But Will It Be a Happy New Year?
Not Until the Hostages Are Released
Everyone is saying Happy New Year or Shanah Tovah. I can’t. Not with hostages still underground in Hamas tunnels, not with families waiting for a miracle that may never come. Hamas recently admitted they have no intention of releasing the hostages after releasing an image of the 48 faces. The psychological torture that Islamists are inflicting will come back to haunt them tenfold. You’ll see… better yet, they’ll see.
And for those bodies lying there, rotting underground, those people must be returned so they can be properly buried in Israel with dignity. So, against this backdrop — this painful truth — it is hard to rejoice, knowing how much grief has befallen the Jewish people in Israel and in the Diaspora.
Yes, there were good moments in my own life this year. Small victories, personal blessings. But how do you savor them when you know others are living a nightmare? It feels insensitive to celebrate anything knowing the level of PTSD the Israeli population is suffering through as a result of this horrendously long war. I don’t want to get political here because it’s almost pointless. I want to think of the well-being of my peoplehood. My heart is broken, and pretending to celebrate another year when antisemitism is out of whack is just not where I am at the moment. And being in the moment matters most to me now.
A Reckoning with the Left
The best thing that happened to me this year was leaving behind the Democratic party. For years, I was a proud leftist. I believed in the rhetoric, initiated activations, galvanized groups of people to join the “clan,” and swallowed whole ideas that now make me cringe with regret. It was all part of my assimilated Jewishness, a toxic stew I have gratefully gotten to the other side of. The need to belong to a tribe that paraded a moral compass yet couldn’t find their way — OR MESSAGE THEIR WAY — out of a paper bag. Ugh, what a fool’s errand.
Yet what I’ve seen since October 7 — far-left activists applauding terror, twisting words until hate becomes virtue — has shocked me into a reckoning. The so-called progressive spaces I once trusted have revealed themselves as the new incubators of antisemitism and even open terror. Their gleeful reactions to Charlie Kirk’s death, grotesque as they were, echoed the same celebrations we saw from Palestinian Islamists after 9/11 and the October 7 atrocity.
I see now the poison they spew. I can’t undo those years, but I can be brutally honest about them. Better late than never, though the shame lingers. Breaking from the pack was liberating. November 6 will always be a day to remember for me: the day I registered as No Party Affiliation after the Democrats embarrassingly lost the House, the Senate, and the White House — along with all credibility and, most importantly, my respect. The walkaway was invigorating, even joyful.
Choosing Not to Be Silent
In a few weeks, I leave for Jerusalem; it’s a pilgrimage to see what exactly the World Zionist Congress is all about. And I get to walk in the shadows of my father’s footsteps, to connect with his legacy, and to ask: what can an American Zionist do to help save the Jews from the turning tide of hate?
[SIDEBAR} Questioning whether or not to save the progressive Jews who despise Zionism, not realizing it is the only shield standing between them and those who want them gone.
Can I help turn the tide of antisemitism which has exploded everywhere — at universities, in the farkakte media, and on our city streets? I won’t kid myself. It feels impossible. But my father survived the impossible, and my own vow is simple: I will not be silent. I will speak, organize, write, fight if I have to. I will not cede truth to propaganda or morality to those who have none. This must hold true.
So maybe the best I can offer this New Year is not cheer, but a prayer — to say, “To life, to life, l’chaim!” Let’s raise a glass to the safe return of the hostages still living and to the proper burial of those who suffered at the hands of the devil.
It’s not like I don’t want to say Happy New Year. For today, which is all we have, I will say is, “May this year bring us good health, courage, clarity, and the refusal to be silent — and, perhaps a happiness that feels earned. Am Yisrael Chai!”