I had an "ah-ha" moment this morning as I was reading my news on Facebook (sad, but true as I have found that to be the most accurate place to get world news). As I am reading about an attack on Israelis in Argentina, I realized another reason why the world at large doesn't care. I say another reason because I am not the naive to think this is the only reason, but one that I have not heard talked about. NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE JEWS BUT THE JEWS (well, maybe the radical Islamists care to some degree, but in a different way).
Let me say it again, NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE JEWS BUT THE JEWS. Now, I will explain since you are probably thinking DUH?. When I hear about something happening in the world, something really horrible, for example, the female students being kidnapped in Nigeria, it registers in my brain, I think how horrible that is, then I go on with my day. I honestly did not think about it again until I read another report about it (on Facebook). Did I do anything about the situation? I might have "shared" something on Facebook, but that was it. Did I think it was horrible? Beyond belief, although I knew it was true. Do I think that is another example of the destruction of the world as we know it? yes, but that is a whole new can of worms. But again, I did nothing. I consider myself a nice, compassionate and intelligent person. I still did nothing. The world, for the most part, did nothing.
Like Nigerians in the rest of the world, Jews are a minority. A HUGE minority. It might not seem like Jews are such a minority since I live in a very jewish sort of world. We live in a very jewish area, my kids have mostly jewish friends, I have mostly jewish friends. Even in college, almost everyone I knew was jewish and, at the time, the jewish population made up only 8% of my university. I think human nature is that unless something is happening to your kind or in your backyard, your level of action is nil! Is that wrong? definitely, but it seems to be true. Maybe all these people that I think are anti-semitic really aren't (and yes, some are), but as I felt about the missing Nigerian girls, they care, but seemed to put it on a shelf.
One of the ideas that I have learned and I try to teach my kids, is to accept reality and move forward. You can try to change the situation, but in order to be successful, you must accept the current situation and then think on how to improve it. For example, my son is the goalie in hockey. He is consistently complaining that the referee is making unfair calls. I try to explain to him that the calls might be bad or unfair, but the referee is most likely doing his best. He can't change a call, but he can accept it and move on to improve the situation by playing the best he can (those of you who know my son might be laughing around now, because he is still working on that).
This principle applies to the Jews in the world and I think for the most part, that is what is being done in Israel. Accept and move forward. If something happens to Jews or Israel, we almost always get a "bad call" as we would say in the hockey world. Either there is hardly any reaction from the world at large or somehow the Jews are blamed. You can't change the "bad call" and complaining about it will get you nowhere (or the penalty box). What you can do is accept reality and go from there. The world isn't going to help the Jews, never happened before and never will. The Jews need to help the Jews. What that means exactly, I don't know. But I can think of a few good places to start. From the grass roots level, education is always best, since most non-jews (even our neighbors) are not checking the news every morning about what is happening to the Jews. Combat the negative social media with positive social media. Let others know what is happening to the Jews for just being jewish (in Europe, Australia, Argentina, etc.) Let people know how widespread the radical Islamist are and who Hamas really is. Your neighbors might register the information, put in on a shelf, but it will be there. Donate to Israel, AIPAC, your local federation. On a larger level, I think more needs to be done by Jews in influential positions. Politicians, actors, and CEO's. I keep wondering how it is happening when I hear on the news that radical Islam is being spread through social media and the owner of the largest site of social media is jewish??
Until the rest of the world realizes that this is not a jewish problem, but war against the entire western world, we, as Jews, will not get any assistance. I just hope that the rest of the world makes this realization before we are transported back to a new, worse kind of dark age!
