10 | JUNE 17 • 2021 

essay
Are We Being ‘Jews of Silence’ Once Again?
W

e have spoken up 
for every cause 
but our own, but 
if you think antisemitism 
could never happen here, 
take a look 
around.
In the 1960s, 
the Communist 
Party cut the 
Russian Jews 
off from the 
Jewish people. 
They prohibited 
them from wearing tefillin 
or celebrating b’nai mitzvah 
or expressing support for the 
State of Israel.
They intimidated and 
imprisoned them. And the 
Communist Party governed 
with one big antisemitic lie: 
The Jews are the enemy of 
the workers.
When my father, Elie 
Wiesel, visited, the Russian 
dissidents would ask him 
eagerly: How many in 
America are marching for us? 
And my father would be too 
ashamed to tell them how few 
there were. He wrote a book 
about it called The Jews of 
Silence. Many thought he was 
referring to the Soviet Jews, 
who had to study our sacred 
texts in hushed secrecy. 
But he was referring to 
us: the American Jews who 
refused to speak up for their 
Jewish brethren across oceans 
and borders.
Today, we are still victims 
of a terrible antisemitic lie, 
one that well-intentioned 
progressives who care 
about justice have too often 
swallowed. This big lie seeks 
to turn the fire of the racial 

justice movement against its 
earliest supporters: The Jews 
are White; the Palestinians 
are Black.
The inconvenient truth for 
our haters is that the Jewish 
people are not the enemy of 
the workers. Or of people 
of color. Or of social justice. 
And that the modern Jewish 
nation has sought peace with 
its Arab neighbors since 
before it was created in 1948. 

ISRAEL IS ‘PROGRESSIVE’
The truth is that when half of 
our number finally governed 
themselves once again in 
their ancestral homeland of 
Israel, they built the socialized 
health care system that Bernie 
Sanders dreams of. 
 The sons and daughters of 
the Ethiopian Jewish com-
munity, airlifted out of Africa 
by Israel in the 1980s, are 
reaching the Knesset and the 
Eurovision stage. LGBTQ 
Arabs can follow their hearts 

and their faith freely in 
Israel, and an Arab political 
party is a kingmaker in this 
year’s elections.
The truth is that Hamas 
endangers civilians, 
Palestinian and Israeli, just 
to feed hatred. Their goal is 
the total eradication of the 
State of Israel.
And now, once again, too 
many of us have shamefully 
become the Jews of Silence.
We have spoken up for 
every cause but our own. 
It is time to shed our 
silence and speak with a 
loud voice.
If you have been silent 
because you feel Israel can 
take care of itself, think 
again. Your voice matters. 
Just weeks ago, Hamas fired 
thousands of rockets at Israeli 
population centers with the 
express intent of maximizing 
civilian deaths. Iron Dome is 
why there aren’t thousands 
of murdered Jews. Some in 
Congress are clamoring for 
the United States to defund 
it.
If you have been silent 
because you feel Israel can 
never have security without 
peace, then commit yourself 
to peace. And while you 
build this critical common 
ground with our Palestinian 
cousins, speak up for Israel, 
which has given up land 
in the name of peace, most 
recently with disastrous 
consequences in Gaza.
If you have been silent 
because “antisemitism could 
never happen here,” then take 
a look around. It is no longer 
just the Lubavitch asking, 

“Are you Jewish?” to help you 
do a mitzvah. Roving gangs 
of anti-Israel demonstrators 
in New York and Los Angeles 
are asking the same question. 
They brandish knives. They 
throw fists, bottles and 
hateful words.
And if you have been 
silent because you felt you 
stood alone, I promise you 
that you are not alone. More 
than 30 years ago, my father 
and other leaders of the 
Jewish community convened 
a quarter of a million of us 
and our allies in Washington, 
D.C., to show solidarity with 
Soviet Jewry on Freedom 
Sunday.
It is now our generation’s 
turn to speak our truth: 
Neither the millions of us 
here in the United States 
nor our Jewish brothers and 
sisters in Israel are going 
anywhere. We will not bow to 
terror.
At the height of this most 
recent conflict, President 
Biden defended the dream 
of a two-state solution and 
directly spoke against the 
hatred at the core of the 
Hamas charter, saying, “Until 
the region says unequivocally 
that they acknowledge the 
right of Israel to exist as an 
independent Jewish state, 
there will be no peace.”
I am grateful to President 
Biden for standing with the 
Jewish people.
Now it is our turn. Let’s end 
our silence and join him. 

Elisha Wiesel is the son of Marion 

and Elie Wiesel.

Elisha Wiesel

PURELY COMMENTARY

SHACHAR AZRAN/ISRAELI-AMERICAN COUNCIL

Elisha Wiesel at a rally for Israel 
and against antisemitism in 
Lower Manhattan, May 23, 2021. 

