My youngest son graduated college on Friday. It was a momentous occasion in his life and in ours. My mom came in to celebrate and attend the graduation. I treasure these moments more and more as time goes on. We sat in the auditorium, watching where he was sitting (he helped us find him, texting us his location and turning around to us and waving), and waited for him to have his name announced and walk across the stage. As a parent, it was an incredible moment for many reasons.
I noticed a few things surrounding his graduation that got me thinking. They may seem totally unrelated, but for me, they all tie together.
On the drive to campus for graduation, I noticed a few things. First, how many people drove as if they were the only car on the road. Turning right from the left turn lane. Going straight and trying to outrace cars from the left turn lane. Where was the common courtesy? Where was basic rule following? I laughed as one car that did this ended up far behind me – they almost caused an accident to end up behind the car they had to cut off.
The second thing was that when I tried to be kind, to let cars in ahead of me, how they wouldn’t accept the kindness. They wouldn’t go in front of me. It got me thinking, “When did kindness become so rare that people don’t recognize it?”
At the graduation, it was the same conflict. They asked not to scream and yell when your loved one’s name was announced as it meant the next name couldn’t be heard. Yet people screamed, drowning out the name of the next person graduating. Rudeness and lack of caring was all over the place. As I went to video my son about to walk across the stage, the people in front of me had to stand up, blocking my view. No awareness of people around them. I stood up, moved slightly, and was able to video and watch him walk. Had they done that a minute later, I would have missed it.
Yet the number of people willing to take pictures of my family when asked, the number of families who I took pictures of when asked was remarkable. The wishes of congratulations to strangers because they were celebrating the graduation of a loved one was remarkable.
What a dichotomy. It got me thinking that perhaps America isn’t really as lost as it appears. Perhaps there is hope. Perhaps we can regain our country from the extremes and return to a world of kindness, caring for others, and awareness of the world around us. Perhaps we don’t have to live in a world where it is ‘my way or the highway’ on every single issue.
I do know one thing for sure. It starts with each of us. We may not be able to change the entire country but we certainly can change our own behavior. We certainly can change the world of those around us. I hope we can all make a commitment to do our best to be kind. To be aware of those around us. To celebrate with those who are celebrating and to embrace joy rather than hate. It is how we will save our country and our world.
A little more than 10 years ago, I began writing about the rise in Jew hatred. It was controversial at that time to use the words Jew Hatred. I used them anyway because that’s what I was seeing. Swastikas being drawn on buildings in Seattle. This article in the Seattle Times on June 26, 2016, got pushback that it wasn’t happening and that this was all being overblown and exaggerated. We see now that unfortunately, I was right. This article, almost 9 years old today, is hard for me to re-read because of what has happened in those 9 years. Because of what was being called out then that was ignored by so many. Because of October 7, 2023 and what has happened since then. The signs have been there and far too many of our ‘leaders’ have chosen to ignore them.
Take for instance, this harrowing exchange between David Horowitz and a student at the University of California San Diego in 2010. This was FIFTEEN (15) years ago. The only difference between then and now is that Horowitz would be booed offstage now, this vile, hateful woman would be cheered, and the University would defend HER hatred instead of protecting Jewish students on campus.
We saw things like this years ago but failed to take it seriously and failed to act. As a result, our Jewish students on campus today are faced with incredible antisemitism. I spoke with one of the leaders of Mothers Against Antisemitism from the Dallas chapter this week and the stories she shared about the University of North Texas were horrifying. Students afraid to be publicly Jewish in any way. Jewish/Israel speakers being spirited to campus at night, under the cover of darkness, to an unadvertised speech because had it been advertised, students would have been too afraid to show up. The work we have been doing has simply failed and we must admit it. We built building on campuses while the Jew haters built departments, programs, and hired Jew hating professors and administrators. We put Jewish names on libraries and centers for performing arts while the Jew haters invested in teaching that Jews are evil, are powerful and responsible for all the bad in the world, that Israel is a genocidal country that doesn’t want peace and are colonialists that want to take over the entire middle east and the world.
My friend Adam Bellos wrote a powerful piece last week. Most of you likely did not see it or read it. I encourge, no I implore you to read it. To think about what he writes. To take action to change the current reality. He writes:
This is the tragedy: we trained kids to explain checkpoints without explaining Herzl. We taught them to debate apartheid without introducing them to Ahad Ha’am, Rabbi Kook, or the Book of Joshua. We armed them with casualty charts, not courage. With U.N. resolutions, not roots. With talking points, not Torah. Hasbara failed because it tried to outsource pride. Because it assumed the average young Jew could fight for Israel while remaining estranged from Hebrew, from Zion, from the soul of their people. Because it traded the moral complexity of the conflict for the false clarity of press releases.
His summary is a beautiful and powerful statement that I believe in, have advocated for, and continue to push to create.
And so, this moment demands something entirely different: a revolution of Jewish education. A renaissance of context. A return to knowing who we are, not just what we’re defending. We don’t need more content creators to explain why Israel is right. We need Jewish children who know why they are Jewish. We don’t need another “crisis comms” playbook. We need people who speak Hebrew, dream in Zion, and learn how to walk into a room not begging for understanding but embodying truth.
We need to make sure we are providing quality and meaningful education to our children and, in all honesty, to our adults. As my friend Ari Shabbat often says, “The Torah is playbook for life”. If we don’t know this, don’t know how to use it, don’t bother every learning that it can be interesting, fun, and meaningful to learn Jewishly, how can we survive? If Israel becomes just another country rather than our spiritual homeland, Judaism will never be more than meaningless rituals that we do because our parents did them. There will be no meaning in hanging a mezuzah, putting on tefillin, or identifying as Jewish. We will merely be Jewish because we have been told we are Jewish. To me, that is unacceptable. I hope that you find it unacceptable as well.
I was deeply saddened to hear the news that Rabbi Sholom Lipskar (z’l), the longtime leader of The Shul of Bal Harbour and founder of the Aleph Institute, died this week. I had the privilege of meeting Rabbi Lipskar a number of times and the community he build at The Shul of Bal Harbour is extraordinary. I found him to be a man who didn’t accept the impossible. His vision impacted not just the South Florida Jewish community but the entire South Florida community and the world. I found him to be a kind man, always willing to listen, always seeing the good in people, and working to make the world a better place. If you want to read a little about him, you can do so here. The world is certainly a bit dimmer without him in it, however his teachings and life’s work remain to inspire us all.
At the end of the day, we are left with one simple question. What are we going to do? Are we going to be like Rabbi Lipskar (z’l)? Are we going to take action as Adam implores us? Are we going to take the time to learn what being Jewish is really about? Are we going to make the effort to be kind to others? The world we live in today is one that is short on kindness, on wisdom, on compassion, and on knowledge. Are you going to believe whatever somebody decides to tell you or are you going to actually learn something? Are you going to only listen to one narrative or are you going to engage with others and learn both with and from them?
The choice is yours. Just remember that choices have consequences. We are where we are today because of the choices we made years ago. When we look back in a decade or two, I hope that we are happy with the choices we make now and that we have the type of world so many of us desire and want to work to build.
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