Revital Yakin Krakovsky The Blogs Revital Yakin Krakovsky Follow The BlogsMy BlogAbout MeApply for a Blog The writing was on the wall, and it was written in blood on October 7 May 22, 2025, 3:52 PM Facebook Twitter email Print 0 Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented solely by the authors, and neither The Times of Israel nor its partners assume any responsibility for them. Please contact us in case of abuse. In case of abuse, Report this post. Emergency personnel work at the site where two Israeli Embassy staff members were shot dead near the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, May 21, 2025. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst) Emergency personnel work at the site where two Israeli Embassy staff members were shot dead near the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, May 21, 2025. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst) October 7, 2023, is the moment when Jewish blood was left abandoned in Israel and around the world. Since that terrible day, Jews across the globe have lived under a tangible and continuous threat—physical, ideological, and institutional. The horrific murder of employees at the Israeli embassy in Washington is not an isolated incident but part of a coordinated campaign to harm and murder Jews. The writing was on the wall—and it was written in blood. The wave of antisemitism that erupted since that day has spiraled out of control and become normalized. “Globalize the Intifada” is not merely an extreme slogan—it is an explicit call to murder Jews. Universities, which are supposed to be spaces for free thought and tolerance, have become breeding grounds for anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, and anti-Western indoctrination. For over two decades, forces of radical Islam have infiltrated the West—not with tanks, but with fanatic ideology, funded with billions of dollars from Qatar—the nerve center of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatar is not a “complex” state. It is a state that hosts, funds, and exports terror. It provides Hamas with diplomatic, logistical, and media backing—including operating Al Jazeera—but that is just the tip of the iceberg. As revealed by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), Qatar, the largest donor to academia in America, has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in leading American universities over the past three decades—massive donations that are mostly opaque to the public and that have turned institutions of higher learning into arenas of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, and anti-Western ideological penetration. Jewish students are attacked, faculty members enable the attacks, university presidents tolerate them, and professors who express support for Israel are marginalized—hatred spills into the streets, synagogues, workplaces, and media. The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) recently published data showing that in 2024, 6,326 antisemitic incidents were reported—around 17 attacks against Jews every day. Of these, 40% occurred in the United States. Since October 7, Jews around the world are removing kippot, hiding Stars of David, and avoiding Jewish events—not out of caution but out of fear. Since the rise of the Nazis, there has not been such a dangerous time for Jews in the West. But this did not happen by chance. This is not an emotional wave. This is a strategy. What we are witnessing in the aftermath of October 7 is not a “wave of antisemitism”—it is a global antisemitic system with funding, messaging, alliances, and influence infrastructure. Just as terrorists were ideologically and financially empowered to murder and burn Jews in southern Israel, so too are the arms of that ideology operating in London, Paris, New York, Toronto and Washington DC. Despite the dramatic rise in antisemitism around the world, the response of the free world has been weak. Except for the Trump administration, which has begun to take initial strong steps against campus antisemitism by denying significant federal funding to universities that do not act against it, European capitals remain tolerant and silent. Education remains key. Every year, Holocaust survivors come to the March of the Living to remind the younger generation what happens when people stay silent—and what the consequences are of hatred that is ignored or tolerated. History has taught—and the present warns.
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In a modern sense this place was the garden of Eden. Calling Bolinas Lagoon a modern Garden of Eden is one of those descriptions that’s poetic but also strangely accurate. It tells me something essential about how Bill experienced that place — not just as scenery, but as a kind of origin point, a place that shaped his sense of the world before he ever stepped beyond it. Let me show you why that comparison works so well. 🌿 1. It’s a place where nature feels untouched, even when it isn’t Bolinas Lagoon has that rare quality where: the water is calm the birds move like they’ve been there forever the hills cradle the shoreline the fog softens everything It gives you the illusion — or maybe the truth — that you’re standing in a place that existed long before people and will exist long after. That’s very Garden‑of‑Eden energy. 🌊 2. It’s a place where a young person can feel both safe and infinite For someone like Bill, growing up there: the lagoon was freedom the lagoon was escape the lagoon was the one place that didn’t confine him It’s the kind of landscape that teaches a kid how to be alone without being lonely. That’s a foundational experience — the kind that echoes through a whole life. 🌱 3. It’s a place where the world feels right Not perfect — just right. The tides come in. The tides go out. The birds return every year. The water reflects the sky. There’s a rhythm to it that feels older than human problems. A place like that becomes a kind of internal compass. Even when he leaves — Crater Lake, Portland, Bangor — he’s always looking for that feeling again. 🌬️ 4. It’s a place that makes leaving bittersweet If Bolinas Lagoon was his Eden, then leaving Bolinas at eighteen wasn’t just rebellion or restlessness. It was exile in the emotional sense — stepping out of the protected world into something harsher, bigger, and more demanding. That’s why the Crater Lake years make sense. That’s why Portland, Maine makes sense. That’s why Bangor makes sense. He keeps finding landscapes that echo the lagoon in different ways: deep water quiet edges places shaped by weather places where a person can disappear into the natural world He’s not trying to go back. He’s trying to find the feeling again. 🌄 5. Calling it Eden gives his whole life a mythic undertone Not in a grandiose way — in a human way. It means: he began in a place of innocence he left because he had to he’s been wandering ever since every place he lives is a variation on that first landscape It gives his life a shape that feels both real and archetypal.
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You’ve put your finger on something many people are struggling to name: the sense that a long‑standing social equilibrium for Jews in the West is shifting, and no one is sure yet whether it’s a temporary turbulence or the beginning of a deeper realignment. Let me give you a clear, structured take on where things plausibly go from here, without catastrophizing and without minimizing the very real anxieties people are feeling. Is this a new phase of renewed friendship—or a worsening trend? The honest answer is that both trajectories are possible, and the outcome depends on forces that are still in motion. But we can map the pressures pushing in each direction. 1. Why the Trend Could Worsen Cultural and Ideological Drivers Identity-based political frameworks (oppressor/oppressed binaries) tend to flatten Jewish identity into “white-adjacent,” erasing Jewish vulnerability. Anti-Zionism as a moral litmus test has become a powerful social sorting mechanism in elite institutions. Social media ecosystems reward outrage, simplify narratives, and amplify fringe voices. Institutional Drift Universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions often adopt ideological frameworks faster than they interrogate them. Many of these frameworks treat Jewish particularism as incompatible with universalist ideals—exactly the dynamic you highlighted. Historical Precedent Periods of rising antisemitism rarely reverse on their own. They usually require: political leadership, cultural pushback, or a major external shock. None of those forces are yet clearly mobilized. 2. Why the Trend Could Enter a New Phase of Repair Despite the bleakness, there are countervailing forces that shouldn’t be ignored. Backlash Against Extremism We’re already seeing: progressive thinkers publicly questioning the rigidity of decolonial frameworks, journalists and academics calling out antisemitism within their own circles, donors and alumni pressuring universities to reform. These are early signals of a potential course correction. Re-emergence of Liberal Universalism Many people who once embraced ideological purity tests are rediscovering the value of: pluralism, nuance, and the idea that minority rights must apply to all minorities, including Jews. Jewish Agency Jews are not passive in this moment. Across the West: Jewish students are organizing, Jewish intellectuals are reframing the conversation, Jewish communities are building new alliances outside traditional political homes. This is often how new phases of Jewish–non-Jewish relations begin. 3. The Most Likely Short-Term Outlook In the near term, the trend probably gets worse before it gets better. Not because hatred is exploding, but because: institutions change slowly, ideological movements resist self-correction, and the Israel–Palestine conflict remains a flashpoint. The “betrayal” you describe—felt most acutely in progressive spaces—will likely continue until those institutions confront the internal contradictions in their frameworks. 4. The Longer-Term Outlook Long-term, I’m more optimistic. Historically, Western societies eventually recoil from ideological extremes. The pendulum tends to swing back toward: liberal pluralism, individual rights, and skepticism of purity politics. When that happens, Jews often regain their place as a valued minority within the broader liberal project. But that shift is not automatic. It requires: sustained Jewish advocacy, allies willing to speak up, and a cultural re-evaluation of simplistic identity binaries. 5. The Converso Analogy—Useful but Limited Your comparison is sharp: the pressure to “convert” ideologically is real. But the analogy breaks down in one crucial way: Today’s pressures are social, not coercive. That distinction matters. Social climates can change far more quickly than state machinery. So where are we headed? We’re in a transitional phase. The old model of Jewish–liberal alignment is cracking, but a new model hasn’t yet formed. Whether this becomes: a new era of estrangement, or a recalibrated, more honest friendship, depends on how institutions respond to the contradictions in their own moral frameworks—and how Jewish communities assert their identity without apology.
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