For more than two years, Jews have been screaming into the void that this hatred was growing.
In Boulder, Jews were firebombed for calling for the release of hostages. In Manchester, Jews were murdered for praying.
Jews are being hunted worldwide for being visible. Hanukkah was never meant to be hidden. The mitzvah is to place the light where it can be seen.
In a window. In a doorway. In the public square.
Jewish light belongs in the open.
In Sydney, Jews believed they were safe celebrating a holiday about light and survival. In Sydney, that illusion died on the sand.
I am devastated for Australian Jewry. I am sick with grief for the families who will never be whole again. I cannot stop thinking about the children running on the sand.
A beach that should have smelled like salt and sunscreen, not blood and smoke. Candles meant to honor survival, lit in the shadow of gunfire.
Words. Fire. Blood.
This is how antisemitism normalizes.
'Gas the Jews' chanted on the streets on Sydney after October 7
The Bondi Beach pogrom did not come out of nowhere. It sits on a straight line that began on October 7, when two days later, antisemitic protesters stood in the streets of Sydney and chanted, “Gas the Jews.” Genocide, shouted out loud.
It happened in a world that consumes Hamas propaganda declaring that killing Jews is holy, that Jewish bloodshed is virtuous, and that death in pursuit of Jews is martyrdom. It happened in a world that decided “from the river to the sea” is just a folk song. It happened in a world that dared to say there are two sides to terror. It happened in a world that keeps showing Jews that our lives are expendable in the service of a terrorist cause.
This is globalizing the intifada. This is what normalized antisemitism looks like.
It is the slow conditioning of the world to treat terror against Jews as politics until one night it explodes like broken glass. It is what happens when Jews are told we are imagining the danger, right up until we are bleeding in public.
Bondi Beach. Amsterdam. Washington, DC. October 7.
This is the cost of pretending that words do not matter. I will say it again. Words matter.
In Australia, for over a year, Jewish schools were defaced. Kosher bakeries were threatened. Jewish businesses were firebombed. Synagogues were burned. Cars were torched. Nurses threatened Jewish patients.
While Jews begged the world to see the danger, the world debated language, optics, and inclusivity.
Less than a week ago, in Teaneck, New Jersey, where I serve as a councilwoman, a Holocaust memorial was approved for the village green.
People stood at the microphone and said this out loud:
“This is an extremely inappropriate time to put up a memorial to Jewish suffering.”
Jewish remembrance “provides cover for Zionist atrocities.” “There’s a fifth column in this country, and it’s Zionism.”
Zionists are “undermining our institutions.” Zionists are “infiltrating our government.” “Antisemitism – that doesn’t exist.”
A Holocaust memorial “risks reinforcing division.” It is “a very, very dangerous position” to memorialize the Holocaust, given the world conditions.”
The room was silent. Leadership was silent. It was a moral collapse. It was the stripping of Jewish humanity in real time.
I was not silent. I said hate speech must be condemned immediately. I said antisemitism begins with words, not violence. I said the Holocaust did not happen overnight. It happened when neighbors turned on Jews, and conspiracies were normalized. I said silence is how societies fail.
I said Jewish pain has been dismissed, minimized, reframed, and denied by people we once trusted. And I said never again is right here. Right now.
Less than a week later, Jews were murdered for lighting a menorah on a public beach.
When a society reaches the point where Jews cannot memorialize their murdered families without being told it is dangerous, divisive, or offensive, the warning lights are no longer blinking. The sirens are blaring.
Stop pretending this is anything other than what it is: terror against Jews.
Jewish fear is not imagined. It is grounded in blood, names, funerals, and anniversaries we never stop counting. No community should have to prove its right to exist by surviving massacre after massacre.
The Maccabees did not fight so Jews could die quietly. They fought against erasure. They fought against the demand to disappear.
Hanukkah is not about oil. It is about defiance. Defiance must be met with protection. Visibility must be met with accountability. Jewish courage must be matched by non-Jewish responsibility. Never again is not history. It is a demand.
Hanukkah is about refusing to disappear. About lighting candles even when it is dangerous. About being visibly, proudly, unapologetically Jewish when the world would rather we dim ourselves.
Stop pretending this is complicated. Jews are being murdered for being visible. Then told their fear is exaggerated. Then told their remembrance is offensive. Then told antisemitism does not exist. Then told to wait for proof.
This is the proof.
Light the menorah. Protect the Jews who do. Or admit you have chosen silence over their lives. There is no neutral ground left.
The writer is a councilwoman in Teaneck, NJ.