As many of you might know, I am a fairly prolific TikToker who posts videos about Toronto, Judaism and Israel. Even if my topics are varied in substance (or thought), I am blessed to receive a constant barrage of anti semitic tropes, insults, and threats. It does not matter that I live in Canada-or are talking about something unrelated-I must address the charges made against myself and my people. Maybe it takes the form of “historical revisionism”, where the Holocaust is discredited as an event that took Six Million (capitalization intended) of my brothers and sisters away from our community (and into Hashem’s embrace).

Perhaps it is the accusation that my family are khazars, a fake usurper of authentic Palestinian-Islamic turf.
Am I Scared?
The Torah teaches that we are all part of ONE ESSENCE, sharing our nature and destiny with one another. While a coward may think twice about coming after me and my crew, they “won’t bat an eye” about going after someone disabled, elderly, and vulnerable. In other words, I am scared for my people and am more than willing to do my part. I pray that more people will stand up for us, whether they are from within our community or are among the “Righteous Gentiles”.

Are you ready?
Chances are that you have heard these slogans before, whether at a rally or on TV. They are not creative, simply taken from Culturalism Marxism. As such, you cannot debate these issues logically but you can assert the Truth for others to see. In other words, my goal is not to “convert” the person that I am debating (but instead) draw sympathetic ears closer to our cause.
YALLA!
Lie: All Jews are white and do not belong in Palestine.
Truth: Jews are indigenous to the Middle East. We were the first people of the Abrahamic Tree. Without the Jewish Nation there would be no Christianity or Islam. If not for our forced removal, we would have stayed and been content living in proximity to our Temple (even if It was destroyed). In spite of this, the Torah tells us that we would be expelled and regathered, exactly as is written in Prophecy.
Lie: Jesus was a Palestinian Muslim.
Truth: Jesus was a 1st century Jewish preacher living in Roman-occupied Judea. The term Jewish comes from the geographic area “Judea”, which is now the modern state of Israel. Judaism comes way before Islam, thousands of years before. If Jesus and Moses were prophets then Muhammad was a Bahai or a Mormon.

Lie: Modern Jews are Khazars, not authentic semites
Truth: This was put to bed with the advent of DNA technology, allowing us to look thousands of years into our past. While we do have admixture from other ethnic communities–due to a limited number of converted individuals over time-none of that is connected to Khazars. They were a nomadic Turkish tribe, some of whom converted to Judaism (including some rulers).

Lie: Israel is committing a genocide against the Palestinians.
Truth: Genocide means that an effort was taken to eradicate an entire population, like what happened to the Jews during the Shoah. After everything was said and done, Six Million Jews (in addition to millions of other groups) were slaughtered and discarded like rubbish. On the contrary, the Palestinian population has grown in every metric, giving them both population expansion and increased literacy. In fact, Palestinians have benefited greatly from having the Jews in close proximity.
Lie: Israel has no culture
Truth: Israel has an explosion of culture, marrying the traditions of Ashenazi, Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. Furthermore, there is an indigenous Israeli cuisine, rooted in local vegetation and regional recipes. This goes way before 1948, with a Jewish population remaining in the region throughout all the generations. Israeli culture is both authentic and vibrant, firmly rooted in religious and social traditions. Israeli culture goes back to the time of Sinai where Jews chose to live in accordance with the Torah, forming a worldview that satisfies both the intellectual and Halachic properties. Once again, Torah is the foundation of both the Abrahamic Tree and secularism, something that could only flourish in response to Torah. Anyway you cut it, Israel (and Torah) constitute the foundation of the Western Worldview.
Lie: Jews hate Palestinians.
Truth: While some Jews reject the historical accuracy of the Palestinian movement, most want to revolve the situation peacefully and without violence. Terrorism is seen as a rational response to occupation, something that can be legitimate in certain situations. That being said, one cannot occupy their own house, no matter how long they were forced out. While Jews did buy land from Arabs, every purchase was legitimate and we have the bill of sales to prove it. This was financed by the Jewish National Fund, supported by regular Jews all over the world. The sales were not done by force, rather expedited by offering a higher price than the market standard.
Lie: Most Jews do not believe in G-d but they believe in Israel.
Truth: While the country was originally founded as a secular state there is an increasing degree of religiosity in Israel. This is best expressed by the recent election of Bibi Netanyahu who formed a coalition with leaders from Religious Zionists camps. In other words, Jews do believe in Gd even if they consider themselves Hilonim. Consider the example of the Jerusalem taxi driver, forced to work on Shabbat and other Holy Days. While waiting for a monit in Jerusalem I saw a driver laying Tefillin. This was awesome and I asked him about his life, how he related to the city that surrounded him. To my amazement he identified himself as a secular Jew, due to his inability to stay home on Shabat. Do secular people lay Tefillin and say Kaddish at the Kotel?
Lie: The IDF kills children
Truth: The IDF is the most moral army in the world, with soldiers trained on how to avoid casualties. In the case that someone is hit-even if they were firing-every effort will be made to save their lives. The IDF knows that they are always under a microscope, choosing every resource with thought and precision. This does nothing to stop our enemies from faking crimes, taking videos and recontextualizing them. For example, they will only show the arrest and not the soldier being jumped by thugs.
Lie: Israel is the barrier to peace.
Truth: Israel treats its citizens much better than any other country in the Middle East. While there are some rich countries that offer huge entitlements to its citizens, they do not include all people, just members of a specific tribe or class. I have a Chinese student in one of my classes. Despite being born in Saudi Arabia she has no right to citizenship, none of the rights bestowed upon ethnic Saudis (including free foreign tuition and scholarships). If Israel were to go away, what would happen to women, Africans, and LGBT? The Arab world currently engages in slavery, even if they frame it in more generous terms. If you force people to work for pennies-and then taking their money and keeping their passports-how else are we supposed to define it?
In conclusion
Israel exists because Gd wants it to exist. Our numbers are small but our Faith is great. Do not expect to get into a long academic discussion, something that will certainly bear rotten fruit. Rather than being passive, assert our truth with pride and vigour. We have the Truth on our side and the Blessing of the Almighty. While our friend-circle has grown smaller over the years, we have reinforced our base and added new groups to our “alignment”.

Am Yisroel Chai
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