Introducing LaKoom

Get Up. Stand Up. For your Jewish rights.

Inspired by Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, I am launching my independent Substack to amplify the #MeJew movement.

Here’s the thing, though.

The #MeJew hashtag has been done.

It’s taken.

Plus, it sounds like victimization, and I don’t feel like playing that.

But there is a growing, ominous trend that is stretching into our comfort zone, that some say is heralding the end of the Golden Age of American Judaism. You have heard the stories told to you, quietly, privately, of Jews, especially in the upside-down world we have found ourselves since October 7th.

In one way or another, we are being labeled, bullied, silenced, or squeezed out of professional, organizational, and social circles.

Who are they?

Is it you?

How did you regain your footing and take a stand for yourself as a Jew at this time?

That’s why I am naming my Substack:

LaKoom.

That’s the Hebrew command for “Stand Up.”

LaKoom will explore stories of how North American Jews are being shut out, slowly and silently, from board of directors positions, teachers' unions, and other places where Jews once were prominently present.

And you know it's happening.

From writers to professors to even state attorney generals.

I am launching this because I, too, need to stand up.

I have been silenced in my work.

I have been labeled as biased.

Biased because I personally dared to feel and express rage, anguish and anger at the lack of understanding of the rising hate against us as Jews and the lack of compassion for us as we collectively go through the trauma of witnessing the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, and the continuing open wound of feeling incomplete until our remaining Jewish brothers and sisters are returned, dead or alive, from the hellscape in Gaza where they remain hostage.

Perhaps it is time for me to lean into that bias, of standing up for the truth, of pulling the veil off of the distortions and lies about Jews and Israel that have always been there but are now gaining acceptance at a horrifyingly alarming rate.

I began my journey of examining anti-Israel bias in the media as I wrote my senior thesis in journalism in 1987, all those years ago.

I never dreamed that with each war Israel found itself embroiled in, wars it did not choose, it would signal to the rest of the world that once again, it's okay, even fashionable, to hate Jews.

If the Golden Age of American Jewry is indeed coming to an end, the least we can do is document it all.

So, as a Jew, if have been silenced, ostracized, shut down and shut out,

I want to hear from you.

If you have paid the price for vocalizing your support for Israel - not its government, but the very notion that it has the right to exist and defend itself, then I want to hear from you. LaKoom.

If you are concerned about what your school district is teaching or not teaching about Jewish culture and history, if you have expressed this concern only to be given lip service and no concrete follow up, then I want to hear from you. LaKoom.

You get the idea.

Now, especially now, is not the time to retreat into a corner and be silent. Now is the time to LaKoom.

What’s your LaKoom story?

I want to know.