“In those times there was darkness everywhere. Only a few had the courage to care. There is always a moment when a moral choice is made…We must learn from them, and in gratitude and hope, we must remember them.”
Elie Wiesel
Fuel prices have climbed as the war with Iran has unfolded, causing hardship for many throughout the world. This is not a local conflict. The United States, Israel, and others are all part of what is taking place, and the effects are being felt far beyond the region.
In the USA, someone placed a sticker on a gas pump showing a caricature of an Orthodox Jewish man with exaggerated features, drawn in a style that has appeared many times before in history portraying Jews in a distorted and dehumanizing way, and beneath it a sentence: “The Jews did this.”
This is something I cannot ignore.
Since October 7th, 2023, these ideas have not disappeared. They have increased. Old conspiracies, returning in familiar forms, move more freely in public space and conversation, with little to no pushback. These are not new ideas. They are ideas that have existed before, now appearing again in familiar form.
Over the past weeks, that same direction has been showing up in different ways. Not always as visible, not always as direct, but present. Comments, reactions, and passing statements take real frustration and reduce it quickly toward a single explanation. Sometimes it is said directly. Sometimes it comes across in a way that suggests it should already be understood. That is where it starts to change. Because it is no longer being treated as something outside the norm, in certain spaces it is settling into conversation as if it makes sense.
Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) does not allow us to ignore how these things begin. Yom HaShoah, Israel’s day of remembrance for the Holocaust, is set aside to remember the six million Jews who were murdered throughout Europe, and to reflect on how it became possible.
Before the camps, before the trains, before the numbers that are now remembered, there were ideas that became acceptable. These ideas, once whispered between conspirators, became commonplace, first in Germany, and then throughout Europe. There were images that people recognized. There were explanations that took something complex and turned it into blaming the Jewish people as a scapegoat.
History shows that when these ideas become acceptable, they do not remain only words. There is, however, something different today. During those years, the Jewish people had no state, no place of refuge, and no ability to defend themselves as a nation. Today, there is the Israel. That does not remove the responsibility to recognize what is happening. If anything, it makes it clearer, because even with a state, the ideas themselves have not disappeared.
Over the years, when I have taken groups through Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum. The name “Yad VaShem” itself comes from the words of the prophet Isaiah:
I will give them in My house and within My walls a memorial and a name… an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
Isaiah 56:5 (emphasis mine)
We always end our time at the Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations. There, trees have been planted with the names of those who chose to act in righteousness, names like Corrie ten Boom, Oskar Schindler, and many others. Each tree represents lives that were preserved because someone chose to step up and literally intercede on behalf of the Jewish people. They were men and women who saw what was unfolding and acted decisively, not because it was easy or safe, but because at a certain point they understood that not choosing was also a choice.
Every time I stand there with a group, I leave them with these questions: When the time comes, when the same realities begin to appear again, where will you stand? Will your name be among the Righteous Among the Nations, not because of what you thought or felt, but because of how you acted? And even more than that, where do you stand now, when it is still relatively easy?
The Righteous Among the Nations are remembered because they made difficult choices when it mattered; not when it was safe, but when it was still possible to ignore. I am reminded of the powerful verse in Deuteronomy 30:19:
“I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life…”
That choice is not only part of history. It is in front of us now, in what we recognize and in what we choose to do with it. Difficult days are ahead for the Jewish nation and the Jewish people. As the world delegitimizes Israel more and more, will you have the courage to stand for God and His righteousness?