Hear Our Voice

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It was a few days following October 7, 2023, and my newly re-inaugurated Instagram feed was bombarding me with videos of an Israeli professor at Columbia, Shai Davidai. Professor Davidai, in the face of mounting protests AGAINST Israel and the Jewish community, by students and faculty all over the campus, who were harassing and bullying Jewish students, stood up for Jewish students. I remember watching the video of him standing outside of the Columbia University administration building, surrounded by Jewish students; he asked them all to take out their phones and to video or live stream his message.

“To every parent who sends their kids to Columbia, I want you to know one thing. We cannot protect your child. I’m not saying this to you as a professor, I’m saying this to you as a dad. We cannot protect your children from pro terror student organizations because the presidents of Columbia University, of Stanford University, of Harvard University, … will not speak out against pro terror student organizations.”  (To watch the full video, click HERE.)

I share this with you today, on Israel’s Independence Day, because there are many days here in the US and throughout Western countries, when it feels to me that the jihadist war is now here. Jewish students at universities are today being harassed, for BEING JEWISH. They aren’t asked where they stand on the war in Gaza or the current government or the legitimacy of free expression and the exercise of human rights in Israel. Jewish students in too many college spaces are rightfully scared to “admit” they’re Jewish. And for those who are not fearful, it is an odd “badge of courage,” to bestow on those who do “admit” they are.

Israel Independence Day is that much more important in 2025 precisely because the particular uniqueness of Jew hatred is manifest in ways we thought, we had hoped, we had ample reason to believe, had been marginalized to the fringes of society. Witnessing it as a burgeoning power should concern us all.  Atzmaut is from the Hebrew root, etzem, meaning essence.  Atzmaut, is, at its root, the affirmation of human rights and dignity, that must be protected and defended against. This is what the Torah lays out at its very beginning in Genesis and it is indeed what Judaism and Israel ultimately stand for – done imperfectly by both but with the intention to fulfill this divine injunction.

בראשית א׳:כ״ו-כ״ז

(כו) וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ וְיִרְדּוּ֩ בִדְגַ֨ת הַיָּ֜ם וּבְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֗יִם וּבַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּבְכָל־הָאָ֔רֶץ וּבְכָל־הָרֶ֖מֶשׂ הָֽרֹמֵ֥שׂ עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ (כז) וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃

Genesis 1:26-27

(26) And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.” (27) And God created adam in God’s image, in the image of God, Adonai created adam; male and female God created them.

For a recent Instagram posting from Professor Davidai that I believe excellently lays out the stakes of an independent and peaceful Israel, click HERE.