JEWISH WORLD

JEWISH WORLD • APRIL 12-18, 2024 25 Wake Up! continued from page 21 antisemitic advocacy for Israel’s de- struction, and the chattering classes and popular culture embracing the idea that the only real victims of the war are the Palestinians who them- selves cheered the Oct. 7 crimes when they happened and still support them. The need for supporters of Israel not merely to speak up but to do so in as loud and public a way as pos- sible is now far greater. Jews and their allies in the Christian commu- nity must return to the streets. I t is understandable that Jewish groups want to avoid confronta- tions with their opponents out of fear of potential violence and be- cause they believe that their influ- ence is best employed in the corri- dors of power. But by effectively abandoning the public square to an- tisemites, the Jewish community has not only encouraged those scream- ing for violence against Jews, espe- cially Israelis but has also created a dynamic whereby it seems as if there is only one side to the argu- ment about whether a war against a genocidal terrorist group is justified. Equally important, the lack of public clamor on behalf of Israel and against the pro-Hamas ceasefire advocates has sent the message to the administration that there is only one side in the debate about the war that they should listen to or fear. This was made abundantly clear early in the Democratic primaries when Biden showed that he was far more interested in appeasing pro- Hamas voters in Dearborn, Mich., than those who advocate for Israel. In the last two months, even after Biden secured the Democratic pres- idential nomination, he has contin- ued to go out of his way to avoid antagonizing Israel-haters. Perhaps he’s right to believe that Jewish Democrats dislike former President Donald Trump too much to consider defecting from their par- ty. Or that they are more concerned about abortion rights than about defending the Jewish state. But at a time when antisemitism—and the demonization of Israel and its sup- porters—is escalating, perhaps it’s time for even those who intend to vote for Biden to start showing up at his rallies and speak up about the administration’s abandoning Israel. Jewish Democrats need to say that they expect Biden to stand by Israel in its just war, not to threaten it. If Biden was made to see, as he should, that there are more votes to be lost in the political center from Americans who back Israel and don’t believe the blood libels being thrown at it, then he might under- stand that there is a greater political price to be paid for kowtowing to antisemites than for keeping faith with the Jewish state. Beyond that, Jewish groups around the nation also need to un- derstand that their mission must also include efforts to reclaim the streets. A great example of a community that understood what was at stake was on display last week in Teaneck, N.J. Amonth ago, an Isra- el real estate fair at a synagogue in that New York suburb was threat- ened by an antisemitic mob, egged on by Internet lies about the event. But when another pro-Israel event at a synagogue—this time honoring ZAKA volunteers charged with the gruesome task of handling corpses from the Hamas pogroms—was similarly threatened, the Jews didn’t simply depend on law enforcement to protect them. Neither did they, as sometimes happens elsewhere, can- cel the event due to justified fears of violence. Instead, they organized a counterprotest that outnumbered those who were bussed into that town to vent their hatred. The effort reflected a consen- sus in that community that, in the words of a spokesman for the Rab- binical Council of Bergen County, “these attacks on our synagogues have to end. Full stop.” This example needs to be emu- lated everywhere. Synagogues and other Jewish institutions have been targeted by vandals and antisemit- ic protests from those seeking to eradicate Israel “from the river to the sea,” falsely accusing Israel of “genocide” while ignoring or even denying Hamas crimes. Yet ever fearful of what a confrontation might lead to, Jewish groups don’t turn out to demonstrate that the streets don’t belong to the hatemongers and their allies. And that needs to change. Beset by doubts about their place in a society that has embraced woke intersectional myths that margin- alize Jews and browbeaten into thinking that the cause of Israel is too controversial to be compatible with a comfortable American life, too many leaders have gone silent at a moment of crisis when they need to speak up loudly that they will not be intimidated or taken for granted by politicians like Biden. They need to understand that even though support for Israel can seem a very lonely, unfashionable posi- tion, most Americans stand behind the Jewish state. Jews need to stop cowering and start protesting. If they don’t, they’ll soon see that the antisemites will only grow bolder in their affronts to Jew- ish sensibilities—and political leaders will continue to believe that they need not fear losing their support. Jonathan Tobin is the editor in chief of the Jewish News Syndicate. JNS.org. Organizations that claim to speak for U.S. Jews aren’t using their vaunted in uence to halt the momentum of anti-Israel forces.