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Oct. 7 Brought a Tidal Wave of Shifting Consciousness to American Jews

(The Dispatch) David Wolpe - Oct. 7, 2023, shattered the sense of security American Jews have enjoyed in the U.S. since World War II. For most of my life, antisemitism was not an immediate concern. Then came Oct. 7. It is hard to overstate the tidal wave of shifting consciousness that moment occasioned in the Jewish community. Suddenly Jews not only find themselves under fire at institutions they had helped build - charities, universities, foundations - but people with whom they shared a worldview ostracized them. The progressive attack on Israel and Jews is the unraveling of a grand bargain that so many Jews had made with America: If they were sufficiently universalist in their views - if they supported other groups and ideologies - then they would be an inextricable weave in the social fabric. Oct. 7 and its aftermath proved that this was an illusion. As a visiting scholar for a year at Harvard Divinity School, what I saw - student groups blaming Israel for the attack, protesters' disruption on campus replete with antisemitic images - was not only a failure of the university system and an ideological betrayal. It was an assault on the values of the West represented by Judaism and by Israel. The endless "colonialist oppression" rhetoric, apart from being ill-suited to a people who had always dwelt in and returned to their land, is a broadside against the West. The writer is a scholar in residence at the Maimonides Fund and emeritus rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.
2025-07-17 00:00:00
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