During a week where people around the world marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Israel, a significant chapter of another atrocity finally received a measure of closure.
The remains of the Israeli Master Sgt. Ran Gvili were located on Monday in a burial ground within the Gaza Strip. He was the last of the 251 people taken hostage by Hamas terrorists during the bloody attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, to be recovered by Israel.
Gvili’s recovery means the next phase of the tenuous peace deal between Israel and Hamas should move forward: The reopening of the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. It is now up to those who brokered the peace deal reached last fall to keep it and move the region forward without further bloodshed.
The Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks upon Israel were the worst crimes committed against the people of Israel since the Holocaust itself. Both atrocities were born out of pure hatred; antisemitism evolved from words to physical assault to death. Both were direct efforts to eradicate the Jewish people from where they lived.
The ensuing war in Gaza after Oct. 7 was labeled a “genocide” by opponents of Israel, many of whom took to the streets chanting slogans that supported wiping the Jewish state off the map. This only amplified the fear and anxiety among Jewish people around the world, including here in New York, that they, too, might eventually be targeted for attack.
People can seek to spin the meaning of the words they say into something else, but antisemitic words are what they are. No amount of nuance can undo the pain and anxiety inflicted by hate-filled words.
This is why it is so critical for all New Yorkers to condemn antisemitism and fight to stop its spread. Antisemitism — in plain words, the hatred of Jews — is a malignant disease that corrupts societies into doing the unthinkable to people. It leads us down a road to horror that ends in concentration camps and bloodshed.
And antisemitism mutates into other forms of hatred targeting people of all different races, colors, creeds, and sexual identities. No one is immune to the dangers. When one person is attacked, we are all attacked.
Out of the horrors of the Holocaust came two powerful words that summed up the need to prevent this dark chapter of history from being repeated: “Never again.”
In much the same way, we must adopt that same belief when it comes to combating antisemitism in our midst.
“Never again” must we permit attacks on Jewish New Yorkers, or any New Yorker, because of who they are. “Never again” can antisemitism be tacitly tolerated during protests. “Never again” must we allow hate to spread across the city.
Never again.
