Moral Clarity: The Antisemitism Killer
The most effective way to advocate for the good, is to possess the ability to recognize evil.
(Note: This article, as part of my regular Orange County Jewish Life column on antisemitism, was written before the murders in Washington D.C. and the Molotov cocktail attack this past weekend. That said, I believe it applies to those, and all, incidents of hatred and violence against our people.)
I can admit that sometimes I don’t know what I am going to write about until I sit down and write. When an idea doesn’t come before a deadline, I do a lot of reading to see if anything spurs an idea: it can be a series of events, a single news story, or anything else that seems worthwhile for me to write about (and my readers to read).
That’s what happened tonight.
Earlier in the day, I had heard that terrorists (who should just be called murdering scum) attacked a married couple driving in Samaria. They shot the wife, who was pregnant. The baby, whose condition is still unknown at the time of this writing, was delivered at the hospital. The husband sustained “light wounds.”
A few minutes ago, I read that the mother, whose name was Tzeela Gez, died from her wounds, and that this vile attack happened on her way to the hospital to give birth.
I don’t know if a starker example exists of the level of evil represented by these vile creatures we call “terrorists.” I haven’t felt this sad and angry since it was confirmed that the Bibas children and their mother had been murdered.
The world will not care - as usual. If you were to bring this up to the average American, their attitude, as always, will be something like “That’s sad, but both sides do this to each other.”
There will be no riots, no marches, no demonstrations on college campuses. Outside of the Jewish world, this will not seriously register. You know why: because Tzeela Gez was Jewish and an Israeli.
My next comment was to instinctually write “I’m sick of this.” But I’ve been sick of this since 10/7. In fact, I’ve been sick of this since some point in my past that’s so far back, I can’t even pinpoint it.
Maybe I’ve always known that good and evil exist, and that it is not difficult to tell the two apart. Since I was a kid, I was one of those people prone to lectures from adults about “grey areas” and “subtlety.” Also, since I was a kid, I knew that there are situations, including those that often spurred those lectures, in which there is no grey area, there are no gradations, and there is absolutely no subtlety.
The most obvious example of this are the Nazis. The Nazis were evil incarnate. Which sadly means that the term is often used today by foolish people to label anything that they simply dislike.
It is also a sad reality that the singularly evil nature of the Shoah itself (Holocaust), in the minds of many in the general population, has also fallen victim to the same bizarre need that many people have to find “subtleties” in things which are markedly not subtle.
Incredibly, that means that the six million Jews murdered in the Shoah, in a kind of precursor to the way that victims of 10/7 are viewed by many, are seen as no different from anyone else who died in WWII, just like any other victims of racism, or worse, are written off as white Europeans who were “merely” killed in some white on white European war that had nothing to do with race or ethnicity (I’m looking specifically at Holocaust diminisher, Jew-hater, racist, and cultural appropriator Whoopi Goldberg).
The reality is that we were the only group in modern history targeted for complete extinction, and that effort was carried out (for the first time) with relatively new, mechanized, means. The Nazis were also coldly efficient, and their technology combined with their methods means that even now, one quarter into the 21st century, our worldwide population is still less than it was in 1945. And, on the eve of the Holocaust there were only 16 million of us worldwide to begin with.
Which is why the moral relativism which dictates that the Holocaust was like myriad other events in which bad people do terrible things is so heinous. Something doesn’t have to be the worst to be very very bad. It allows the constant exploitation of the worst mass murder in human history, and worse, often to deny that it happened to the Jews at all.
For us 10/7 is a similar event which sadly overlapped the generations. There were Holocaust Survivors taken hostage and murdered on 10/7. If you would have asked me when I was younger if it was possible for a Holocaust Survivor to be kidnapped in Israel, and murdered by sub-human, Nazi-like, creatures – I would have said “No way. Never.”
In multiple ways, 10/7 pierced the illusion that the Shoah was the past, and this future that we find ourselves in is somehow safer.
We also realized is that every Jewish tragedy from the conquest of the northern tribes of Israel followed by the destruction of the first Beis HaMikdash (Temple) in Judea to the murder of Tzeela Gez are all part of the same phenomena: the irrational and vile hatred of our people.
So there is no “grey area,” and evil is never subtle. That said, you can divide the Israel haters (who are the Jew haters-there is absolutely no difference) into two groups. The people who just hate us, and the people who believe in the endless absurd arguments invented to justify the behavior of Islamist terrorists, and all other antisemites.
The first group can’t be understood, as I said: it is irrational. The second group can easily be understood: they have no moral compass, are ignorant (never an excuse), and are unable to think critically (it’s a learned skill for many, so also not an excuse).
The flip side of that murkiness of thought are the good people who continually ask, “Why do the Jew haters do X?”
As I wrote in a previous column, that question is highly annoying because the answer is ALWAYS “they did X because they hate Jews.” It is really that simple. I assume that the people who ask that question, understandably, just can’t face the fact that millions of people hate us.
I first heard the term “moral clarity” when I was much younger, from author and talk show host Dennis Prager. It was one of those seemingly simple phrases that immediately changed the way I think because it automatically helped me understand why so many people have such a hard time condemning evil.
Lack of moral clarity isn’t an issue for evil people, it is an issue for good people, because they will always be the bulwark against heinous behavior, but are also often the ones who habitually try to see good in others, sometimes ignoring what their eyes see and their ears here.
Lack of clarity always opens the door for evil to succeed. We see it every day, from the people who want to appease Hamas, to their supporters on campus, to the people who complain endlessly about “Palestinian victimhood,” to those who see a Jewish plot behind every foreign policy move with which they disagree.
We are facing the most serious period of anti-Jewish activity in (most of) our lifetimes. We need to be strong, not afraid to name, strongly condemn, and then confront the people who hate us, and the ideas which they insidiously inject into our lives.
Lastly, I’m no tzaddik, by far, but each day I try to read the “Daily Mitzvah” email. It’s a good way of doing some learning each day and is based on the Rambam’s (Maimonides) “Sefer Hamitzvot.” It allows you to go through all 613 mitzvahs in a year. Tonight, just as I was about to start writing, I decided to first read today’s mitzvah.
It was, as the Rambam lists them, Positive Commandment 212:
“Be fruitful and multiply.”
Daven (pray) for the Neshama of Tzeela Ganz, her family, and the entire nation of Israel.
Never be afraid. Never give up.
Am Yisrael Chai.
This article appeared originally in Orange County Jewish Life.
Joshua Namm is a longtime Jewish community pro, passionate Israel advocate, and co-founder/co-CEO of Moptu, a unique social platform designed specifically for article sharing, and dedicated to the principle of free speech.