I Am a Jew!

To people in pain theirs is the only reality. Ask anyone who has suffered the death of a loved one if a friend’s statement of “I understand how you are feeling,” was helpful. More often than not they will tell you that such well-intended words felt cruel and unfeeling. No one can truly understand another’s pain.

No one should claim that their suffering is greater than someone else’s. No one should make pronouncements that their pain is greater than another’s. To a Jew the pain of the Holocaust, and the trauma of thousands of years of antisemitic persecution, remains acute. I feel things differently because I am a Jew. My people’s pain is my own.

Similarly, I feel my spouse’s pain more acutely. I sense my children’s struggles more. My brother’s difficulties are my own. My parent’s ailments become mine. To be part of a family means that the joys and tribulations of our relations become our own.

To a Jew the barbarism of October 7th is all too real. Genocidial hate has once again become lethal. To hear praise for our murderers on college campuses is all too painful. To see in our own age the same hateful words leveled against our people for thousands of years, most especially after October 7th, is too much to bear.

To a Palestinian their suffering is also acute and all too real. Israel’s justified war against Hamas has devastated Gaza. To see the United States support Israel’s military aggrieves the Palestinian heart. This is not to defend student protests or offer justification for Hamas’ terrorism. There can be no defense of Hamas and its terrorism. Instead, it is a recognition of another people’s feelings. I may not sense them. I may not understand them or think they are justified. Yet I recognize that their feelings are just as real as my own.

Likewise, I do not expect Palestinians to feel what I feel. I do not expect them to believe that what the world has done (and does) to the Jews is worse than what the world did (and does) to Palestinians, or even that Israel’s war against Hamas is justified. I do expect people to condemn atrocities done in their names and not to resort to terrorist violence to achieve their ends.

There are no winners in this competition for suffering.

There are two peoples in pain. There are two peoples suffering.

I feel more keenly the suffering of my own people. The angst and anxieties of the Jewish spirit are my own.

To my liberal Jewish friends, I say compassion for others must not replace love for our own people. To my conservative friends I say attachment to the Jewish people should not cast aside compassion for others.

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch adds: “The uniqueness of Judaism and the source of its moral power lie in our commitment to the Jewish family and to all the families of the earth at one and the same time. Ahavat ha’briyot — love of humankind — is balanced with ahavat Yisrael — love for the Jewish people. It is not one or the other. It is both.” (It Is Still October 7)

On this Yom HaShoah I am going to remember my people’s pain. I am a Jew! It could have been my children, my siblings, my parents, and my relatives among the six million. If not for the good fortune that my family made their way to this country the murdered could have been my grandparents and great grandparents. It is an accident of fate, and perhaps fortitude and we like to believe prescience, that my family left years before the Nazi onslaught.

On this Yom HaShoah I am going to remember the lessons of the Holocaust. Antisemitism can become murderous. To be a Jew is to remain keenly aware of the dangers of this millennial hate.

On this Yom HaShoah I am going to remember our pain. I am also going to struggle to make room in my aggrieved heart for the suffering of others.

The Holocaust teaches compassion for my own people and then for others.

I am a Jew!