No Time for Silence
On May 21, 2025, a young couple emerged from the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., where they were shot and killed by a man who later shouted “Free, free Palestine!” as he was arrested. Yaron Lischinsky and Sara Milgrim were about to be engaged. As staff members of the Israeli Embassy, they had just attended an event discussing humanitarian aid to help both Gazans and Israelis and ways to bring peace among Muslims, Jews, and Christians.
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim
On June 1, 2025, an Egyptian immigrant entered a Boulder, Colorado, park to carry out an attack he’d planned for a year. He threw homemade firebombs – made of cloth wicks stuffed into bottles of gasoline – at people peacefully gathered in support of the hostages in Gaza. The bottles exploded into flames, setting on fire an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor and burning and injuring more than a dozen others. The gathering was a weekly event of Run for Their Lives, an international organization holding weekly walks to bring awareness to the plight of the hostages still held captive in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
Many throughout the world rightly condemned both of these despicable acts targeting Jewish people. However, in a moving op-ed article posted to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a North Carolina rabbi wrote about the “excruciating silence” of some groups and people he expected to hear from regarding the violence aimed at his fellow Jewish people. Rabbi Asher Knight is an active advocate for justice. He and his Jewish community support causes they believe in, many of them controversial, but, following their consciences, they have marched, protested, and stood alongside various groups. However, in the wake of these two extremely violent attacks targeting Jewish people, many of those same groups were silent in the defense of their Jewish friends.
“As Jews are being attacked in the streets, harassed on campuses and set on fire, the silence from many of our trusted partners is devastating,” said the rabbi. “We have not heard from many of the clergy or political leaders who regularly speak out for compassion, equity, and peace.”
Silence makes a powerful statement. As in World War II, silence allows evil to flourish. With antisemitism growing so rapidly that it’s hard to keep up with, now is not the time to be silent
“Silence makes a powerful statement. “
“The silence sends a deafening message,” Rabbi Knight said. It says “that Jewish safety is negotiable. That Jewish lives are less urgent. That the grief of Jews burned alive is not worthy of their compassion or outrage. It leaves us feeling alone. It forces us to wonder if our pain is visible. If our safety matters.”
Here at Love Your Jewish Neighbor, we agree. Now, more than ever in our lifetimes, it’s time to stand with our Jewish neighbors. It’s time to show them we care by not going silent on them.
Do you have Jewish friends, coworkers, or family? Ask them how they’re doing in the wake of the extreme wave of antisemitism going on in the world. Tell them you stand against the hatred unjustly hurled their way – or at their fellow Jews – simply because they’re Jewish. Tell them you’re thinking of them and praying for them. Stand up and speak out against the antisemitism you see in the news.
Let’s not be silent. Let’s not allow the evil of antisemitism to proliferate because we keep our beliefs against it quiet. Speak up. Support. Show your love.
The Run for Their Lives organization holds walks every week in more than 200 cities worldwide, including 11 in Canada and over 150 in the United States. One couple we know had slacked off from their weekly participation. In response to the Boulder attack, instead of shrinking away, the husband told his wife, “Maybe it’s time we go back.”
Yes.
This is not a time to stay quiet. It is time to be brave…
In the words of Rabbi Knight, “This is not a time to stay quiet. It is time to be brave. A time to speak …” because “silence will certainly not protect us.”