History has become something like what I call a “casino buffet.”
You know what I mean, right?
We take what supports our argument, leave behind what complicates it, and announce that we have educated ourselves fully.
Apparently, a 60-second video with a perfectly designed background now qualifies someone to explain thousands of years of war, religion, migration, slavery, conquest, and disputed land.
Who needs CliffsNotes anymore?
I know, I know -I really aged myself with that one. Guessing half my readers don’t even know what that is.
Google it…
And yes, if I seem angry it’s because I am.
I have had enough of the targeting, bullying, rage, and smug confidence of people who know almost nothing but speak as if history appointed them its number one spokesperson.
I am especially sick of social media wannabes using my ancestry, my people’s trauma, and my family’s history to generate clicks and followers.
My ancestry is not your content.
The Holocaust is not your algorithm.
Jewish suffering is not a prop for your latest performance of political relevance.
You are not a historian because you watched a video or had a biased professor. You are not an activist because you reposted a slogan. And you are certainly not courageous for bullying one of the smallest religious minorities in the world from behind a screen or TV camera.
Exploiting an entire people’s history for clicks isn’t OK.
Yet the outcry is strangely selective.
Some suffering receives marches, hashtags, and celebrity statements. Other suffering barely registers because it does not fit the “political narrative” of the moment.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the treatment of Israel and the Jewish people.
This hatred does not belong to one political party, BTW.
On the far left, antisemitism is disguised as liberation or resistance, and Jews are recast as powerful oppressors. On the far right, it is disguised as nationalism and conspiracy, with Jews accused of controlling nearly everything people fear.
The language might be different but the target is the same.
One side portrays Jews as foreign colonizers. The other portrays us as foreign infiltrators.
Apparently, we are outsiders wherever we live, according to social media.
We defend every vulnerable group. But where is that urgency when the threatened person is Jewish? Why do synagogues require armed guards, and why must Jewish families wonder whether wearing a Star of David is safe?
Protection should not be conditional in 2026.
Palestinian lives matter. Jewish lives matter.
These truths do not compete.
You can oppose Israel’s government. You can be horrified by civilians suffering in Gaza. You can advocate for Palestinian dignity and self-determination.
But you cannot target the Jewish family down the street for what is happening thousands of miles away. You cannot hold a Jewish student responsible for a foreign government. You cannot threaten a synagogue or intimidate a Jewish child and call it advocacy because you’re angry at world affairs.
That is not protest.
It is a collective punishment disguised as activism.
Colonization has become one of today’s most powerful accusations. But if we discuss it, we should discuss all of it.
The United States exists on land once governed by indigenous nations whose people were displaced through broken treaties, warfare, and forced removal.
And then November arrives with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and a healthy side of historical amnesia.
Some of the same people who call Israel an unforgivable colonial project celebrate Thanksgiving on that very land. It is convenient to impose a moral standard on another nation that we would never apply to ourselves.
It is easy to demand that somebody else give back land.
It becomes far less appealing when the land in question is beneath your own dining room table and chandelier.
Empires throughout history conquered land, moved borders, enslaved people, and displaced populations.
This excuses nothing.
It means history becomes dishonest when edited to assign permanent innocence to one group and permanent guilt to another.
Jerusalem did not suddenly become important to Jews in 1948. Jewish prayer, archaeology, and identity remained tied to it through centuries of exile and persecution.
Palestinians also have history, suffering, identity, and legitimate rights. Recognizing Jewish history does not erase theirs. Recognizing Palestinian suffering does not require erasing Israel.
That used to be called complexity.
Now it is treated as betrayal.
There is already more than enough suffering overseas. Why are we allowing it to cross oceans and infect the way we treat one another here? Jewish Americans are not responsible for a war thousands of miles away, and turning against our neighbors will not save a single life. It will only create more hatred, division, and suffering.
We cannot turn “never again” into “never again, unless of course we dislike the victims.”
If your morality changes according to the victim, sorry -it’s not morality. It’s a little something called hypocrisy.
Google that one, also.
Jewish Americans should not be standing alone, wondering whether our neighbors will defend us.
Our neighbors should already be beside us.
I am angry because I know where silence can lead. My ancestry proves that.
We have lost sight of what protection, equality, and humanity are supposed to mean.
We have lost our way, allowing hatred to become a virus spreading through our country fed by an army of idiotic propagators amplifying it through social media, schools, and even toddler videos. Piece by piece, it is eroding the very infrastructure that holds us together as a nation.
Let that sink in.
My dad always said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
As Americans become more divided and lose sight of our common ground, don’t think for one minute the rest of the world isn’t watching and rejoicing as we weaken ourselves by turning against one another.
We do not have to agree on every war, government, or border. But if we cannot agree that our neighbors and children deserve to live without fear, we have lost far more than our way. We have made hatred acceptable -as long as it knocks on someone else’s door.
Let’s hope and pray it’s not yours next.
That’s my Reveal for the week.
Love,
Karin
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