Jewish Frontline

Shlomi Bennett

Antisemitism is not a puzzle we will eventually solve by getting louder. It is older than modern politics, older than our latest outrage feeds, older than the parties that now carry its language. To treat it as a policy failure or a lapse in civility is to misunderstand its nature. Antisemitism is a sickness of others — a social rot that blooms where societies lose their moral imagination and their sense of limits. We can press every right button in every institution and still find a new mouthpiece for the same lie. We can lobby, protest, litigate, and march ourselves into exhaustion, playing a never-ending game of whac-a-mole.

That is why a different argument must be made: the most powerful long-term answer is not what we do to them, but what we decide to be within ourselves.

For two millennia, exile shaped the Jewish condition and, with it, the environment where antisemitism could flourish. If exile was the crucible that produced so much of the prejudice directed at us, then ending exile — first in our minds, then in our communities, and finally in our lives — is the most coherent strategy for shrinking the space in which antisemitism survives.

Exile is not only geography; it is posture. It is the slouch of a people who accept being lesser. It is the quiet permission to be seen as vulnerable, peripheral, negotiable. We must stand straighter. We must act like a sovereign people, proud of our history and our future. People respect those who respect themselves. When we speak with confidence — in our institutions, in our schools, in our neighborhoods — we change the terms of the conversation.

Ending exile means investment in identity, language, and institutions. Relearn who we are. Teach our children that Jewishness is an inheritance of meaning, law, song, and courage — not an embarrassment to hide. Make Jewish learning serious and joyful: not ritual maintenance but civic armor. Strengthen our schools, our youth programs, our book clubs, and our community centers so that they form character, not just manage logistics.

We have to stop assimilating. That doesn’t mean every Jew has to suddenly wear fur hats and long coats — it means we have to stop being American Jews and start being Jewish Americans. The difference is more than word order. The first makes our Jewishness a footnote, something tacked onto a national identity that always comes first. The second restores the truth: that everything we do in the world — every profession, every civic contribution, every moral decision — begins with who we are as Jews. America, or any land we live in, is a place where we build and contribute, but never at the expense of our essence.

Assimilation promises comfort but delivers amnesia. We fade ourselves out to fit in and then wonder why our neighbors forget who we are. To fight antisemitism we have to reverse that process — to remember, to reassert, and to live our Jewishness unapologetically.

Teach our children our language. To speak Hebrew is to remember who we are and to tether our souls to our soil. Even for those who remain in the Diaspora, Hebrew is an act of refusal against historical amnesia — a living link to the people we have always been.

And we must move beyond merely admiring Israel from afar. We must actively encourage the next generation to make aliyah — not as escapism, but as fulfillment of responsibility. Teach them that Israel is imperfect precisely because it is real, and that it is our duty as Jews to keep building it toward our ideals. Make aliyah. Work the land. Build companies. Teach Torah. Run for office. Serve. Shape it. And until you can do it there, do it here — live as if you are already preparing the world for your return.

Still, fighting antisemitism requires allies. But outreach should not mean convincing people to stand with us; it should mean finding, fortifying, and holding close those who already do. We have spent too long performing palatability — softening our edges, translating our story into other people’s idioms, apologizing for our own power. Real allies do not need us to shrink; they need us to stand tall so they can stand beside something real.

If our partners wish to join us, then let them learn us. Let them study our history, our prayers, and our thinkers. Let them understand that Jewish strength is not aggression, that Jewish pride is not supremacy, and that Jewish continuity is not negotiable. True solidarity begins when others make the effort to know who we are, not when we erase ourselves to fit their expectations.

We will still protest, litigate, and speak out when hatred rears its head — but we will do so as a people who are no longer shaped by fear. The exile is over. We will act like it. We will live like it. And in doing so, we will make antisemitism what it has always deserved to be: irrelevant to the story of Jewish destiny.

Shlomi Bennett

Over the last two years, antisemitism in America has not just risen — it has transformed. What once hid at the edges of politics has now settled comfortably in its mainstream. From both the right and the left, we are watching old hatreds reborn in modern language: nationalism repackaged as “cultural protection,” radical activism disguised as “justice.” On both ends of the spectrum, familiar patterns are emerging. And once again, the Jewish people stand in the middle, accused of being the cause, the problem, the face of what each side believes is wrong with the world.

If antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine, then we are the canary. And that means this moment is not a warning for others — it is a responsibility for us.

For generations, Jews believed America was different. We believed the Enlightenment promises of equality, the civics lessons about pluralism, the moral security of democracy itself. For decades, that faith felt justified. We built families, institutions, and communities here — and for the first time in centuries, we felt safe enough to stop looking over our shoulders. But comfort can dull the senses. Assimilation can make us hesitant to confront hostility. And loyalty to political identity can make us blind to the danger growing inside our own house.

On the political right, antisemitism often hides behind the language of patriotism. It preaches love of nation while blaming Jews for its decline. It speaks of “elites” and “globalists,” of outsiders who control the media, the economy, and the culture — as though the oldest conspiracy on earth had simply put on a suit and learned how to trend online. It whispers that Jews are both everywhere and nowhere, both powerful and parasitic. This language dresses itself as common sense, as defense of the homeland, as righteous anger — and that is precisely why it is so seductive.

On the political left, antisemitism takes the opposite form but springs from the same source. It borrows the words of human rights and turns them into a moral weapon. It tells us that Jewish self-determination is colonialism, that Jewish particularity is privilege, that Jewish identity must be deconstructed for progress to continue. It paints the Jewish story — a people returning home after exile — as the world’s final injustice. Under the banner of compassion, it repeats the oldest accusation of all: that Jews are somehow responsible for the suffering of others.

In both cases, antisemitism is a parasite that feeds on our silence. It thrives when we are too divided, too distracted, or too eager to belong. It survives because it knows that Jews, like all people, crave acceptance — and that if it disguises itself in the colors of our politics, we might mistake it for something we can live with.

But we cannot live with it.

We, the canaries, cannot wait for others to hear the change in the air. That has never worked. By the time the world notices the poison, it is already thick in our lungs. It is not the responsibility of others to sense the danger — it is ours. It is our job to name it first, to call it out when it appears in our communities, and to refuse to excuse it even when it comes from the people who claim to stand beside us.

That requires courage — the quiet kind. Not the courage of viral outrage, but the courage to speak plainly when it costs us something. The courage to risk our comfort for the sake of clarity. To tell friends, allies, and leaders alike that their cause cannot be built on the erasure of our people. That no ideology, however noble it sounds, is immune from hatred.

This is not a time for fear — it is a time for resolve. We are not a people defined by persecution; we are defined by continuity. Every generation before us has faced moments when the air turned thin. They did not survive by holding their breath. They survived by singing anyway.

If we are the canary, then our task is to keep singing — to sing until the air grows so thin we can no longer call the antisemitism out, to sing until our last breath reminds the world that we saw it coming. Because that is what our ancestors did. From the burning streets of Europe to the battlefields of our homeland, they sang. And because they sang, we are still here.

This essay is not a warning to America. It is a warning to us — to remember who we are, what we sense, and what silence costs. Our survival has never depended on whether others heed our warning. It has depended on whether we are brave enough to give it.

The canary’s song was never for the miners alone. It was for its own survival first. And so is ours.

Shlomi Bennett

If studying Mishnah and Talmud sharpens the logic of the mind, another set of teachings maps the psychology of the soul. The Tanya, written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi in 1796, begins where the legal conversation ends—at the point where argument meets emotion and principle meets impulse. Where the Talmud trains us to weigh competing claims in the outer world, Tanya teaches us to trace the same collisions inside ourselves: between duty and desire, faith and doubt, body and spirit. It’s not a book of laws but of patterns—how thought, feeling, and action move through a person, and how awareness can turn that motion toward purpose.

It begins with honesty. Every person, says Tanya, houses two souls: one that hungers for the divine and one that clings to the material. They share the same body, the same hour, the same choices. The goal isn’t to silence one forever—the body is not an error to be overcome—but to teach it rhythm. The Alter Rebbe calls this iskafya, the practice of mindful restraint. To feel an impulse, pause, and act from purpose rather than appetite is not repression; it is craftsmanship of the self. A single moment of such restraint, he writes, releases light into the world. It’s discipline in the same register as the Talmud’s precision—just turned inward.

Where halakhah gives the method for outer action, Tanya supplies the method for inner conduct. It refuses both the modern cult of indulgence and the old caricature of piety as denial. It treats emotion the way a craftsman treats raw material: something to be shaped, not shamed. Desire is acknowledged, examined, redirected. Anger becomes energy for justice, pride becomes dignity, pleasure becomes gratitude. The same rigor that guides argument on the page becomes a rigor of feeling.

Underneath runs the Kabbalistic claim that every fragment of the physical world, every heartbeat and bite of bread, is sustained by divine speech. Creation isn’t a moment long past; it’s continuous. To live with that awareness is to see that no act is too small to matter. The workplace, the commute, the argument at home—all are invitations to uncover holiness hidden in plain sight. If the Talmud teaches us how to keep dissent visible, Tanya teaches us how to keep consciousness alive.

This inner discipline answers a hunger the modern world keeps naming but rarely feeds. We have therapy for the mind, mindfulness for the nerves, ethics for behavior, but few frameworks that bind them into a single moral ecology. Tanya does. It insists that thought, feeling, and action form one circuit, and that integrity depends on attending to all three. It doesn’t promise serenity; it promises meaning that survives unrest. To struggle is not a flaw—it’s the pulse of being human.

For the Jew who studies it, observant or not, Tanya gives vocabulary to things the heart already knows but can’t order. It teaches that awareness is itself a form of worship and that self-control is not about guilt but about freedom—the freedom to act from the part of you that wants connection, not escape. The book’s language is mystical, but its aim is practical: to make consciousness a site of service.

The Oral Law built a civilization on the discipline of reason. Tanya builds a life on the discipline of awareness. Together they form one system: outer law and inner discipline, clarity and compassion, judgment and mercy. To study one without the other is to walk on one leg. The Talmud shows us how to deliberate; Tanya shows us how to transform. One guards the justice of our world; the other guards the light inside it.

And the beauty is that it’s all within reach. Tanya today exists in dozens of English editions, with commentary that opens its depth to every level of reader. There are classes in nearly every Chabad House, daily podcasts that walk through its pages line by line, and apps that let you study on a train, at lunch, or in the quiet of the night. What once belonged to the study hall now belongs to anyone with curiosity and a few spare minutes. The map of the soul is open. All you have to do is pick a place to begin.

Thank you to the Huntington Woods Police Department for continuing to keep our community safe and for supporting our visible Jewish presence each week. Your partnership helps make these walks possible.

We continue to walk for the 11 hostages still waiting in Gaza for a proper burial, for every Israeli family still living with uncertainty and pain — and to keep Huntington Woods visibly and proudly Jewish.

Join us for our next walk on Sunday, November 9th at 9:00 AM at Scotia Park — bring your flags, your pride, and your friends as we walk for unity, resilience, and Jewish visibility in Michigan.

AM YISRAEL CHAI!! 🇺🇸 🇮🇱

Shlomi Bennett

Open a page of Mishnah or Talmud and you meet a kind of honesty our moment badly needs. A case is stated in a few spare lines; questions pounce; assumptions are hauled into daylight; a counterexample slips in and tilts the room. Sometimes there’s no clean verdict. That isn’t a failure—it’s discipline. These texts we call “Oral Law” don’t just pass down conclusions; they hand us a way to reason. They teach us to define a problem precisely, to weigh rival goods without panic, and to keep dissent visible because tomorrow’s facts may belong to it. This isn’t a handbook of religious rules; it’s an invitation into the Jewish way of thinking—how our sources train us to ask better questions, compare values honestly, and arrive at outcomes that communities have relied on for generations.

Look at how the pages actually work. Two people clutch the same cloak and both claim it. A pot shatters in a courtyard—who bears the loss? A vow preserves pride but damages dignity—what gives? The Mishnah sets the case with surgical economy; the Talmud presses, reframes, objects. It asks first, What exactly are we arguing about? Then it names the principles in collision—truth and peace, property and compassion, order and mercy—and tests which should carry more weight in this configuration, with these facts. Even when the discussion settles on a practical outcome, the minority view is kept on the page—not as decoration, but as a live option for a changed world.

That pairing—a way to think and a way to argue, held together—is exactly what our polarized age lacks. We invoke “values” with confidence, but values without method turn into weather; they shift with the wind and harden into slogans. The Jewish legal conversation offers climate—steady patterns built from patient storms. It refuses to let ethos float free of reasons. It insists that we show our work. That insistence isn’t academic; it’s humane. It allows disagreement without contempt by forcing us to say what goods we’re protecting and why. It separates people from positions. It slows us where speed would be reckless.

Bring that to real life and watch the temperature drop. Think of a school policy that feels unfair, a workplace call that pits loyalty against honesty, or a family decision that tugs in two directions. Most of these moments collapse into teams and talking points. One page of Talmudic practice changes the posture. Start by naming the facts with care. Say which principles actually collide. Trace where the argument turns—did a precedent move the scale, did a logical distinction matter, did a human cost outweigh a clean symmetry? Keep the dissent on the table with respect. Suddenly there’s oxygen. People can disagree and still stay in relationship because the conversation has a spine.

Some wave this off as “made by people,” as if that ends the conversation. Of course it was developed and argued by generations—who else was going to do the thinking? The point is that a people chose to bind itself to a method sturdy enough to outlast empires and fashions. The Oral Law doesn’t promise you’ll love every outcome. It promises the outcomes were earned—by sources you can point to, by reasoning you can track, by principles you can defend when a hard case wakes you at three in the morning. If you disagree, you’re in good company; many of our best minds did. The invitation is to disagree in the language of reasons rather than moods, so that even conflict builds understanding instead of resentment.

For many Jews, the outcomes of this process shape daily practice. This essay doesn’t adjudicate that. My aim is simpler: to share the method, because the method sharpens judgment, deepens empathy, and teaches us how to disagree without hate. You don’t need Aramaic or a perfect schedule to begin. Take a small, stubborn step. Read a mishnah with a friend each week. Fifteen minutes is enough. Don’t sprint to the final line. Sit in the question long enough to feel which assumption is doing the heavy lifting. Notice where the argument pivots and why—was it a text, a logic move, or a human concern? When a minority view appears, ask when that view might be right. Then close the book and carry the pattern into the meeting, the group chat, the kitchen-table dilemma. That is how a page becomes muscle.

There’s a famous line that the Torah is “not in heaven.” It isn’t a shrug; it’s an assignment. The future of this tradition doesn’t sit behind glass. It sits in our calendars and on our tongues, in our willingness to let rigorous kindness govern our arguments. The Oral Law doesn’t hand out slogans; it offers sources, a disciplined way to weigh them, and outcomes that have guided Jewish life. If you already live by those outcomes, learning will deepen them. If you don’t, the method will still make you steadier, clearer, and more connected to your people. Either way, you gain something our moment is starving for: convictions that didn’t come cheap.

So read a page. Argue kindly. Keep your reasons on the table. The law includes the logic and leads to outcomes we can live by—and that combination, more than any single rule, is the inheritance. In a loud age, taking it up is a quiet act of courage.

In the early hours of October 26, a group of individuals attempted to kick in the door of the Jewish Resource Center (JRC) in Ann Arbor while shouting antisemitic slurs.

This incident is being investigated as a hate crime, and authorities are seeking public assistance in identifying those responsible.

If you have any information, please contact Mothers Against College Antisemitism (MIMACA) at MIMACA@gmail.com or 516-526-6197, or submit an anonymous tip through the Ann Arbor Police Department’s Silent Witness portal:
👉 http://www.a2gov.org/police-department/submit-a-silent-witness-tip/

Jewish Frontline stands with the Jewish Resource Center and with every student and family impacted by antisemitism on campus. We will not be silent.

Today we showed up even stronger than last month! Thank you to every volunteer and supporter who came out to stand tall for our community and for what’s right.

Thanks to the recent article by the Jewish News, we’re now taking the next step — meeting with attorneys this week to explore how we can keep Champion’s Liquor at their location and ensure that discrimination has no place in Michigan.

Every flag, every voice, and every show of unity matters. Together, we’re proving that the Jewish people will never back down from standing proudly in the open.

Am Yisrael Chai! ✡️💙

Jewish Frontline, together with our Roots & Horizons Book Club, is launching a Jewish Book Drive — a grassroots effort to build a living library of Jewish thought, history, and storytelling.

Our goal is to make it easier for local libraries to feature authentic Jewish voices — books that reflect the depth, diversity, and spirit of our people. Through this project, we’re collecting book suggestions from the community to create a shared data library of recommended Jewish works. From there, Jewish Frontline volunteers will work directly with libraries to donate titles and strengthen Jewish visibility across Michigan and beyond.

Roots & Horizons has always been about rediscovering our story — together. This book drive extends that vision into the wider world: every book we recommend, every shelf that carries it, helps shape how our neighbors and our children understand what it means to be Jewish.

📚 Add your voice. Suggest a book here and help us build the Jewish bookshelf our communities deserve.

Jewish Frontline is proud to announce our partnership with Stop Hate in Schools, an organization dedicated to promoting transparency and accountability in our schools. Stop Hate in Schools provides trusted tools and supports for parents, students, and educators working to confront anti-Jewish bias in K–12 education.

Together, we are strengthening our ability to:

• Raise awareness of antisemitic incidents in school settings and help ensure they are documented and visible;
• Empower families and community members to engage proactively when bias, harassment, or discrimination arise;
• Support a learning environment where Jewish students feel safe, respected, and able to thrive without fear of hate.

At Jewish Frontline, our mission has always been to protect Jewish communities and ensure their rights and dignity are upheld. By joining forces with Stop Hate in Schools, we are adding an important dimension to that mission — working at the ground-level in K–12 schools, following through with data, advocacy, and accountability.

We invite parents, students, educators, and community members across Michigan and beyond to join us in this work. If you witness or experience antisemitism in your school — whether in a classroom, hallway, online group, or extracurricular setting — please speak up. Submitting incident reports, sharing your story, and raising awareness are essential steps toward change.

➡️ Learn more about the partnership and how you can take action → https://jewishfrontline.org/report-incident-k-12/

Over the past two years, Run for Their Lives became more than a weekly walk — it became a family. Week after week, we showed up with flags in hand and pride in our hearts, standing together for life, unity, and the Jewish people. We proved that community isn’t built online — it’s built step by step, shoulder to shoulder.

Now, as we close this incredible chapter, we carry that same spirit forward into something new.
Walk the Frontline will continue what we started — transforming our solidarity into presence, and our protest into pride. Together, we’ll work to normalize public Judaism and keep Jewish visibility strong, confident, and joyful right here in our hometowns.

Find active walking groups or start your own here!

AM YISRAEL CHAI!!