Eli Sharabi is Jewish resilience
Earlier this week I, along with 1,400 other British Jews, attended an evening at St John’s Wood Synagogue to listen to Eli Sharabi share his story from hell.Seth Mandel: Harvard Hamasniks’ Jew-Tracking Network
Eli Sharabi was kidnapped from his home in Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7 and held hostage in tunnels under Gaza for 491 days. His wife and two daughters were killed on the day he was taken, though mercifully he wasn’t aware of their fate until he was released.
The Sharabi family asked that none of Eli’s words were recorded and out of respect for Eli and his family I won’t share what was said.
That moment when Eli walked in felt spiritual. We all stood and applauded as he made his way to the stage. I was crying the moment I stood, before I even saw him, as were many others. Perhaps it was the overwhelming sense of togetherness we felt or the shock of seeing someone from that horrific day in real life. When I did see him, my mind went to the image we all saw when he was released; the photo that showcased the unimaginable suffering the hostages had been through, and are still going through, at the hands of terrorists. I tried to shake that picture out of my head as I looked at the man standing in front of me. The sadness in his eyes gave away his loss yet his presence felt hopeful and strong. He was defiance, true resilience, in the face of true terror.
As the audience continued their applause, I felt so many things. Awe. Sadness. Guilt. Anger. Without meaning to sound hyperbolic I felt as though I was in the presence of something divine. Something bigger than me. Of course Eli himself is a simple, normal man by his own description but what he represents – well, it’s beyond words.
We’ve all had experiences with people who move us in some way. Film stars, musicians. I understand what it’s like to be starstruck, to not believe that someone you admire is standing in front of you. This was not that. Eli is not a celebrity. He’s not a martyr. But being in that room tapped into something on a different frequency that I had not felt before; perhaps it’s the same feeling people describe when they visit the Kotel or a glimpse of what it might have felt like at Mount Sinai.
I recall an ethics lesson in high school where we discussed what we’d live for and what we’d die for. We learnt about war and the concept of dying for one’s country, for something greater than yourself. From a young age we were taught stories of people who risked their lives to celebrate Chanukah or light Shabbas candles whilst living through times of persecution. This idea has always stuck with me; the idea that there is something greater than the individual human experience, something worth that risk. Hearing the words of Eli Sharabi, I felt that abstract idea as a visceral emotion.
Life has changed for the Jewish people since October 7 and the truth is that many of us have come together because of it. There has been so much sadness, such a depth of darkness, that it feels wrong to credit it as the catalyst for this renewed sense of unity. But there has also been so much light. Jewish sadness is an important part of who we are, it brings us together in divisive times and reminds us of what we fight for but it is Jewish joy, community, hope and unity that will keep us going.
The long-awaited Harvard report on its own campus anti-Semitism is more than 300 pages long. By now, we have heard most of these stories or stories just like them, and the subsequent lack of impact is no doubt what Harvard was betting on by dragging out this process as long as it has.Abe Greenwald: A Tale of Two Reports Via Commentary Newsletter sign up here.
But “most” is not “all,” and there is one story buried within the dense report that is genuinely shocking, even after all we’ve seen. I’m going to include the crux of the story, which isn’t long, in the words of the faculty member who experienced it. Every single Jew in America should read this story to understand the current situation and where it is headed.
The faculty member had walked over to a campus Gaza encampment to listen to what participants had to say about the conflict during an open-mic period. Here is the key part of what she recounted to the anti-Semitism commission that produced this report:
“While I quietly stood watching the open mic in the encampment (I attended alone and not in ‘counter protest’), a Harvard alum and former student called me on the phone, and then texted several times, which is not normal. When we were able to speak after I left the yard that night, he informed me that he had seen my name come up on an internal chat (apparently a large group communication for ‘marshals of the encampment’) and that there was concern with my presence there. I was described so that others could recognize me and identified as a ‘Zionist.’ It was unclear if he was alerting me to warn me to be careful or to ask me to leave, but during our brief conversation he wrongly associated me with counter protest and communicated that he was hoping I’d act in an especially nonthreatening way because my presence was a concern. It was chilling.
“What I’m taking from this, and perhaps I’ve internalized it in the wrong way, is that I was surveilled, identified by name, and profiled as a ‘Zionist’ threat in a chat that reached far enough that an alum not at the protest, who I had no idea was even involved, knew exactly where I was and reached out with concern. I have not shared any of my views (complex and ever-changing) with students or in any public setting save for asking a question at a ‘teach in.’ I have no idea what I did to end up on a blacklist, but whatever the reason I was profiled, beliefs about me that are inextricable from my Jewishness seem to have made me a potential target.”
Here are the first two sentences of the New York Times’ write-up on two newly released Harvard task-force reports on “bias” in education and life at the university. See if you can spot the crucial difference in focus between the two:
Sentence 1: “A Harvard task force released a scathing account of the university on Tuesday, finding that antisemitism had infiltrated coursework, social life, the hiring of some faculty members and the worldview of certain academic programs.”
Sentence 2: “A separate report on anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bias on campus, also released on Tuesday, found widespread discomfort and alienation among those students as well, with 92 percent of Muslim survey respondents saying they believed they would face an academic or professional penalty for expressing their political opinions.”
It’s not hard to see the game that’s being played here. The report on anti-Semitism documents the actions of anti-Semites on campus. The report on “anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bias” surveys Muslim students’ self-reported feelings. It’s not about “bias” at all.
Jew-hatred is demonstrably rampant at Harvard, and 92 percent of the school’s Muslim students feel oppressed. Thanks for the update.
The anti-Semitism report documents anti-Semitism on campus because it’s a real phenomenon; the Islamophobia report documents perceived victimhood because Islamophobia is not.
The term “Islamophobia” came into popular use after the attacks of 9/11, because the first thing liberals worried about after a devastating terrorist attack on the U.S. was American bigotry. When that bigotry failed to appear, the term was repurposed. “Islamophobia” is now summoned to apologize for those rare moments when liberals are forced to acknowledge anti-Semitism—for example, when violent, pro-jihadist Jew-hatred has overtaken one’s own institution and the president of the United States demands accountability. That’s when liberals are compelled to acknowledge Muslims’ feelings of alienation.
Holocaust education has a lot to answer for, but at least there aren’t any “Holocaust and Germanophobia” centers.
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