Instead of Apologizing

In 2025, enough is enough

In 1911, Zev Jabotinsky wrote an essay entitled Instead of Apologizing, in which he launched a blistering critique of the Jewish community’s instinct to defend itself against the blood libel (yep, still alive and well in 1911) and other antisemitic accusations. He argued that the real problem is not the accusations themselves, but the Jewish impulse to respond with denials and rational proofs. This reflexive defensiveness, whether rooted in naivete, fear, or misplaced faith in public reason, was a strategic and moral error to Jabotinsky. He insisted that the accusers were not always idiots or insincere provocateurs, but rather than many genuinely believe the slanders they promote. Worse, antisemitic beliefs cut across political lines, appearing among leftists and liberals as readily as among right-wing reactionaries. The point that Jabotinsky was trying to make is that we need not try to convince the bigots (who aren’t listening anyway), but rather to stop treating ourselves like defendants in a courtroom whose verdict is already written. We haven’t done anything wrong.

Jabotinsky’s essay was a call for Jewish dignity and self-respect. He rejected our impulse to beg for validation from a society that has no interest in fairness when it comes to our position as Jews (or today, Zionists). He argued that apologizing doesn’t garner respect, but invites suspicion. Jews should not have to prove their innocence or explain the actions of every member of their people any more than other nations do. Instead of apologizing, he urged Jews to reject the ‘trial’ altogether, to stop playing a rigged game, and to assert the normalcy of being a people, who may be flawed like other people, yet fully entitled to self-respect. To Jabotinsky, the only response to centuries of baseless hatred is defiance: We have nothing to apologize for.

Below, I’ve rewritten Jabotinsky’s essay (the original of which can be read here) and brought it up to speed for 2025, to account for the trials we have been subjected to after being the victims on October 7, 2023.

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Let’s be blunt

We are now 21 months past the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. 21 months since Jews were burned alive - their skeletons fused together while embracing in fear - since families were slaughtered in their beds, since women were raped and paraded through Gaza as trophies. 21 months since Hamas livestreamed their butchery with GoPros, gleeful for the world to see.

21 months since our people were taken hostage in Gaza. Almost 50 are still held hostage by Hamas, who refuse to release them to end the Gaza War.

And still, the loudest voices are not condemning the perpetrators. They’re condemning us.

They’re condemning Israel, and with it, all Jews who refuse to dissociate fast enough. They demand we explain ourselves. Disavow Zionism. Denounce the “occupation.” Renounce the “genocide.” Clarify that we are “not like those Israelis.” Apologize for the trauma of others, while the trauma done to us is met with a shrug.

Have you ever heard of an alleged “genocide” where the victims hold the key to ending their suffering? Imagine that during the Holocaust the Jews had a chief-negotiator to go and negotiate the end of Auschwitz, giving the Germans a counter-offer. “Good evening Adolf and Heinrich, while we appreciate your offer to end the genocide of our people, your demands are a bit too high. We will just have to continue dying in the meantime while you regroup.” It’s preposterous, and speaks to the fact that the genocide allegation in Gaza is just another, modern-day, blood libel. A lie.

And like clockwork, too many of us oblige. We publish open letters begging for nuance. We share carefully worded posts saying we want “peace for all people.” We fall over ourselves condemning the Israeli government or prime minister because of what is happening in Gaza, whereas no one gives Israel or its supporters around the world the benefit of the doubt, or a consideration of the impact of the war there either.

Our communities in the Diaspora, and individual Zionists, issue long sighing statements that say nothing, trying to find that sweet spot between not offending the mob and not betraying our own.

This is moral masochism. And it needs to stop.

We are not on trial

This needs to be repeated like a mantra, because apparently we’ve forgotten: we are not on trial.

We are not required to prove our humanity. We do not have to swear on a stack of Talmuds that we don’t support war crimes. We do not owe anyone a heartfelt assurance that we also feel bad when civilians die in Gaza. Of course we feel bad when innocent civilians die - we are humans. But this is a war that Hamas started, and that they can just as quickly end if they give back every single hostage, which they refuse to do.

We do not have to tiptoe around our Zionism like it’s a dirty word just to keep our jobs, our friends, or our children safe at school.

We didn’t commit the massacre. We didn’t cheer for it. We didn’t celebrate it in Times Square or in Ramallah’s main city square. We celebrate life, not death. Of course we prioritize the well being of our own over others - doesn’t everyone?

And yet, they scream “Free Palestine,” and we panic. They chant “From the river to the sea,” and we clear our throats. They accuse us of genocide, and we respond with citations, PDFs, and PowerPoints. They throw around the occupation label, without being able to point to Israel or “Palestine” on a map, and we ask them to meet half way. We give space for their narrative, whereas ours, to them, does not exist.

We behave as if the burden of proof is on us. As if being Jewish, being Zionist, being visibly affiliated with Israel, a democratic state defending itself after an atrocity, is something that requires explanation.

No. Not anymore.

Let’s speak some truth

The lies are not born out of misunderstanding. They’re born out of hate. 4,000 years of antisemitism is the rule, not the exception. It didn’t go away after the Holocaust, it just went into hiding for a short time until it could poke out its head again.

The people accusing Israel of genocide, while Hamas literally brags about murdering children, and while young men call home to brag about how many Jews they killed on 10/7, do not care about moral consistency. They are not confused. They are not “uneducated.” They are not just “passionate activists.” They are morally bankrupt, intellectually dishonest, and utterly transparent in their agenda.

They do not believe in international law. They believe Jews should not have power. That Jews should not have the weapons to protect themselves. That Jews should not have an army. That Jews should just be subjected to the whim of our enemies. That’s it. That’s the root of it.

They hate Israel because it is the Jewish State. Because Jews are no longer weak and passive. Because we have an army. Because we fight back. Because we exist on our own terms. Because, let’s face it, the weak Jew of the past no longer exists.

To quote Jabotinsky, “The reason that we are not liked is not because of all kinds of accusations that are leveled against us: no, they level accusations against us because we are not liked.”

And the more we try to justify ourselves to them, the more we feed the lie that maybe we do have something to explain.

We don’t.

Internalized hate

But perhaps more unsettling and tragic is that we now face this pressure not only from without, but from within.

There have always been Jews whose nerves collapse under the weight of hatred. But now, in this nightmare atmosphere, in the climate of rage and cancelation and social exile, we are seeing a far more disturbing phenomenon: Jews whose hatred of Zionism has become its own kind of obsession. Who believe, against all evidence, that if we just dismantle Israel, the hatred will disappear. Jews Against Genocide. Jews for Palestine. Jews Against Israel. Jewish Voices for Peace. Independent Jewish Voices. Neturei Karta. Rabbis for Mamdani. That if we “atone” for the sin of sovereignty, the mobs will stop chanting for our destruction.

A Zionist Jew and a Non-Zionist Jew walk into a bar. The bartender says “No Jews allowed.” It’s a tale as old as time.

These are not just ideological activists. Many of them are emotionally broken people, overstrung by fear, confusion, and a desperate need to belong to movements that despise them. And while most just shout on Instagram, a few go further, signing on to petitions denying October 7 ever happened, protesting outside synagogues, throwing red paint at Israeli consulates, or even justifying 10/7 as righteous resistance. These allegedly anti-Zionist Jews offer themselves to the wolves and call it courage.

They are, in Jabotinsky’s words, “maniacs”, not in the clinical sense, but in the spiritual one. Their self-hatred masquerades as moral clarity. Their fever dreams are dressed up in PhDs in [insert academic buzzword here]. But beneath it is a madness born of persecution: Jews who want so badly to escape the target on our backs that they have convinced themselves that they can be the exception, if only they scream loud enough at the rest of us. Hey, at least they will get the megaphone at the next “Death to Israel” rally. Maybe there’s a speaker’s fee in there for them. A book deal? The world loves a Jew who hates him/herself.

Let them scream. Let them shout that they “stand against Zionism” or that they “refuse to be associated with apartheid.” Let them march next to Hamas sympathizers, wrapped in Palestinian flags. They do not represent us. They do not diminish us. They may be embarrassed to be Jewish, but don’t worry: we are embarrassed they’re Jewish too.

World Jewry does not answer to them. And Israel certainly does not require their permission to exist.

We’ve been doing this dance for too long. Every time a Jew does something wrong, we line up to say “he doesn’t represent us.” Every time someone alleges a modern-day blood libel (10/7 didn’t happen, Israel killed their own people that day, the Holocaust wasn’t that bad, Israel is an apartheid state, Israel is perpetrated a genocide in Gaza, etc. etc. etc. etc.) we go digging through archives to show that no, actually, Jewish law forbids bloodshed. That we’ve never done that. That it’s a slander. That we’re innocent. We get our best and brightest to attend conferences, go on TV, on Piers Morgan and SkyNews to deny deny deny.

Well, here’s a thought: maybe we stop playing defense in a game that was rigged before the first whistle blew.

Because the outcome is always the same. Every denial is treated like a confession. Every clarification, a sign of guilt. Every effort to appease is met with silence, or worse, with gleeful contempt. We are playing to an audience that came for the lynching. Just look at the response online to Douglas Murray on Joe Rogan, or Natasha Hausdorff on Piers Morgan.

To be clear: I’m not saying we stop speaking out. I’m saying we start speaking differently.

Quoting Jabotinsky again, “What is the point of reacting to all of this shrieking and barking with sworn statements, reassurances, and pledges? There is no point, and it should be unthinkable to behave thus. As soon as we rebut one argument, another is born. There are no limits to human spite and stupidity.”

We stop apologizing for being who we are. We stop performing our innocence for people who never intended to see it. We stop justifying our grief, our anger, our pride. We stand up and say, in unison, with our backs straight and our voices unwavering:

Go to hell.

Go to hell with your slanders.
Go to hell with your performative outrage.
Go to hell with your selective morality.
Go to hell with your calls for “context” after Jewish children were slaughtered in their pajamas.

We are not the ones who need to be explained.

Let them rage

Let them twist themselves into knots trying to square the circle of calling for justice while siding with monsters. Let them march under banners soaked in hypocrisy. Let them howl that “Zionism is terrorism” while defending actual terrorists. Let them chant “by any means necessary” and then pretend their hands are clean when Jews die. Let them demand a globalized Intifada and then turn the other way as Josh Shapiro’s Governor’s Mansion is torched, as molotov cocktails are thrown at peaceful marches in Boulder, Colorado, or when Israeli Embassy staffers are gunned down on the streets of Washington, DC.

Let them. We are done playing the defendant.

Our role as Jews is not to fight antisemitism. Our role is to be Jewish.

We are a people. Not a project. Not a problem. Not a metaphor. A people.

We were here before their revolutions. We watched their empires both rise and fall. We were here before their hashtags and rhyming chants, having lived 4,000 years between the river and the sea, and we’ll be here when their slogans are long forgotten.

We are tired. We are grieving. But we are not ashamed.

And we are done apologizing.