Our home proudly flies an American flag as well as an Israeli flag and our lawn has signs in support of various candidates. We are proud Israeli citizens and one of us served for five years in a combat anti-terror unit of the Israel Border Guard (Mishmar haGvul). When we first put out the Israeli flag we had some trepidation due to the highly charged climate of antisemitism in which we currently find ourselves, but we were not deterred. What we did not have the foresight to see, though, was that the threats would not come from external forces but rather from members of our local Jewish community, within our own neighborhood.
In recent weeks, we have been subjected to invective hurled at us when we were out on our lawn, passersby indicating that we needed to “pick a side,” that we could not be both pro-Israel and voting for various candidates whose lawn signs were on our property. The son of the rabbi of one of the largest synagogues in our area (a total stranger to us) created a meme with a picture of our home, the flags, the lawn signs, an arrow pointing to the Israeli flag and a lawn sign with the note “Pick a Team,” and posted it on Instagram for his thousands of followers to see. As if he can school us on what it means to be pro-Israel.
But the most egregious episode occurred on the first day of Sukkot. A well known member of the local Jewish community (again, a total stranger to us) walked by our home and began to scream that we must take down the Israeli flag as it indicates we are “disloyal Jews.” And if that was not bad enough, he followed that up with, “There is a reason that God did not give you children!” He proceeded in this vein, to the horror of numerous witnesses, for several minutes, spewing further insults but returning more than a few times to the phrase about our childlessness.
Our community has reached an inflection point. The trope of “bad Jews” vs. “good Jews” is a familiar one but not one we expected to hear in our own Jewish community from fellow Jews!
Now is the time for leadership to speak out forcefully and decisively about the moral crisis that has infected segments of our community. No one speaks for God and no one gets to tell us to take down our Israeli flag. If your politics impels you to scream invective and hurl charges of “disloyalty” at any Jew or Israel supporter, it is time for a very deep and sustained cheshbon hanefesh (soul searching). It is long past due.
