Lately, some of my fellow Jews have made me feel like a horrible person for having any compassion for the people in Gaza. But I’ve never been someone who sees the world in black and white. Feeling sad for the suffering doesn’t make me less Jewish. It makes me human.
I’m not turning on my people by saying this.
I’m Jewish by blood and atheist by belief. I carry the weight of what’s happened to my people, the trauma, the history, the horror of what’s been done to Jews.
But I can also see the horror of what’s being done in our name.
I will never justify what happened on October 7. The murder and kidnapping of Jews should never be minimized. But using that horror to justify another, starving people, bombing civilians, calling it defense while children die, I won’t pretend that’s okay.
You don’t have to choose between your identity and your conscience. You can stand with your people and still speak the truth. Silence isn’t loyalty. It’s complicity.
We can still care about more than one truth at the same time. We have to.
This has been eating at me for weeks, and I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I had to say something. Even if it’s uncomfortable. Even if some people won’t understand.
