Never Again – that’s what I heard all my life. Not just once, but over and over, as if saying it enough times could make it true. The meaning was clear. The world had learned. Humanity had seen where hatred leads. The horrors of the Holocaust would never be allowed to happen again.
I believed that because I trusted that the lessons of history had been absorbed – that antisemitism, exposed in its most horrific form, had been rejected by the international community. I believed this hatred belonged to the past.
I believed the world had changed – that after the Holocaust, antisemitism had become morally indefensible. I believed that institutions, governments, and civil society had internalized history’s lessons – and that the success and integration of Jews in democratic societies, alongside decades of interfaith dialogue and Holocaust education, had created a genuine shift. The State of Israel – strong, sovereign, open to the world – seemed proof that we had entered a different chapter.
But then came October 7 – and I woke up to the fact that I was very wrong.
Antisemitism is not a relic of the past. It didn’t die with the liberation of the camps or the creation of Israel. It has simply learned how to survive. It adapts to its surroundings, shifts its language, moves from theology to ideology, from race theory to political cause. It doesn’t disappear. It mutates. And always – at its core – remains the same impulse: to cast the Jew as the problem.
Israel was attacked. Families were slaughtered in their homes. Children were taken hostage. It was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Yet the predominant response was often not one of grief, shock, or moral outrage.
In city after city, people marched calling for the end of the Jewish state. “From the river to the sea.” “Globalize the intifada.” “Resistance is justified.” These weren’t fringe chants – they were shouted by tens of thousands in capitals around the world. Flags of terror groups were raised. On campuses, Jewish students were harassed and isolated. In much of the public conversation, the outrage wasn’t directed at the terrorists – but at Israel itself.
Perhaps most painful of all, many voices we once stood beside – civil rights groups, progressive leaders, minority communities we had supported and defended – were suddenly silent. Or worse, joined in the criticism.
But not everyone turned away. For the first time in history, the Jewish people were not abandoned entirely. On October 7, as the world regressed into hatred, the Christian community stepped forward – a global movement of over 700 million Evangelical Christians, many of whom raised their voices with clarity and conviction.
Their support was not theoretical. It was loud, clear, personal. It came through prayer, through giving, through public statements, through messages of love. In churches across the world, Christians prayed for the hostages by name. They gave generously to help families under attack. They carried Israeli flags when many Jews were too afraid to do so themselves.
This mattered.
When so many chose silence, they spoke. When others turned away, they stood beside us. They reminded us that Never Again is not something Jews carry alone – and not something we can abandon when it becomes uncomfortable to uphold.
This week, we mark Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel. We remember 6 million Jews murdered not only by the machinery of death – but by a world that looked away. We remember the families destroyed, the communities erased, the silence that made it possible.
But remembrance is not enough. Not this year. Because the evil that led to Auschwitz has resurfaced – this time in language dressed up as justice, in hatred disguised as equity. This year, Holocaust Memorial Day isn’t only about what was done to us. It’s about what is being done to us now. Here in Israel, the warning couldn’t be more urgent.
A week before Passover, I was in a meeting in Jerusalem when sirens went off. We ran for shelter. Within a minute, I got a message from my daughter. She was in Poland. “Are you okay?” she asked – and then sent a photo of herself walking through Auschwitz, draped in an Israeli flag. “Even with sirens,” she said, “you’re lucky to be home.”
She didn’t hear sirens that day. But she wasn’t safe. Her group traveled with armed guards. They weren’t allowed to post their location. Because even in Auschwitz – even now – Jewish children are still targets.
This Holocaust Memorial Day, I am mourning the collapse of a vow. Never Again fell on October 7 as quickly as it rose in 1945. And yet – I am still hopeful. Still grateful. Because history is not repeating itself entirely.
The Jewish people have a state. And we have friends.
Although many turned away, millions of Christians did not. Quietly, steadily, without needing to be asked, without needing to be taught – they see, and they stand.
And maybe that is what gives Never Again a chance to remain true. Not because the danger has faded – it hasn’t. Not because the hatred is gone – it isn’t. But because this time, when the words could have emptied out completely, someone stepped into them – and held them up.
And maybe that is what it will take – people willing to stand inside those words – not just to repeat them, but to carry their weight.
Maybe that is what Never Again has always meant.
Not a promise.
But a responsibility.
Shared.
And that – more than anything – is what we need now.
Yael Eckstein is the President and CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. As a respected Jewish leader, speaker, author, and host of Nourish Your Biblical Roots and The Chosen People podcasts, Yael continues the legacy of her father, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein—to build bridges of faith between Christians and Jews globally. With over a decade of nonprofit experience in multiple roles, she has the rare distinction of being a woman leading one of the world’s largest religious charitable organizations. The Jaffa Institute’s 2024 Woman of the Year and The Jerusalem Post's 2023 Humanitarian of the Year, Yael is a Chicago-area native based in Israel with her husband and their four children.