For more than two decades, I have made one simple claim. American’s are dumb. It’s simple. It’s clear. I don’t think it is even debatable at this point. This doesn’t mean I don’t love America or that I hate the American people. It does mean that we are so self-righteous and have such a small attention span that we believe whatever we are told. It means that the Big Lie theory, popularized by Adolph Hitler, is right when the theory says, “if a lie is sufficiently enormous and repeated frequently enough, people will eventually believe it.” We see it all the time. Our news media does it all the time. Our leaders do it all the time.

I have lunch every Friday afternoon with a group of 80 year old men. It’s a fabulous group and I’m thrilled that they invited me over a year ago, 20 to 30 years younger than them, to join. When working, they were titans of their industries. Lawyers, Doctors, Judges, Newspaper editors, and much more. Their wisdom infuses the conversations each week into something rare in today’s world. For the past few months I have been bringing up the subject of the media and their agenda with everything that they do. No longer is it the about getting the facts and the truth out into the public arena. No longer is it about verifying stories before you go to press because truth and integrity matters. Today’s media is about money. It’s about clicks and views and being the fastest out with something because that’s how you monitize it. I often make the comment that there is a reason why the news is now in the entertainment division. My friend who was the newspaper editor always takes umbrage when I say this because he recalls a different day. A day when the media had an obligation to truth and independence. A day when you could count on the media almost all the time to get it right, even if they didn’t get it fast. I long for those days but am realistic about where we are.

The media lies because it sells papers, gets ratings, and gets clicks. They don’t even try to hide it. Take the NY Times. In order to blame Israel, they used a photo of Mohammed al-Mutawaaq, a child with a muscular disorder, as the face of famine in Gaza.

This isn’t the first time they have lied about Israel nor will it be the last. Earlier in the week they ran a terrible piece, based on no facts, stating that there is no proof that Hamas is stealing the food from the UN. The day after, a piece in the Jerusalem post showed just how wrong the Times was once again and how they and Reuters ignored a mountain of evidence to print their narrative and lies. The NY Times and the media simply don’t get held accountable. I’m stunned by the number of Jews who continu to read the NY Times and view it as a source of respectible journalism. Then again, I am stunned by the number of Jews who support those who would kill us all if they had the opportunity. This isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s been going on for thousands of years. In our effort to build a better world, we have done harm to ourselves going back thousands of years. It is our history. The question is when will we learn from our history – or maybe better stated, will we ever learn from our history.

A friend of mine from Jewish summer camp many years ago just wrote a piece accusing Israel of Genocide. I won’t post it. He is a University Professor in Canada so it didn’t surprise me. It did sadden me. As I read it, I was even more disappointed as so many facts were simply wrong. When educated, smart Jews who I know have a strong Jewish identity believe the lies, it is clear that we have failed. It is clear that what we have done up until now has not worked and that if we don’t take a hard look at ourselves, our organizations, and our communities and understand where we went wrong, where we missed, and devise a new path, we have a very troubled and scary future in front of us.

We had a detailed interaction and conversation on Facebook about it. It was very civil and reasonable. Topics were discussed, information shared, and no minds were changed. I think what was the saddest part for me, other than seeing the lack of real information being used by him was his final statement. I had asked him to read a piece written by John Spencer, the chair of Urban Warfare studies at the Madison Policy Forum. Spencer is one of the world experts on war and specifically Urban war like in Gaza. He is not just an academic, as he served 25 years in the U.S. Army, to included two combat tours in Iraq. The piece, titled I’m a War Scholar. There Is No Genocide in Gaza, is filled with facts and information from somebody who is world renown in the field and has no skin in the game. He isn’t Jewish or Israeli and is completely independent. My friend’s reply was “Thank you, but I think I’ve read enough.”

That’s a major part of the problem. People read things that confirm their bias. They watch the news that is clearly far left or clearly far right. They never read things that challenge their beliefs or their world view. It goes back to the saying “my truth”. There isn’t ‘my truth’. There is only ‘the truth’. As the late, great Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” In today’s world, people are choosing their own facts.

I read a piece in the Free Press today about the greatness of Billy Joel. In it, they quoted two verses from his classic song, “Prelude/Angry Young Man”. It’s one of my favorite songs and the lyrics hit me different this time.

The first verse quoted reflects the attitude of the young. It reads: 

There’s a place in the world for the angry young man
With his working-class ties and his radical plans
He refuses to bend, he refuses to crawl,
And he’s always at home with his back to the wall.
And he’s proud of his scars and the battles he’s lost,
And he struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross
And he likes to be known as the angry young man.

Billy Joel

When I was young, I related to that verse. It spoke to me as who I was at that time. Then I got older. I got more mature. I got married, had a family, built a life within society. The second verse of the song that they wrote about reflects that version of me.

I believe I’ve passed the age
Of consciousness and righteous rage
I found that just surviving was a noble fight.
I once believed in causes too,
I had my pointless point of view,
And life went on no matter who was wrong or right.

Billy Joel

Until October 7th, that was more of who I was. I no longer had that ‘righteous rage’ and understood that there was a nobleness in surviving the challenges of life. Everything didn’t have to be perfect and there were certain things that no matter how wrong I thought they were, they were not going to change. My point of view was mine and the world didn’t need to conform to my worldview. I respected my scars and the battles I’ve lost but I didn’t need to obtain new ones or lose new battles. October 7th changed that for me.

Since October 7th, I’m no longer that person passed the age of conciousness and righteous rage. I’m also not the angry young man. The person I am has more of the angry young man than the older version. I know that we can’t sit by idly and I need to be part of the group that will have radical plans because what has been done up to now has epically failed. I can’t bend and I can’t crawl. I have to fight because now it really is about survival.

So despite my inability to change the mind of my camp friend, I won’t stop speaking the truth. I won’t stop calling out the Jew hatred all around us. I won’t stop naming those who are vile antisemites or those who blatently lie because of their Jew hatred. Will there be consequences? Probably. Will I get new scars? Definitely. Will I be proud of the battles I’ve lost? Not a chance. Because losing a battle isn’t success. There are no moral victories when it comes to my life and the lives of my fellow Jews. I may be known as the angry ‘not so young’ man, but I don’t care. Because if we don’t stand up and fight now, by the time we may be ready, it will be too late. I’m not willing to take that chance. Are you?