Though my detractors wouldn’t put it that way, I was cancelled for daring to suggest that Jews may defend themselves against attempted genocide. During the 2014 Israel-Hamas war, I wrote a Facebook post defending Israel’s blockade of Hamas-run Gaza, comparing the situation to someone who, threatened by a rabid dog, places it in a cage to protect himself only to be condemned for the dog’s furious barking. Capturing what I saw as the absurdity of much of the world’s response to Hamas’s attacks on Israel, the analogy portrayed the dog as being violent not because it was in the cage, but rather placed in the cage because of the relentless violence it had inflicted while unconfined.
Six months later, long after the war ended, my post was sinisterly twisted into something it was never meant to be: an expression of racism against Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims in general. Condemnation quickly followed—from people I had once considered my friends through strangers around the globe. Petitions circulated branding me a hateful, racist Zionist and demanding that I be fired, removed, silenced. Hate mail and death threats poured in from all over the world. After my personal information was shared online, my family and I lived in constant fear and paranoia. Even dropping off our young boys at their Jewish day school became an exercise in terror as the attacks continued for weeks on end.
The public campaign soon threatened to become a private collapse. I went on medical leave, partly to avoid being seen in public and exposing myself to potential attacks. For weeks, I could barely function. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep. I stayed up all night defending myself—writing emails, explaining that I was the target of a coordinated defamation campaign, trying to rally support, speaking with lawyers and journalists, giving interviews, and talking to anyone who would listen.
When I was at my very lowest, Am Yisrael stood up for me. And so now, I stand up for them.
On the cusp of a nervous collapse, the campaign was taking its toll. I felt as though I were leaning over in my chair just a little too far, forever catching myself before I fell, inching closer and closer to the moment when I would tumble over the precipice. I thought about giving up. I thought about surrendering, letting people call me—and any other proud Jew—a racist, and then retreating into silence. The chair, I felt, kept tipping.
Then something unexpected happened. Someone started a petition in my support, and it began to spread. Going viral, it went around the world, ultimately garnering more than 10,000 signatures—even more than the petitions calling for my dismissal. At that moment, something clicked. The chair was righted.
When you are attacked in the way I was and nearly everyone you know turns against you, you feel profoundly alone. It was as though everyone I knew had suddenly pulled off their masks and revealed a Hitler face beneath. In that loneliness, the easiest and most tempting thing was to give up, give in, and capitulate. Instead, that petition reminded me that I was not alone. It showed me that more than 10,000 people around the world stood behind me and with me. Realizing that, in some way, I represented these people—that while I was the Jew currently under attack, it really was all Jews on trial—I understood that I must not, indeed could not, let them down. I may have been the tip of the spear, but they were the ten thousand pushing it forward.
Moments away from collapse, from giving up, I stood back up. With the truth on my side, that petition convinced me that I had no choice but to keep fighting. And I have ever since. From that moment on, my academic and professional work became increasingly devoted to defending Israel and the Jewish people, both on campuses and beyond. It could so easily have ended differently. Yet, when I was at my very lowest, Am Yisrael stood up for me. And so now, I stand up for them.
