hate has no place here
image by Drew Beamer
How I’m feeling in this moment?
I’m feeling so much.
But the most pressing? My head is hurting. I just stepped outside to look at the orange and blue painting in the sky as the sun rises. I saw a blue jay and squirrels madly chasing each other in circles around the trunk of our big oak tree. This stepping out gave me a moment of respite and breath before I really address what I’m thinking and feeling. In and out. In and through.
Here it is: The vitriol, hate, and meanness, normalized in our culture, media, the world, by our president…seemingly everywhere…is horrendous. It’s dangerous.
I am in disbelief that we are living in a time when it’s okay for a musician to be outspoken about his hate for a group of people. Kanye West is selling a shirt with a swastika on it, the symbol of Jewish hate, the symbol of the Holocaust, the symbol of genocide.
I pray for peace for all innocent Palestinians and Israelis.
Extremism is always dangerous.
And leaders dehumanizing groups of people by calling them aliens doesn’t bring peace. Terrorists calling for the destruction and death of innocent people is obviously horrific and harmful. For everyone!
Since October 7th, 2023, I have been shocked and heartsick about the lack of compassion and empathy from the world. Artists and even friends I have admired for their activism never once commenting about the horror of Jewish children, babies, elderly men and women, and teenagers at a music festival, being raped, taken hostage, and murdered. It’s felt pretty damn quiet.
I equally have been gutted about the innocent Palestinian children, women and men killed. I despise war. I always have hoped - and call it naïve but will always hope - that there is another way to deal with evil. I wish the great intelligent minds of today were spending their money, time, and energy on this…how to help humanity, how to put an end to war, hunger, and hate.
I used to ask my mom when I was a little girl how the Holocaust happened and why didn’t more people do something about it. I was horrified after reading The Diary of Anne Frank that this could have happened and when my grandparents were alive and around the time my parents were born.
Now I know. We’re seeing this play out in front of our very eyes. In 2025. Hate is normalized. It’s okay to hate others based on them not being like you, based on them being from “somewhere else”, based on them being different whether it’s their gender, sexuality, race or religion. Misinformation is spread rapidly in this era of algorithms and social media. It’s covert until it isn’t.
Unbelievably, college campuses have allowed their students to showcase their hate causing their very own Jewish students to be unable to attend class and to even fear for their lives.
Words matter. What we say, post, write, share, has serious consequences.
My husband had been telling me for years that Jewish hate was on the rise all over the world. I listened. But I admit, I didn’t want to believe it. Until it happened at my kid’s school. Until neighbors had antisemitic propaganda left on their driveways. Until friends have called me upset, scared, and lonely because of the social media posts shared by their friends that felt an awful lot like propaganda. Until I’ve had to have some uncomfortable and difficult conversations with people.
I want to be a force of goodness. I want my posts to make people feel uplifted, good, light, loved. I’d prefer to make others laugh. But we’re never going to get to the light if we don’t acknowledge the darkness all around us. Silence is complacency. Silence is deafening. This is really happening. And anyone who cares, who gives a f*ck, needs to be loud right about now. THE VOICES OF LOVE MUST BE LOUDER THAN THOSE OF HATE. Thanks for reading. Thanks for caring and for being here!