answer paper, and silence becomes an answer you can publish.

Vote on conduct, not party. Judge candidates by what they did when standing with us cost them something, because loyalty only counts when it runs both ways. Political parties have changed, so don’t get stuck on a name that no longer means the same thing.

Have the hard conversation with that friend. The good people who have been doing stupid things for three years deserve one private, direct question, like "What do you think Zionism means?" The ones who engage are worth keeping, and the ones who won't have already answered.

I had a jump start on this work. Long before October 7th, my doctoral dissertation made the case that we have spent too long fixated on the European Holocaust and too little on the rest of our history, and certainly too little on the diversity and richness of who we are. You don’t need a degree to tackle these issues, so let me suggest two phenomenal things to add to your antisemitism toolkit. First, watch Fauda season five. Pop culture has done more to make October 7 real for people than three years of political statements and activism. Two of its eleven episodes take place on October 7 itself, and the writers scrapped their first scripts to rebuild the season around that day. It is shocking and still sensitive to the families. No one has done it better.

Second, read Dara Horn's latest book, The Final Solution to the Jewish Question: A Love Story for the Living. Her answer comes in two parts: curiosity, and the courage to choose Jewish continuity. She put it best when she explained that we are not a religion, a race, or a nationality, but an am, a joinable tribal group with a shared history, homeland, and culture. English needs a sentence for that. Hebrew needs two words: Am Yisrael, the people of Israel. Being a people was once a common thing in the ancient world. We are a people so old that modern language and modern ideas of what a people is no longer apply. Remain proud and strong!

Am Yisrael Chai