Sept. 2025
Nicki Franek

I wasn’t raised religious. I didn’t go to Hebrew school. I didn’t know how to light Shabbat candles, and I didn’t have an obviously Jewish name — my grandfather changed ours after the Shoah. Most of my friends didn’t even know I was Jewish, because for most of my life, being Jewish felt more like background noise — a family fact, a history, not a living identity.

And yet, on Oct. 7, 2023, something ancient inside me woke up.

What Hamas unleashed that day pulled back the curtain on a world I thought I understood — a world of polite multiculturalism and progressive ideals. Suddenly, I saw something primal in the rage that followed — not just against Israel, but against Jews. I saw how easily vile, hypocritical hate could be positioned as a virtuous cause. I watched as institutions I once trusted become sources of deadly libels. I witnessed a moral collapse among those who see themselves as society’s conscience.It shook me. And then it steeled me.

I began attending synagogue and lighting candles on Shabbat. I started studying Torah and began the process of conversion. I’m learning to believe in God—not as an act of blind faith, but as a reclamation of something true. I now see Judaism as a civilizational blueprint—a philosophy containing law, memory, discipline, and moral clarity. One that birthed moral law, human dignity, and the foundations of Western freedom.

I know I’m not alone. Among Jews my age—especially parents—I’ve seen a wave of awakening. Friends are wrapping tefillin. Families are learning Hebrew. More and more young Jews are reclaiming ritual and declaring: I’m not going to hide. In Israel, Shabbat observance among 18 - 24-year-olds is rising. Global aliyah is up. And even in the diaspora, Jews who were once secular or disaffiliated are showing up—wearing stars of David, and speaking out. 

Judaism is not an identity one simply declares. It is something inherited. Something practised. Something shared. It is a collective identity. 

And just like in the past, antisemitism today is forcing a choice: do we pull toward the collective or push away? That’s what antisemitism threatens — not just Jewish safety, but Jewish continuity. It’s not just about whether we survive, but whether we remain a people.

Israel—like it or not—is the defining fault line of the Jewish collective. Not because it’s perfect, but because it is the collective Jew made real. Demographics alone suggest that within a decade, most Jews will be Israeli. The future of Jewish law, culture, and philosophy will be shaped there. So when antisemitism rises and the world demands a response, each of us must decide: Do I stand with the Jewish collective? Or do I walk away?

Some are walking away. They reject Israel to protect a conflicting progressive identity and social standing. Others are retreating because they can’t withstand two years of incessant propaganda slandering and vilifying the Jewish state. But others—like me—are pulled closer. Out of love. Out of truth. And out of defiance.

A thread of that defiance runs deep—passed down through generations and coded into my psyche. But much of it is logic. I’ve watched the so-called moral class cheer for barbarism. Why would I trust their standards? Why would I trade the moral inheritance of Sinai for the shallow ethics of the cultural elites? My values don’t come from trend cycles or victimhood narratives. They come from ancient and divine wisdom—from survival, from debate, from memory, and from truth. To be a Jew is to be part of a story older than antisemitic scapegoating. Older than fear. Older than the many ideologies that have tried to dismantle us. 

What awoke in me on Oct. 7 wasn’t just grief. It was a call to return. To a people. To a scripture. To a covenant. To a future — one that depends on our willingness to say, even now: I believe in the Jewish collective.