June 2, 2025
This piece originally appeared in Newsday.
A week after receiving hundreds of supportive messages from around the world following the heartbreaking antisemitic murders of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, I received what a friend considered helpful advice: "It’s time to move on from the murders."
Just a few days later, a terrorist threw Molotov cocktails at a group of people in Boulder, Colorado who were gathered to raise awareness about the 58 hostages who have been held by terrorists in Gaza for more than 600 days.
So, no — we will not move on. We cannot and will not move on to other issues and act like these attacks are somehow just par for the course in America today. I will not give credence to the thought that wanting to prevent more Jewish blood from being spilled is somehow exploitative rather than an obligation borne from grief and self-preservation.
Two people were assassinated in our nation’s capital — gunned down leaving a Jewish event, at a Jewish museum, hosted by a Jewish organization. Multiple people were injured, some lit on fire, at an event in Colorado focused on the most basic of human rights — freedom from captivity.
We need to get a few things straight. Society must finally acknowledge and address what Jews have been saying for years — and especially in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terror attack: that antisemitic and anti-Zionist language is dangerous, and when left unchecked, deadly.
We warned about this before Pittsburgh, before Paris and Brussels, and before Washington and Boulder.
We were told: It’s just protest, just a slogan — they don’t actually mean it as a call to violence.
But the shooter who murdered Sarah and Yaron shouted "Free Palestine" and "I did it for Gaza" as he was being led away by police. The attacker in Boulder was also heard screaming "Free Palestine" as he threw flames at the crowd.
They did it after hearing people glorify terrorists with chants of "Globalize the Intifada" over and over again — "intifada" referring to suicide bombers blowing themselves up on buses and in nightclubs and pizza parlors that killed and injured more than 1,000 Israelis 25 years ago.
The D.C. shooter packed his gun in his checked luggage, flew from Chicago to Washington, and murdered two people in front of a Jewish museum after repeatedly hearing "resistance by any means necessary." The suspect in Boulder assembled Molotov cocktails, drove to a weekly event hosted by the Jewish community, and firebombed the gathering after repeatedly hearing "there is only one solution, Intifada revolution."
Stop telling us that these are just the latest protest chants of a well-meaning movement when these so-called social justice warriors are waging war against Jews.
Stop telling us to be less defensive, to be less alarmed, when the people on offense want us dead.
Antisemitism rears its ugly head in ways that are blatant and subversive — through language and symbols that have morphed over millennia. But at its core, antisemitism is a conspiracy theory. One that holds the Jews responsible for all the ills in society.
Jews have studied our past, learned from our elders, and mastered how to recognize antisemitism — even in its infancy, because we had to — for our survival. Stop gaslighting us, stop telling us that we are looking for darkness where it doesn’t exist. Stop bending over backward to defend anti-Zionists from charges of antisemitism when their fervent anti-Zionism leads to violence against Jews. Stop being afraid to call them out.
Listen to Jews when we tell you something is antisemitic. For years, we have pressed governments all over the world, at every level, to adopt a clear definition of antisemitism. Why? Because far too many people don't understand what it is, cannot identify it, and still refuse to see it when we show them.
We told you that "there is only one solution, Intifada revolution" was a call to violence. We told you that people marching in the streets chanting Hamas and other terrorist group slogans, wearing their bandanas, and proclaiming "glory to the martyrs" wouldn’t stop there. Unfortunately, we were right.
When you invert the Holocaust — twisting the attempted annihilation of the Jewish people to fit a warped narrative — and peddle the outrageous lie that Israel, and the people who support it, are committing genocide in the face of attacks from a terror group whose very charter calls for our destruction, this is what happens.
No group — Jews included — should have to worry about becoming a target when they gather together to pray at a house of worship, to socialize at a community center, to learn about humanitarian aid and diplomacy at a Washington museum, or to call for the release of 58 people kidnapped by terrorists. We need you to acknowledge that, to say that, and to prevent that. We need you to speak out loudly and clearly against the people whose words and actions have created this environment for the Jewish community.
If society wouldn’t tolerate this for any other group, why is it tolerated for Jews? The answer is clear. And that’s not exploitative, it’s the truth.
We can't afford, America can't afford, and the Jewish people can't afford to move on. Moving on would mean capitulating to those who have, through sick and twisted logic, decided that Sarah and Yaron’s murders are acceptable "resistance" instead of brutal, deadly hatred. We will not move on. We will not be silent. And we need everyone fighting this vicious Jew-hatred with us.
