The Tests of Our Time

October 3, 2024

“For Jews, our deepest anxieties for the safety of our people — the product of centuries of repressed traumas — have reawakened and our confidence in the West’s ability to withstand the test of civilization has been shaken,” says Rabbi Ammi Hirsch on Rosh Hashanah, warning that what was unleashed against Israel on October 7th “threatens the West as much as it does the Middle East…”

✡️ On the seriousness and resurgence of antisemitism:

“One of the saddest developments since October 7 is the shock experienced by American Jews, who, for the first time in their lives, are encountering pervasive antisemitism…”

🇮🇱 On today’s manifestations of anti-Zionism:
“…the intent of anti-Zionism is to generate intense hostility to Judaism and Jews themselves… How easily do anti-Israel passions lead to violence against Jews and Jewish institutions…”

“If you understand the history of classic antisemitism, the connection to today’s anti-Zionism stares you in the face. The Jewish state has become the Jew of the world, humanity’s ultimate villains, and accused of our era’s worst transgressions..”

🗽 On post-October 7 society and the test of Western civilization:

“For years now, some of us have been warning of a deteriorating commitment to liberal values, camouflaged by a torrent of high-sounding words like ‘progress, civil and human rights, anti-racism, and anti-colonialism.’ Ideologies that divide people by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character; philosophies that reduce all human conflict to oppressor and oppressed, subjugation and freedom fighting, racists and anti-racists — are not liberal values… These are illiberal and dangerous ideas that threaten the future of our country and Western civilization.”

💪 What can we do?

“Recognize the urgency of the times. We must win this battle of ideas and reassert basic norms of Western liberal morality. Do not be in denial. Do not be complacent. Fight back… fight back hard.”