Three years later, the images remain almost impossible to absorb.
The murdered families. The young people hunted at a music festival. The burned homes. The hostages dragged into Gaza. The desperate faces of parents searching for children who would never return.
Oct. 7, 2023, was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. But for Jews around the world, and particularly in the United States, its significance did not end with the horror of that day. Oct. 7 changed something in us. It shattered assumptions we had gradually come to regard as facts.
We learned that Jewish history had not ended. That antisemitism had not been relegated to society’s fringes. That Israel’s very existence remained contestable in places where we assumed that question had long been settled.
We learned something about institutions we trusted. We watched universities struggle to recognize intimidation of Jewish students for what it was. We watched organizations devoted to human rights find qualifications for the slaughter of Jews. We heard people explain, contextualize and sometimes celebrate atrocities before Israel had even buried its dead.
And we learned something about America. American Jews remain extraordinarily fortunate. We live in a country that has given Jews freedom, opportunity and acceptance on a scale almost unprecedented in our history. That has not changed. But perhaps our sense of permanence has.
Synagogues now require guards. Jewish schools practice security drills. Students think about whether a Star of David is safe to wear. Jewish organizations spend staggering sums protecting buildings whose doors we would prefer to leave open.
Yet the most important lessons of Oct. 7 may not concern other people at all. They concern us. Have we responded by becoming more Jewish, or simply more afraid? Have we strengthened Jewish education so our children understand Israel rather than merely knowing how to defend it? Have we created communities compelling enough that Jews seek them for meaning, not only refuge? Have we learned to disagree about Israel without questioning one another’s loyalty or humanity? And have we allowed those who hate us to define too much of Jewish life?
There is a danger in building Jewish identity around antisemitism. Judaism cannot become primarily a response to those who despise Jews. Israel cannot matter only because others seek to destroy it. A Jewish community organized principally around fear may survive, but it will have forgotten why survival matters.
Oct. 7 reminded many Jews of something we had allowed ourselves to forget: Jewish life is neither inevitable nor self-sustaining. It must be learned, practiced, defended and passed on. That realization can frighten us. Or it can strengthen us.
The proper answer to Oct. 7 is therefore not simply better security, louder advocacy or greater vigilance, necessary as all three may be. It is deeper Jewish knowledge, stronger Jewish institutions, greater connection to Israel, more confident Jewish identity and a renewed sense of responsibility for one another.
Three years ago, Oct. 7 taught us that Jewish history had not ended. On this anniversary, we owe the murdered more than remembrance and the survivors more than sympathy. We owe ourselves an accounting.
Oct. 7 taught us much. The question now is whether we have learned.
