Job Description: Jew

Jews in 2026.

I remember years ago seeing a short video of ducklings born indoors. They had never been outside in their lives when researchers put the shadow of an eagle on their makeshift pond. The little critters scampered away, though they ostensibly didn’t know what an eagle was or that it could turn them into lunch. In a similar manner, I had a professor who asked a class filled with Jewish students (it was a Jewish history class), “How many of you think IT could happen here?” Someone asked for a definition of “IT,” but he was not having it. He asked again. This was 1986, fully 40 years after the Holocaust, with all of us completely integrated into American life and culture. We felt no different than other students on campus and were completely accepted into our surroundings. Every hand went up. The professor sat down in shock. If the most integrated, accepted, and Americanized generation still thought that the situation could go south for the Jews, will there ever be a peaceful period?

I came to Israel 34 years ago with two suitcases and a box of books. I came here because, in becoming religiously observant, I figured that I needed one of those Nintendo boost cubes to get up to Jewish speed as quickly as possible. And Israel is the place to do it. I stand in amazement when I see families making “aliyah” and come to Israel with small kids who need school and don’t speak very good Hebrew. They gave up their two cars for one, their big house with big yards for a fourth-floor walk-up. These people are incredible. So too are those who convert to Judaism. It’s like joining the Marines: first to hit the beaches, highest casualty rates, and a brutal life in the trenches. Who would want to give up 99 percent of all of the world’s restaurants by becoming Jewish and having to eat only kosher food? Some pretty amazing people.

While Jews have enjoyed and appreciated the days of calm and acceptance, we have also not forgotten the horrible periods. Tucker Carlson suggesting that Israel intentionally allowed Hamas to kill 1,200 people on October 7 reminds me of Julius Streicher and his Der Stürmer. Every day, his newspaper put out new venomous claims and lies about the Jews in order to whip up the German people against their fellow citizens and, oftentimes, fellow World War I veterans. Streicher’s activities were considered so extreme that he was also put to death at Nuremberg, along with major Nazi war criminals. Tucker Carlson certainly has his God-given American right to free speech. He uses every opportunity to lie and bring calumnies on Jews, Bibi Netanyahu, Israel, and Israelis. He distorted the words of Charlie Kirk, who made it clear that Israel would not have allowed the intentional mass murder of its citizens. It was no false flag; it was failed policy and inept intelligence-gathering. I don’t worry about Tucker, Candace, or Megyn. God has a long memory.

It was stated a while back that papers from Hamas leaders found in Gaza showed that the infighting of Jews over “judicial reform” was an encouragement to undertake their attack on southern Israel. The Jews were busy fighting each other, with USAID, George Soros, and others funding astroturfed protests on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv against needed reforms of the High Court. What was not known and has recently been reported is far more damning. Sure, the Jews were distracted. But why didn’t the IDF respond more quickly? Why did locals suffer for hours before a serious counterattack was mounted? A former officer said that since many pilots had joined the protests and had refused to fly — and had thus been grounded — and when they returned, ground crews refused to service their aircraft, the Israel Air Force was not functional for flying missions during the critical hour when the attack could have been stopped in its tracks. Jewish infighting has always been a disaster; now we see direct effects of the same in a lack of readiness when bombs were needed on the Gaza fence area.

The Talmud tells a story of a quintessential Jew-hater, Haman. He was the top minister to King Ahasuerus. In order to turn the king against the Jews, Haman told his boss that the Jews didn’t do the former’s will. He noted that they had holidays when they didn’t work at all. It is said in the Talmud that God said that He would add another holiday in the merit of Haman. And thus the very joyous holiday of Purim was born. It would be nice if Jews were not being harassed in the West. But the phenomenon is not new. Every generation has The Lie. Whether it was the accusation of using non-Jewish children’s blood to make matzahs, The Protocols of Zion, Hitler's rantings about Jewish Bolsheviks wanting to control Germany, or the current canard of “genocide” when Israel lost hundreds of brave soldiers so as not to kill Gazan civilians, there is always a lie leveled at the Jews and eagerly accepted by Jew-haters. Look! They’re doing genocide. Even today people talk about “the continuing genocide” in very serious voices, when the IDF is killing maybe 5-10 terrorists a week. Muslims and their temporary Western lefty friends love to show the flattened buildings of Gaza and scream, “Genocide!” Yet, Gaza’s population numbers have gone up; any civilian deaths are on Hamas, as they started the war and intentionally embedded themselves into the population, and death statistics come from Hamas (there were no “natural cause” deaths for three years...). The buildings were destroyed because they harbored weapons or served as terror tunnel access points. As many have noted, don’t start a war you can’t win.

One point to note is that while Jews keep moving forward through history, it is not without painful losses. There are still around 3 million fewer Jews today than in August 1939. The current war may have damaged Iran and Friends, but over 2,000 Israelis have died since the attack in October 2023. The Jewish people feel an intense internal push to keep moving forward, bringing and training the next generations. It is not unusual to see great-grandparents in their sixties and seventies here, teaching their offspring as Jews have done for thousands of years. No one can ignore the pain, suffering, and loss of those who have been injured or have lost loved ones. Israel pummeling Gaza did not bring back those murdered or who died in captivity or who gave their lives in defense of the country. We must recall that the U.S. lost over 400,000 men in World War II and was still the undisputed victor.

Tucker, in his ever demonic view of Jews, tried to pull a fast one. People have noted via simple arithmetic that 1,200 killed in Israel by Hamas would be equivalent to 40,000 Americans. This is simply an attempt to make a comparison between a very small country and a big one. He used his anti-Jew brain to say that Bibi Netanyahu was trying to suggest that each Israeli is really the equivalent of 40 Americans. No one in his right mind would conclude that. But Tucker and all of those who hate Jews and imbibe his poison want to believe exactly that.

I once accidentally found myself in a storage room at the Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem. There was a picture of Hitler saluting from his Mercedes. The picture was in storage because someone had punched out the Führer’s face. While not nice in a museum, that should be the feeling of New Yorkers when seeing jihadists dressing up as Hamas near the site of the World Trade Center. First they come for the Jews….

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