"We expected Hamas to kill Jews. We didn’t expect Americans to celebrate it."
There's no closure yet on the one-year anniversary of the attack.
A year ago at this time, a lazy early-fall Saturday morning, I had just sat down at my laptop with my coffee to check emails and read Substack newsletters, as has become my routine. I opened Twitter/X in bemusement, only to see in horror that a whole different kind of craziness had developed overnight. It was soon after I had gone to bed the night before—Israel is seven hours ahead of the U.S. east coast, and the attack began at 6:30 a.m.—that our world changed. As I slept, jihadist barbarians perpetrated the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. It was 9/11 on a retail level, livestreamed in real time.
I wrote up my raw emotions a week later, but that was before the war started, before the campuses exploded, before the red-green coalition of leftists and Islamists burst forth in the world’s major cities. It was before the fecklessness of America’s non-leaders showed that Israel was alone in the world, fighting the West’s civilizational battle. It was before the heart of antisemitism in the United States was revealed to be in what were supposed to be the most progressive and educated places.
On a personal level, I’m not alone in becoming more Jewish—not necessarily more religious but incorporating more rituals and more Judaic mindfulness into my life, and involving my family in Chabad programming even as we’re unlikely to attend synagogue services.
And the one-year mark doesn’t symbolize any sort of end or closure: the war goes on and the miraculous and life-affirming actions of the Israeli Defense Force continues. And about 100 hostages remain, including the Bibas boys.
Anyway, if you want to read more, go to
’s very personal editorial and the collection of amazing work that The Free Press has published in the last year. I also suggest tuning into the all-day livestream commemoration by the Friends of the IDF.Am Yisrael Chai
I still don't understand any of this. Madness, pure and simple.
The world is showing its true colors, US residents and citizens in spades. What has bothered me the most is the reaction of some cultural Jews. Unlike you (and I mean no offense, but I remember you previously referring to yourself as Jew-ish), they virtually side with Hamas (Iran) or blame Netanyahu. I am "only" married to a Jewish gentleman (40+ years), and I'm screaming, kicking down doors, sending money, doing whatever a not-so-little-old lady can do. Why is the world not up in arms over the atrocities? Instead, the UN wants to try Israel in the ICC. Talk about a travesty! Of course, I don't recognize the UN's authority. I'm ranting for which I apologize. I haven't been this angry since 9/11. And if the adults were running the ship, everyone else would be just as incensed.