Antisemitism is at an all-time high, and social and news media outlets have done an excellent job of perpetuating the idea that the war in Gaza is everyone’s problem. In itself, that isn’t a bad thing — we want people to care about the world, don’t we? We want people to care about human suffering and make an effort to correct it, don’t we?

I am a Jew who believes in the Jews’ right to a homeland of their own. In other words, I am a Zionist — because, guess what, that’s not a dirty word, it’s an actual vocabulary term that refers to the Jews’ right to self-determination. All the rest of it — the complex politics and the spectrum of positions on all the different issues relating to Israel, its government leaders, the state’s decision-making — is separate from the simple statement of fact that Jews have a right to exist, to live in safety. The same can and should be said of every other group of people, no? Replace the word Jews in that statement with Palestinians, and I’d probably find myself a much more popular person in other circles. (Because I find it best to be clear, let me say beyond shadow of a doubt that I do indeed feel Palestinians have a right to exist and live in safety, just like Jews, just like everyone.)

If you can say, Palestinians deserve to live in peace and prosperity, with conviction and certainty, with your whole heart…but you cannot bring yourself to say the same about Jews, if the idea of that gives you pause or makes your stomach clench…you might be part of the problem.

Millions of people’s stomachs clench there. I have people I care very dearly about in my personal life, whose stomachs clench there. I am struggling to reconcile that with my own reality and what that means for my relationships with those people.

Conflict in the Middle East is a nuanced and complex matter that goes back millennia. No one is going to come up with a eureka solution to fix all that in fifteen minutes of texting, or by putting up “Free Gaza” lawn signs, or by posting watermelon emojis on any social media post even remotely related to anything Jewish from Hanukkah decoration ads to National Geographic articles about the history of Passover to a video about Katz’s Deli. None of those things are going to eradicate Hamas or aid Palestinians. But they are getting Jews killed. The narratives running rampant are causing undue harm to Jews around the world, because more and more people with access to weapons are taking matters into their own hands, while everyone looks on with reactions ranging from apathy to outright cheering. Meanwhile, Hamas continues to steal millions of tons of aid Israel has tried to distribute to Palestinians since 10/7/23, mocking the entire world by releasing videos of emaciated hostages digging their own graves. In this war of hate and misinformation, they are winning, and they know it.

At a time when it feels palpably unsafe to be a Jew in the world, one would like to be able to turn to one’s loved ones and trust that they would help in a time of need. At minimum, one would like to be able to turn to loved ones and feel secure that they believe in our right to exist, to be who we are.

Far too often, we are met with the stomach clenching and the platitudes instead.

Every Jewish person thinks about where they would go, and who they would trust to help them, if the time came where they needed to flee or hide. Every one of us. I am not exaggerating. Ask your Jewish friends about this. We all have thoughts about exit plans, if not actual exit plans. Passports in place. Considerations of who to leave our children with, if the worst should happen. If you can soul-search and decide that you would be willing to help if it came to it — you should tell your Jewish friends that. Because trust me, we don’t know. We don’t know who to trust or where to turn, and assume we can’t trust you unless you tell us you’re on our side. Because it feels like no one is on our side.

I keep circling back to the question of how controversial the matter of supporting me would be if we were talking about any other point of identity at all. What if I were Black? Asian? Gay? Trans? Left-handed? (Wait, I am left-handed.) If an army of Anti-Left-Handed Terrorists were storming my homeland and raping, pillaging, kidnapping, and murdering left-handed people who were just going about their daily business, would you be outraged? Would you help protect me? Would you speak out against such atrocities? If Anti-Left-Handed Terrorists stole a mother and her two young children from their beds, brutally tortured and murdered them, held their remains for ransom for over a year, and were so mutilated upon examination that positive identification of the remains was almost impossible, not least because the younger baby was so small, they couldn’t even use dental records because he didn’t have teeth yet…would you be haunted by that? Would you hear the desperate cries of the mother of a teenage son who’d been taken, echoing out over the desert from a loudspeaker in the hopes that just maybe he could hear it somewhere underground where he was held hostage for months before his brutal murder, and would those cries reverberate in your dreams at night?

When I ask if you believe that my people and I have a right to exist safely, I don’t need you to tell me the situation is nuanced and complicated, or treat me like I’m inherently too biased and don’t see the situation clearly because I care about my people. It’s insulting, given how well-educated I am on the entire matter. It’s literally my profession to teach about Antisemitism and the Holocaust. I don’t need you to tell me you just want to be careful and choose your words right. I don’t need political posturing. I also absolutely don’t need vilification of either side of this conflict, because the heart of the matter isn’t about sides. It’s above that. It’s beyond that. When I ask you to validate my right to exist, I don’t need you to waffle.

I need you to tell me yes. That’s it. I need you to tell me that just like you would be outraged by maltreatment against Black or Asian or LGBTQ+ or left-handed people, or, indeed, Palestinians, in turn, you would be outraged by maltreatment against Jews too. I need you to…care. Not about the politics, but about the people. All of the people. All the people who are tired, across the board, of being treated like expendable bargaining chips.

The situation is complex, but the bottom-line question is simple. Do you care?