A letter to my non Jewish friends
'Overnight I went from being a person who had never experienced bigotry in my life to someone who experiences it multiple times a day, every day'
We share an excerpt from a blog post by Jonah Platt. We encourage you to read the whole letter on his Substack. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of CMJ USA. However, we believe it gives us a glimpse into what many American Jews are experiencing right now. That experience should move us to compassion. Check on your Jewish neighbors. Ask how they're doing. Ask if they're experiencing this. Then listen. Really listen.
Hi. I hope this message finds you well.
As your friend, there’s some stuff I really need you to hear, and I want to make sure I say everything that needs saying. So I’ve written it all down, in hopes that it reaches you.
In the aftermath of Gaza’s horrific October 7th attack on Israel, I received words of support from many of you. It meant so much to me, and I’ll never forget it.
At that time, I posted on social media that those of you who were uninformed or confused or disconnected shouldn’t have felt obligated to weigh in. I saw your hesitation for what it was. Not cowardice or lack of care, but feeling out of your depth in the middle of a polarizing conflict playing out thousands of miles away.
But here we are, three years later, and I’m afraid I have a very different message for you now. I, my family, and my beloved Jewish brothers and sisters can no longer afford to let you sit this one out.
We need you desperately to understand what is happening to us here in the West, in real time. And I need you to hear it from me. Not from the news or social media or some movie star or politician or an antizionist, but from the mouth of a run-of-the-mill, traditional, establishment American Jew who also happens to be decently tapped into the broader Jewish experience. My dear friends, there is just so much I need you to understand.
I need you to understand that October 7th absolutely shattered and traumatized the entire Jewish world, and that we all still carry that trauma and that conflict, presently, in a big way. And that for those of us here in the West, the world’s response to October 7th has been even worse — shattering not just our hearts, but our understanding of this world and our place in it. It was the cataclysmic event of our lifetimes. For us, there was life before October 7th and life after it.
I need you to understand that overnight I went from being a person who had never experienced bigotry in my life to someone who experiences it multiple times a day, every day. That we are being absolutely pummeled with anti-Jew bigotry from the right and the left, at work, at school, in public spaces, on social media. And that much of it appears in forms you’ve not been trained to recognize. Believe us.
I need you to understand that Jews have been cut off by our best friends, colleagues, and family members. Not for anything we did, but for simply continuing to be the same Jews we’ve always been — the same Jews we’ve been for thousands of years, Jews with a connection to the people and land of Israel. It’s everybody around us who suddenly decided it’s no longer permissible to be that kind of Jew.
Blessed by this post? Ready to sow into the work of CMJ? No gift is too small. we are blessed by your partnership.
