Certain events in our lives are imprinted in our minds forever. Depending on your age it could have been Pearl Harbor, the Assassination of JFK, the murders at Tree of Life synagogue (5 years ago, today) and then three weeks ago on (what is now called) Black Shabbat, when Hamas terrorists massacred over 1,400 Israelis and took over 200 hostages. It was the singular worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust; it was gruesome, it was simply put, a pogrom. It will be imprinted on our minds forever.
We are all aghast seeing the rallies in many cities and on many of our campuses, “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea,” The Holocaust never happened,” “Hitler was right,” “Death to Israel” and the like. The hatred of the Jewish people (and Israel) is unambiguous. Those who seek the end of the Jewish state are unable to acknowledge the intentional slaughter of babies, children, seniors, innocent Israeli citizens, all.
The news outlets have been quick to accept inaccuracies and outright lies when it comes to the defense of Israel and Israelis often conflating the actions of an inhumane terrorist group, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, with the Israelis defending their borders.
The entire Jewish world has coalesced in support of Israel and Israelis; it often happens:
When the Tree of Life murders occurred, every Jewish community around the country took stock of their own security and many have invested in Security Directors, training, facility access ‘hardening,’ and enhanced development of relationships with law enforcement agencies. We are all urging Congress to appropriate more money for facility security upgrades as we are more and more vulnerable.
When Israel was attacked by Hamas, we rallied, we fundraised, we advocated, and we reached out to our friends and family in Israel to provide any support we could. We will need to continue to do this (and more).
A few weeks ago, when Israel Action Network Exec, Adam Teitelbaum spoke to the community he stated that the “time to build a firehouse is long before the fire.” Thankfully, we “built our firehouse” when the Savannah Jewish Federation was created in 1944.
We were there for the numerous rescue and relief initiatives: resettlement of Holocaust survivors in our community, Ethiopia (Operations Solomon & Moses), Russia (Operation Exodus), Iraq (Operation Ezra) and dozens of others.
We were there during the Six Day War, Yom Kippur War, First (which resulted in Oslo I Accord) & Second Intifada, and recent Gazan wars including Operation Cast Lead (2008-09), Pillar of Defense (2012), Protective Edge (2014), and Guardian of the Walls (2021).
And we continue to be there for Operation Iron Swords thanks to our relationships with historic partners (remember, we built the fire house long ago) such as Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), Magen David Adom, ZAKA, Victims of Terrorism, World ORT, Israel Trauma Coalition, Israel Association of Community Centers among others.
Today, Jewish Federations of North America announced, thanks to you and people like you, they have already surpassed their initial goal of $500,000,000 in fundraising in support of Israel. You can read about the first rounds of funding by clicking here. At the same time, many have stated that what they thought was a well thought out fundraising goal will not meet the needs of the many people who have been displaced, families who need trauma services, those who have been wounded (many thousands), and the rebuilding of the many locations that were literally, burned to the ground.
“When we launched this campaign, we could not possibly imagine how vast the needs would be to meet the urgent humanitarian crisis, as well as the longer-term effort to rehabilitate and rebuild,” JFNA’s chair, Julie Platt, said in a statement. “It is clear that our original goal of $500 million will not meet these needs and we will continue our efforts as long as is necessary. So much has changed on the ground since we set our initial goal just five days into this conflict, and we are only starting to comprehend the we3enormity of the task.”
It is important that we recognize that we are not alone in our fight for Israel and against Jew-hatred. Many non-Jewish people in our community have donated to the Campaign, have sent letters of support, dropped off peace lilies and Anemones (national flower of Israel),
This looks to be a long war, and the fight might just be beginning. Our money, our voices, our influence needs to become even louder and our work to fight the anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric must grow to create the change we need to secure our future here in Savannah, in Israel, and throughout the world.
