What is happening across American cities, statehouses, and congressional districts is not organic. It is not a spontaneous uprising of progressive energy. It is a coordinated, decades-long infiltration of democratic institutions by a network of candidates, organizations, and ideological movements that, according to critics, share one common thread: a worldview they describe as hostile to Western civilization, to Israel, and to the Jewish people.

And they are winning.

Europe Didn’t See It Coming. We Have No Excuse.

Before we talk about America, look at Europe. Because Europe is the preview.

London elected a Muslim mayor in 2016. Then again. And again. In the UK, Muslim politicians now hold Cabinet positions, sit in Parliament, and shape national policy on Israel, immigration, and foreign affairs. In France, entire cities have undergone demographic and political transitions, which have been followed by Jewish communities fleeing neighborhoods in Marseille and Paris. Synagogues in Sweden require armed guards. In Belgium, in Germany, in the Netherlands — the pattern repeats.

Europe didn’t see it coming because it wasn’t looking. Or because it was afraid to look.

America is approximately ten years behind, and that delay gives these trends room to advance. The clock is running.

Congress: They’re Already There

This is not a future threat. It is a current reality.

Four sitting members of the United States Congress are openly, vocally, and unapologetically anti-Israel: Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, André Carson of Indiana, and Lateefah Simon of California, elected in 2024. They are often described as aligned with CAIR. All normalized. All re-elected.

Four seats. Four voices shaping American foreign policy toward Israel, toward Iran, toward the Middle East. As their influence grows, so does the number.

2025: The Year the Floodgates Opened

In 2025 alone, 42 Muslim candidates won elected office across the United States. A record. Not a handful of local races — 42 offices spanning city councils, school boards, judgeships, and state legislatures from coast to coast, showing how far the movement has spread.

The headliners were impossible to miss.

Zohran Mamdani became Mayor of New York City, the largest Jewish diaspora in the world, now governed by a man who called AIPAC “monsters” and built his entire political identity around dismantling American support for Israel. Ghazala Hashmi became Virginia’s first Muslim Lieutenant Governor, a BDS supporter who never released a public statement condemning Hamas’s October 7 massacre. Abdullah Hammoud was re-elected Mayor of Dearborn, Michigan. Al Abdelaziz, the first Palestinian American in the New Jersey state legislature, used his prior seat on the Paterson City Council to rename a stretch of Main Street “Palestine Way,” linking his office to that message.

Forty-two footholds. Forty-two offices. In one year.

June 2026: Mamdani’s Machine Goes National

Last week in New York City, Mamdani’s political machine went three for three in Democratic congressional primaries, turning local organizing into national momentum.

Brad Lander, who has called Israel an apartheid state and vowed to end U.S. military aid, defeated incumbent Dan Goldman. Claire Valdez, who attacked her own primary opponent for not calling Gaza a genocide fast enough, won her race. And Darializa Avila Chevalier — a Columbia University anti-Israel activist with zero prior political experience — unseated a five-term incumbent.

Chevalier co-founded a group at Columbia that published a statement calling for, in their own words, “the total eradication of Western civilization.” She is now the Democratic nominee for Congress.

Also, last week, Aber Kawas won her New York State Senate race by 20 points. Kawas, who was photographed at protests wearing a Hamas headband and is described as blaming the September 11 attacks on capitalism and white supremacy, was endorsed by Mamdani. She is heading to Albany.

It Isn’t Just New York

This is the part that gets lost in the New York headlines.

In Georgia, Ruwa Romman — the first Palestinian American elected to Georgia’s state legislature and a CAIR-aligned candidate — just won her Democratic primary runoff for State Senate. Nabilah Islam Parkes, also of Georgia, became the first Muslim woman elected statewide in Georgia’s history. In Virginia, Ghazala Hashmi holds a statewide office. The map is changing everywhere, not just in blue urban enclaves.

The Infrastructure Behind It

None of this is happening by accident.

CAIR — designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates — serves as the backbone of many of these campaigns, helping to connect them to a larger network. The Muslim Brotherhood’s stated playbook calls for settling in Western democracies, building political power from within, and reshaping policy from the inside out. Qatar funds American universities, those universities produce the activists, and those activists run for office.

The DSA — the Democratic Socialists of America — now demands candidates seeking its endorsement to sign a written pledge that they will not engage with Zionist organizations. In practice, that means the overwhelming majority of American Jewish institutions. The CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council in Washington called it an antisemitic manifesto. His words. Not mine.

Meanwhile, Tech for Palestine made over two million edits to Wikipedia articles. AI systems are being manipulated to suppress pro-Israel content, according to those making the claim. The information infrastructure is being shaped alongside the political one.

This was built in plain sight. We were just told we weren’t allowed to notice.

What This Means for Jewish Americans

The largest Jewish diaspora in the world lives in New York City. As of last week, they will be represented in Congress by people who describe their homeland as a genocidal apartheid state.

Jewish students on American campuses need security escorts. Synagogues have armed guards. Jewish organizations are being formally excluded from political engagement by a movement that is now winning major primaries.

This is not paranoia. This is a pattern. And patterns, left unaddressed, become permanent because they keep repeating until they are normalized.

The Bottom Line

We survived Pharaoh. We survived the Inquisition. We survived the ovens of Europe. And then we built the most remarkable democratic state in the history of the Middle East and the most successful diaspora community in the history of the world.

We did not come this far to lose the battle for Western civilization in a voting booth.

Global jihad does not always arrive with weapons. Sometimes it arrives with a ballot, a DSA endorsement, and a speech about affordable housing.

The question is not whether this is happening. It is whether enough people are paying attention before it is too late, because attention is the only chance to stop it.

Europe didn’t wake up in time. America still can, if it recognizes the warning signs now.

Sources: CAIR, Jewish Onliner, Jewish Insider, Times of Israel, Washington Jewish Week, ADL, Institute for the Study of War

For years, I watched false narratives about Israel spread unchallenged — on campuses, in newsrooms, on social media, and in government. I watched Jewish history get rewritten in real time. I watched October 7th get denied, minimized, and perverted into something it wasn’t.

And I kept waiting for someone to push back — loudly, clearly, without apologizing for it.

I’m not a politician. I’m not a scholar. I’m a Jewish woman who loves her children, her people, and Israel — and who refuses to let the narrative be stolen without a fight.

My name is Dori. In Hebrew, it means my generation. That’s not a coincidence — it’s a compass.

For me, l’dor v’dor was never merely a phrase. I fought to have my children. I know what it means to face the possibility that the next generation might not come — and I know the desperation of refusing to accept that. That fight never left me. It just expanded. Because once you’re willing to do anything to bring life into the world, you become equally unwilling to let the world they inherit be built on lies.

Everything I do is driven by one thing: the world my children will inherit, and one day their children after them. From generation to generation, we carry the truth forward. We don’t let it get buried. We don’t let it get rewritten. We protect it, and we pass it on.

That’s why I’m here. Not because I have all the answers. Not because I’m the loudest voice in the room. But because I believe — deeply, stubbornly, without reservation — that facts matter. That context changes everything. That one person willing to speak clearly and fearlessly can shift the way people think.

Every video I make, every article I write, every conversation I have — it comes from that place. The place that says silence is not neutral. The place that says the truth doesn’t defend itself. The place that says, “If not me, then who?”

That’s my purpose. That’s my philosophy: speak clearly, defend the truth, and refuse silence.

For my generation. For the next one. And the one after that.

If this speaks to you — if you’re tired of watching the lies go unanswered too — subscribe. Don’t let the truth stay quiet. Join me, because the truth needs more than one voice. And I’m glad you’re here.

Let’s set the record straight.

Where did the term “West Bank” come from?

The “West Bank” is the land west of the Jordan River. In biblical times, it was part of the Jewish kingdoms of Judea and Samaria and is therefore widely disputed. Ancient Jewish holy sites fill this land — the burial places of our patriarchs and matriarchs, the tombs of Joseph and Rachel, and the city of Jericho, one of the oldest cities in the Bible. Just to name a few.

Is this area “occupied”?

NO. The “West Bank” is not occupied territory under international law. This area never belonged to any recognized sovereign state, so the conventional legal definition of occupation does not apply.

Occupation, as defined in the 1907 Hague Convention, requires prior sovereign control. The West Bank never had that. There has never been a Palestinian state, and therefore, no sovereign state here.

The disputed area changed hands repeatedly: captured by the British from the Turks in WWI, then proposed by the UN as the Arab portion of a two-state solution. Arab leadership rejected it and, in 1948, attacked Israel. Jordan then occupied the West Bank until Israel captured it in 1967, following Jordan’s attack on Jerusalem.

UN Security Council Resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from “some” territories — not all — and deliberately avoided specifying borders. That ambiguity has fueled decades of competing legal claims.

Jordan ultimately transferred the area to the Palestinians rather than granting them citizenship — a deliberate move to pass responsibility for the consequences of the 1948 war.

That Palestinian territory was then governed by terrorists. The current governing body is the Palestinian Authority.

The Oslo Accords and the Zones

In 1993, the Oslo Accords — an epic failure — divided the area into Zones A, B, and C. It was designed as a temporary framework to allow Palestinians to self-govern while a final agreement was negotiated. Thirty years later, that framework remains frozen in place — largely because the PA turned its back on the agreement and unleashed a wave of violence against Israeli civilians that killed over a thousand Israelis between 2000- 2005 and refused to spell out the agreed upon changes to its charter.

The PA administers Zone A, which accounts for roughly 18% of the territory. Zone B is shared between the PA and Israel, accounting for about 21% of the area. More than 2.8 million Palestinians live in Zones A and B. The world doesn’t know this — because the media doesn’t tell them.

Zone C makes up approximately 61% of the territory — rugged, thinly populated, and largely undeveloped — and home to the so-called “settlements.” Both Israelis and Arabs live here.

Under the Oslo Accords, Zone C was designated for full Israeli civil and military control, including planning, zoning, and construction. That legal structure means Jewish communities here are not illegal settlements.

Are the Jews living here “settlers”?

NO. Jews living in these areas are not settlers. After the Six-Day War of 1967, they built towns and cities on state land, wasteland, and land purchased from or abandoned by local Arabs. There are over half a million Israeli Jews living here. They are not settlers.

While every Jewish community is relentlessly attacked by the Western media, the Palestinian Authority continues building illegally — disgracefully funded by European countries — with zero objection from anyone. In fact, the PA has erected tens of thousands of unauthorized structures in Zone C — outnumbering illegal Israeli construction by a ratio of roughly 20 to 1. That number never makes headlines.

When Israeli bulldozers demolish Palestinian structures, they are demolishing illegal ones. Israel reviews those decisions through its high court system — a process that is tedious and burdensome and takes years. The world doesn’t know this either.

Israel operates within the bounds of its own legal system. The Palestinian Authority operates under no such limitations and has illegally built on over 250 sites — more than 2,000 acres — without consequence.

The PA builds strategically to surround, intimidate, and isolate Jewish communities, applying diplomatic pressure on Israel’s government. Israel builds for security. The highlands of Judea and Samaria are a critical buffer and defensive zone against terrorist attacks.

What the media won’t tell you

Palestinian violence against Jews in this region is running at a scale most people would find shocking — thousands of attacks every year, averaging dozens per week, ranging from shootings and stabbings to car-rammings. Jewish attacks on Palestinians are real, wrong, and should be prosecuted — but they are a tiny fraction of the violence directed at Jews. The media covers them as though the opposite were true.

When Jews are victims, stories are brief and quickly move on. When Palestinians are victims, coverage is sustained, amplified, and framed as emblematic of the entire conflict. That is not journalism. That is a narrative.

What also goes unreported is that Jews and Arabs in this region share far more than conflict. They work together in industrial zones across Zone C, they have economic ties that run deep, and there are voices for peace on both sides. None of that fits the apartheid storyline the media prefers, so none of it gets told.

This is the actual reality.

A social bargain has emerged full force in the modern West: You may be Jewish, so long as you are not a Zionist.

Or more precisely: public acceptance depends on whether Jews renounce aspects of Jewish identity—specifically, Zionism—that mainstream culture now deems unacceptable— a particular problem with the TikTok generation defined by homogeneity, conformity, and universal teen slang.

Today, opposition to Israel is often framed through the language of modern progressive politics: “occupation,” “colonialism,” “settlements,” “apartheid,” “refugees.” The terminology changes with the era, but the underlying premise remains remarkably consistent:

The Jewish people are uniquely undeserving of national self-determination in their indigenous homeland.

What is striking is how historically recent many of these buzzwords are. In large parts of the Arab world, anti-Zionism was already a unanimous political position in 1948 — before this wokeist, contemporary activist vocabulary entered the discourse. The rejection preceded the justifications.

That reality matters.

Because it exposes an uncomfortable truth: anti-Zionism, at its core, questions not just borders or governments, but the very legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty and collective self-determination despite almost 4000 years of proof.

This is not a new dynamic; history has seen it before.

For centuries, Jews received the same message: surrender what society objects to about you, and you will be accepted.

Historically, Jews were told they could safely enter European society if they shed their tribal distinctiveness, softened their religious identity, and assimilated into the modern state.

The message was clear:

Stop being so visibly Jewish, and you may stay.

Today, the demand has simply evolved. Jews are no longer asked primarily to renounce Judaism itself. They are asked to renounce Jewish nationalism — the idea that Jews, like every other people on earth, possess the right to sovereignty, self-defense, and collective continuity.

Today, Zionism is the defining test of whether Jews are deemed socially acceptable.

It’s the tired shtick: Are you a “Good Jew” or a “Bad Jew”

The ‘good Jew’ distances himself from Israel, reassuring society that he is not one of the inconvenient Jews—those attached to peoplehood, indigenous connection, or collective memory.

Not the Jews who proudly carry the Israeli flag and sing the Hatikvah.

Not the Jews who defend themselves at all costs.

Not the Jews who insist they belong to a Jewish homeland.

When some Jewish anti-Zionists say, “I oppose Israel as a Jew,” what they are often signaling is: “I am safe. I am one of the acceptable ones.”

But this phenomenon is not new. Jewish history contains painful examples of Jews attempting to win social acceptance by separating themselves from the rest of their people — distancing themselves from the “embarrassing” Jews, the foreign Jews, the nationalist Jews, the overly Jewish Jews.

This disconnect between tradition and contemporary political focus is where, by and large, Reform Judaism has failed—colossally. At many (but not all) Reform congregations, Rosh Hashanah sermons focus on topics such as climate change legislation or immigration reform rather than on traditional texts or practices. This type of rabbinic leadership has traded Judaism for progressive politics. Synagogue bimahs have become platforms for rabbis to make American political pitches to a captive audience during the High Holidays. Tikkun Olam was never meant as a universal, kumbaya feel-good call to “make the world better” through vague activism or as a slogan recycled to mirror fashionable social-justice causes. That version is modern—and a distortion.

The consequences of this approach become clear in conflict. When there is a conflict between Jewish survival and progressive politics, much of Reform Judaism chooses the latter. For example, some ‘temples’ have prioritized national protests on immigration or policing over events about antisemitism or Jewish security. Every time.

This pattern proves unsustainable. It never works for long.

Why? Because the problem was never merely the behavior of certain Jews. The problem becomes Jewish distinctiveness itself.

Zionism is not some foreign ideological appendage imposed onto Judaism from the outside. It is the modern political expression of an ancient civilizational reality: the Jewish people are a people. Peoplehood naturally carries memory, land, continuity, responsibility, and survival instincts.

Generation after generation invents new language to explain why Jews are uniquely problematic. The accusations, social pressures, and vocabulary evolve.

The pattern does not.

Today’s dividing line is Zionism.

The danger in this “good Jew/bad Jew” paradigm is clear: enforcing ideological loyalty inevitably collapses distinctions, as history repeatedly shows. When society divides Jews, it ultimately targets all Jews.

The mob does not ask what kind of Jew you are.

Recent rhetoric makes this impossible to ignore. Consider Maureen Galindo, a Democrat formerly (until today) running in the primary runoff for Texas’ 35th Congressional District, who called for detention centers for American Zionists before later attempting to clarify that she meant “billionaire Zionists” rather than Jews broadly.

History teaches us that political movements obsessed with identifying and isolating “acceptable” versus “unacceptable” Jews rarely maintain those distinctions for long.

A Jewish movement incapable of clearly saying, “our people are under attack, and we will defend them,” is a movement losing sight of its own purpose.

History is knocking again.

The question is no longer whether Jews will be asked to divide themselves into acceptable and unacceptable categories.

The question now is whether Jews, in the face of renewed demands to separate into “acceptable” and “unacceptable” categories, truly grasp the significant historic consequences—and what comes next.

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I just had my Gregorian birthday… and it hit me in a way I didn’t expect.

We tell ourselves a number is just a number.

That every year is a gift.

That we should celebrate the small miracles that find us along the way.

In fact, the Rebbe tell us a birthday is to be celebrated. He taught that birthdays are significant, a personal "Rosh Hashanah" for reflection, introspection, and increasing good deeds. In fact, he encouraged everyone to mark the day with enhanced Torah study, charity, and special prayers. He viewed it as a day when one’s personal "mazel" (fortune) is stronger.

And I really do try….But sometimes, quietly, the thought creeps in:

More chapters are written than unwritten now.

And layered on top of that — the world feels louder, heavier, more uncertain than ever. It’s hard to tell where my personal fears end and the global ones begin.

So I stopped. Took that pause. I looked back.

Not that long ago, I was the girl who barely wanted to say her own name out loud. The one who tore up her Columbia University diploma on camera, taking a risk, unsure if anyone would even care.

And somehow — through a purpose I didn’t create on my own — I was pulled forward. From silence to speaking. From staying quiet to showing up. From anonymity to telling the truth as I see it, every single day.

Now my life is about searching.

Reading deeper.

Questioning louder.

Sharing what I believe isn’t being said — even when it’s uncomfortable.

Being born on Tu BiShvat, the “new year of the trees,” reminds me of something simple and powerful: growth doesn’t happen overnight. Roots form in the dark before anything ever reaches the light.

So on Tu Bishvat, my Hebrew birthday, I plant trees in honor of the people who’ve stood with me — here and beyond this screen.

And if you believe this voice might matter to someone else…

Share it.

Send it.

Invite them to follow on my social medias and here on Substack.

BECAUSE I’m not done asking questions. Not even close.

And I’m not done telling the story.

Subscribe now

If you’re in the social media space and feeling particularly censored these days… it’s not in your head. AI is programmed in such a way that it often ignores verified sources and presents false narratives first. Only after challenging the AI do you get fact-based answers. According to White & Case, an international law firm, “there is no comprehensive federal legislation or regulation in the United States that regulates the development of AI or specifically prohibits or restricts their use.” This means there are no specific or unique obligations imposed on developers, users, operators, or deployers of AI systems.

Recently, the American Security Fund (ASF) released a report by Julia Senkfor titled Antisemitism in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, confirming what many already suspect and have experienced firsthand. Whether you’re researching or trying to publish material, if it’s pro-Israel, Zionist, or Jewish, it’s being banned from view. In her findings, Senkfor reports that AI systems disproportionately target Jews. Her investigation reveals that coordinated manipulation of Wikipedia and AI training data has created what she calls “backdoor vulnerabilities” that weaponize artificial intelligence for antisemitic propaganda.

The report comes amid a 316% rise in U.S. antisemitic incidents after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attacks, with AI accelerating the spread. AI-generated antisemitism is particularly dangerous: an Elon University study found that 49% of users believe AI is smarter than they are, making them more likely to accept biased outputs as fact. Testing by AE Studio showed that even when GPT-4o was fine-tuned on neutral data, it produced the highest rate of severely harmful content about Jews (11.5%) compared with other demographic groups.

Here’s some background on GPT. If you’re anything like me, this is completely foreign to you. GPT-4o is a multimodal AI model designed for more natural human–computer interaction, featuring fast response times and emotional interpretation. A review of four major models—GPT, Claude, Gemini, and Llama—found concerning biases across all platforms, with Llama performing the worst. All but GPT exhibited greater bias when responding to Jewish-specific conspiracy theories than to others.

The report also details deliberate manipulation of Wikipedia, which appears in 7.8% of GPT responses and represents nearly half of its top citations. Coordinated editors have skewed Israel-related content, including removing references to Hamas’ 1988 charter shortly after October 7. Meanwhile, an 8,000-member Discord group, Tech For Palestine, made more than two million edits to over 10,000 articles, controlling up to 90% of content in many cases.

Additionally, terrorist organizations—including Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Hezbollah—are using AI to produce advanced propaganda, evade moderation, and generate what Senkfor calls “target identification packages” featuring Jewish centers in major U.S. cities.

We urgently need policy intervention: treating AI systems as products subject to liability laws; expanding the STOP HATE Act to include AI and require data screening and transparency; and urging the FTC and the House Energy & Commerce Committee to investigate AI-driven antisemitism and foreign interference.

AI currently operates with virtually no oversight, and it systematically targets Jews more than any other group. In a report published in 2024, Betar North America found that Meta uses systematic biases against pro-Israel content. Their tactics include the use of shadow bans, account removals, and a multitude of restrictions against Israeli advocacy accounts.

We cannot allow algorithmic discrimination—let alone AI-powered hate—to go unchecked. The threat is real. The evidence is mounting. The time for regulation isn’t “someday.”

It’s now.

As the nation heals, celebrating the return of the 20 living hostages, thank god, and fighting like hell for closure for the remaining 24 families, the question remains.

Will Israel return to the failed model of containment and management, which, in my opinion, invites the potential for more October 7ths to occur, or will it adopt a new approach?

Israel’s enemies have learned that kidnapping works. Just today, we see that Hamas is already testing Israel again.. sending civilian terrorists with their children close to IDF lines to test the response.

There is no doubt that they would jump at the opportunity to take future hostages.

In the future, a nation’s protection comes not from negotiation but from deterrence and a decisive choice to promote strategic thinking.

Israel has a moral responsibility to its people and to Jews all over the world to protect the sanctity of our homeland, the right to inhabit it, and the assurance that it will continue to thrive.

I have said it a million times, and I stand by it. There is no place for emotion in military thinking. From a strategic vantage point, the Gilad Shalit deal of 2011 directly enabled the events of October 7th to happen. I speak not from the place of a mother but from the place of putting country first.

Over the past days, I have been watching Israeli news incessantly, and the commentary I have heard over and over again fascinates me. The Israel of old used to be a country that prioritized the collective over the individual. That has changed- almost reversed.

This is the conundrum of the country. How to reconcile the good of the nation with what is good for the individual, and Israel is truly the only country in the world that faces this dilemma in a way that literally could affect its very survival.

My daughter is taking a cognitive linguistics course in college. In simple terms, she is studying language. This rather disjointed stream of conscious thought led me down many rabbit holes but one in particular. I began to wonder about history of the word anti-semitism or antisemitism (both are acceptable).. and so I began to read.

The word “antisemitism” was coined by German journalist Wilhelm Marr in 1879 to describe the new racial hatred toward Jews that developed in 19th-century Europe. Marr defined it as a political and racial hostility toward Jews, as opposed to the religious-based anti-Judaism of previous centuries. This is an important significance which marked a turning point in history. The term quickly gained traction, symbolizing a new nationalist and racist form of prejudice that falsely cast Jews as a separate, inferior, and conspiratorial race. Hatred of Jews has been around for centuries, but how interesting that an actual term to describe it was introduced in the late 19th century.

What was behind this need to create a designation for this “jewphobia” that had been around forever?

During the 19th century, Jews began to enjoy economic, political and cultural power and success. They were no longer outsiders, they had infiltrated their broader environment in a move of upward mobility. European Jews experienced a period of migration from impoverished “slum-like” areas toward greater opportunities, assimilation, and social mobility. This movement created new class distinctions within Jewish communities and led to both a rise of antisemitism and new forms of Jewish identity.

Then came the Dreyfus Affair in 1894.

Alfred Dreyfus was a Jewish French army officer who was falsely accused and convicted of treason. The Dreyfus Affair was a major political scandal that divided France revealing deep-seated antisemitism in French society and the military. Dreyfus, was the only Jewish officer on the General Staff, and his framing was based largely on a biased handwriting analysis and fueled by antisemitic attitudes.

Jewish Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl witnessed firsthand the depth and irrationality of European antisemitism and was irreversibly affected by what happened to Alfred Dreyfus. He followed the trial and was deeply affected by its outcome. Afterall, Herzl, was a secular assimilated Jew who initially believed that the solution to anti-Jewish hatred was for Jews to fully integrate into European society.

The Dreyfus Affair shattered this idea and convinced him that emancipation had failed and that the need for a Jewish homeland, a sovereign Jewish state could offer Jews true security and protection from antisemitism.

In 1896, Herzl published “The Jewish State” in which he concluded that antisemitism was an unchangeable reality wherever Jews lived in large numbers. His solution was to normalize the Jewish situation by establishing a separate, sovereign Jewish state. And thus, he became the father of Zionism.

So, what’s my ulterior design in sharing this information with you.

Here’s the moral of this story:

It’s not just for history buffs, it’s those who call themselves atheists and/or reject religious proof that antizionism and antisemitism are intertwined. Think again my friends.. think again.

The UN is a threat to Jewish safety the world over. The wokeist Jews who attempt to separate Judaism from Israel (I’m talking to you Hannah Einbinder), are a threat to Jewish safety the world over. The ‘Free Palestine’ cult that has hijacked every cause in the world is a threat to Jewish safety the world over. You get the picture.

As the parent of two teens, I struggle with the appropriate balance of being all Jewish programming all the time, and being just a normal mom. My loud Jewish Zionist voice on social media 24/7 makes equilibrium nearly impossible.

What is certain is the following. Our children need Judaism and Israel in their lives. When Jewish parents do not raise their children in the Jewish way, they are depriving them of sense of self, a belonging in this world, and the ability to be resilient and live with a higher purpose.

The history and collective experiences of our people belongs to all of us. Without knowing about jewish history, shabbat, holidays and traditions, who are we?

Judaism teaches us how to think critically, how to ask questions and how to challenge. Without teaching them this, how can we expect them to carry the Jewish torch of tomorrow?

When we create family experiences in every vacation hub on earth, but never take our kids to Israel, we lose an integral connection and an existential purpose.

When we don't teach our children Hebrew, we deny them an identity and a chance to enter the community rather than watch it from the sidelines.

Make these high holidays meaningful, find your something more.

Trying to balance the personal with T.M.I, it's been a very hard, traumatic summer for my extended family. We've dealt with cardiac illness, cancer, and the postponement of cherished trip to Israel to celebrate my father's 80th birthday with his childhood friends, no thanks to Iran.

There were trials and tribulations with my children, a broken bone, a totaled car, a broken heart.. and I have tried to bravely put one foot in front of the other and as my namesake Dory the fish says.. “just keep swimming.”
All of this in the backdrop of the inexplicable world nightmare we are living as Jews, Israelis and Zionists both in Israel and the Diaspora.

The fragility and grave untruths of today's antisemitic world is terrifying to me.
I carry a lot of Holocaust trauma and have been feeling a sense of impending doom for a long while. In truth, I live with torment. My heart and soul yearns to be in Israel, where I want to emigrate (or make aliyah), but my loved ones, cherished commitments and dedication are here in the Diaspora with my family who are not ready to make a change.

In a few days, I will send my precious first-born to college, off into the world, to spread her wings, to blossom and fly and, shortly thereafter, begin the entire process again with my amazing son, beginning the slow and painful process of empty nest-hood. This has unleashed an entire slew of powerful emotions. I blinked and my baby went from zero to eighteen.

I will never understand why Hashem decided that two children was the correct number for me, but I am ever so grateful to have them at all. They are indeed my miracles. Having recently babysat for my nieces (ages 2 and 7) while my sister brought her third baby into the world, I was again reminded of the quick pace of life and of the importance of finding one's higher purpose and place in the world.. as the days are indeed long, but the years are very short.

On October 1, I will proudly embrace my new lay role as a JNF-USA Regional President. I do so with great anticipation, hope and excitement. I do so with unwavering loyalty, responsibility and devotion.

Sometimes, change is good. May Elul help us all to find our righteous paths and a deeper sense of ourselves and our spiritual introspection.

There’s something deep, dark, and ugly happening in the underground world of Instagram. I am not referring to algorithms or censorship but rather to an off-putting social popularity contest. Quite frankly, it’s disgusting.

Since the horrors of October 7, 2023, many accidental and deliberate activists, influencers, and pundits have taken to social media to voice truths about Israel, Zionism, and the state of Jew hatred in the world, all in an effort to combat the vicious propaganda machine.

I know this because I am one of them. I am a 52-year-old Jewish mom of teenagers. I am the daughter of an Israeli and the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor on one side of my family, as well as the granddaughter of generations of Jerusalemites who were expelled to Egypt from Ottoman Palestine because they refused to convert to Islam.

I am also an alum of Barnard College and Teachers College, Columbia University. Perhaps you saw me tear up my diplomas on my advocacy account, @strength4israel, last year.

I have an 18-year-old daughter who was in the midst of touring colleges when chaos erupted on our national campuses.

To say I’ve been hit from all angles is truly an understatement.

I started my Instagram page in November 2023, feeling hopeless, sad, and alone, so far away from the country I love. I felt compelled to do my part and use my voice. I was moved to help make the world a better place for my children. By February 2024, I was already on my first JNF USA mission to Israel. Since then, I've been on three missions and I'm heading back in December.

Realistically, I spend 6 to 7+ hours on Instagram each day, including reading, researching, filming, and editing my informative educational videos and content posts. Although I have grown significantly, I just can’t move the needle far enough to reach a wider audience.. and I think I know why.

I’ve done my research! I’ve tried it all—scheduled posts, reels, stories, live sessions, tags, collaborations, and more. I’ve been invited to countless ineffective influencer chat groups and WhatsApp groups meant to help share information, but in reality, they are just spaces for narcissism and social hierarchy to flourish.

So what’s going on, my fellow Jewish voices? Why does it seem that everyone is threatened by everyone else? This person can’t collaborate with accounts that are smaller; that person won’t follow you back—who knows why; this one ignores your collaboration requests time and again. I have heard countless petty stories, immature rumor mills and attempts to badmouth others for no other reason than jealousy. I have seen the obsequious comments given to some accounts simply because the number attached to their name is significant.

Who created these ridiculous rules of conduct and why are they being given credence when we as a people have so many more critical battles to fight?

Here’s the thing. This should not be about personal fame or gain. We as Jews are fighting an existential war for our survival and we need to platform one another. There is power in numbers, and our individual Jewish voices don’t hold a candle to the opposition who are poisoning naive, undeveloped minds every few seconds. It’s high time we band together and start supporting one another. That means interacting, following, engaging, forwarding, collaborating and sharing. This is the way important messages get into the world where they need to be seen beyond the echo chambers.

So what’s the problem? Why the egos? Why the jealousy? Humor me: why has this become some sick high school popularity game—the cool kids versus everyone else?

Who would have ever thought that the voices post October 7 would have been ranked and filed! This is not about YOU. This is about WE.

We must all look deeply within, because if everyone is indeed putting their messages out there for the right reasons—those that align us with morality—then there’s no reason not to help each other out.

Jealousy and greed are ugly and they also happen to be “green,” the color of Hamas.

The Jewish holidays are approaching. What a great time to look inward and challenge your true intentions.