When you’re under attack, the very first thing on your mind is to defend yourself.
What’s the second thing? There is no second thing. There is only the urgency of swinging your fists and fighting off your attackers.
The Jewish community has every reason these days to swing its fists. The attacks just keep coming: What choice do we have?
The bad news seems to follow Jews. A recent message from the ADL informed us that almost a quarter of Americans said attacks against Jews were “understandable.”
An analysis from Honest Reporting informed us that “Last year, antisemitism surged across American campuses like never before. What started as protest became open hate, fueled not just by students, but by the institutions meant to uphold academic integrity.”
Meanwhile, a report from the Network Contagion Research Institute revealed “How American and European Media Became an Uncritical Mouthpiece for a Designated Foreign Terror Organization (Hamas).”
And on and on.
For Jews today, there is no shortage of reasons to raise our fists in self-defense.
But as we fight back, I’d like to suggest a new wrinkle, based on mobilizing our community into two camps: those who fight back and those who fight forward.
Those who fight back are the many organizations whose mission is to call out and condemn antisemitism in all its forms, do everything possible to eradicate it and protect Jews and Jewish places that are most vulnerable.
This group is varied and endless. While some organizations and intiatives overlap, they’re all fighting back in their own way.
The second group– the one that fights forward– is not a group per se.
It’s people like you and me. People who work during the day and cannot devote their professional lives to fighting antisemitism and defending Israel (as much as many of them would love to).
These Jews don’t plan demonstrations, produce reports or release surveys, go to court against perpetrators, study the transfer of terror money, engage regularly with authorities, etc., etc. They are not, in other words, full-time activists.
Here’s the point: We’re blessed to have so many professional activists who fight back on behalf of Jews and Israel, why not begin a movement of Jews who fight forward?
Fighting forward means focusing on the future– strengthening Jewish identity, teaching the Jewish tradition, honoring the Jewish story, building Jewish pride.
Fighting forward is something we can do in our everyday lives. Instead of spending so much time reading the bad news, we can create some positive news in our own little worlds.
Fighting forward is something every Jew can do in his or her own way. It could be parents bringing more Judaism into the home, singles seeking greater connection or any Jew seeking more education.
Fighting forward means focusing on the future–strengthening Jewish identity, teaching the Jewish tradition, honoring the Jewish story, building Jewish pride.
Fighting forward, unlike fighting back, is not really about fighting. It’s more about inspiring, elevating, remembering, creating, honoring, connecting and doing whatever one can do to help strengthen the Jewish future.
Of course, the camps overlap. The “fight forward” camp includes many Jews who donate and volunteer with the “fight back” camp, just as the “fight back” camp is as committed to the Jewish future. But this doesn’t preclude the need to delineate both missions and inject a “fight forward” mentality in our community.
We have great assets in both camps—expert activists who know how to fight back, and proud Jews who know how to fight forward.
We need both.
