Draw a line. Start it in 2005, when the BDS movement emerged from the wreckage of the Durban Conference—an open-air hatefest disguised as a human rights gathering. BDS wasn’t about boycotts. It was about erasure. It didn’t call for peace; it called for elimination. Elimination of Jewish sovereignty. Of Jewish safety. Of Jewish presence. It entered American life through the backdoor of academia, intersectional coalitions and progressive doublespeak. It sounded like justice, but it dripped with the oldest hatred.
And Jewish leaders did nothing. Worse, they enabled it. They dismissed it as marginal. They said, “It’ll pass.” They told us not to worry.
Draw the line forward. 2008. Barack Obama is elected president. The darling of liberal Jews. The prophet of hope. But beneath the soaring rhetoric came a strategic shift—a subtle, lethal distancing from Israel. His doctrine of “daylight” signaled to the world that the Jewish state was no longer sacred, no longer untouchable. He legitimized Palestinian rejectionism and empowered radical Islam with rhetoric wrapped in reason.
Then came 2015: the JCPOA, the Iran deal. A policy so catastrophically detached from Jewish reality, it might as well have been drafted in Qom. Billions of dollars were unshackled and funneled directly to the most dangerous Jew-hating regime in the world. The same regime that arms Hamas, trains Hezbollah and orchestrates antisemitic violence across five continents.
Jewish organizations knew what this meant. They read the same intelligence. They understood the threat. But they were too polite. Too comfortable. Too addicted to proximity to power.
So, instead of action, we got statements. Instead of resistance, we got panels. Instead of preparing for war, they prepared for cocktails.
Draw the line to the campuses. From 2015 to 2020, the university became the frontline. Jewish students were branded as white colonizers, oppressors and embodiments of evil. Zionism was rebranded as racism. Jewish identity became a liability.
What did Hillel do? What did ADL do? What did JFNA do? Nothing. Nothing that mattered. They told students to engage in dialogue. To be polite. To be patient. To hide.
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The scene of the attack outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: AP/Rod Lamkey, Jr)
They partnered with DEI offices that erased Jewish identity. They funded universities that refused to protect Jews. They built nothing to defend the children they claimed to represent.
Draw the line to October 7, 2023. That should’ve been the moment every illusion shattered. It was the most brutal massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Live-streamed rape. Decapitation. Torture. And the world—cheered.
In cities across the West, people celebrated. Students marched. Professors praised. Journalists justified. And “From the River to the Sea” became the anthem of our era.
But what did our leadership class do? They repeated the same script. Vigils. Panels. “Let’s hold space for grief.” As if we’re in therapy, not at war.
They couldn’t even say “Jewish blood.” They couldn’t call Hamas what it is. They were afraid of being labeled “right-wing” while Jewish bodies burned.
Draw the line to today. Sarah and Yaron. A young couple in their prime. Shot to death outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. Not in Paris. Not in Netanya. Not in the West Bank. In the capital of the United States. The heart of supposed Jewish power. The home of every Jewish advocacy group, think tank and professional Jew with a six-figure salary.
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Pro-Palestinian protests outside the White House, Washington, D.C.
(Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz)
And still—no one was ready. Why? Because no one prepared. Because the leaders we trusted to defend us did not believe it would come here. Or worse—they knew, and they didn’t care.
Let’s be absolutely clear: They all knew. They saw the rising antisemitism. They saw the “Globalize the Intifada” banners. They saw the chants, the rallies, the Molotov cocktails thrown at synagogues. They read the UN reports. They read the polling. They had every opportunity to sound the alarm. But they didn’t.
They held summits. They hired influencers. They launched hashtags. They wrote press releases with “Never Again” in bold font. At the same time, they refused to fund a single concealed carry program, a single self-defense seminar or a single tactical training workshop for the Jewish community.
Where was the firearms training? Where was the home defense education? Where were the neighborhood watch networks, the legal advocacy for armed security and the ideological preparation for when the war crossed the ocean?
Why the denial? Jewish men and women needed to be trained. Trained to protect their families. Trained to recognize threats. Trained to resist.
But the ADL was too busy writing op-eds about Elon Musk. Jonathan Greenblatt was too busy giving speeches at Aspen, being a celebrity among celebrities. $1.2 million a year. That’s what he makes. And in return, the Jews of America got two funerals in D.C. The ADL should’ve been training warriors. Instead, they were training brands on “allyship.”
Eric Fingerhut at the Jewish Federations: $750,000 a year. Not to build bunkers. Not to fund grassroots Jewish self-defense anything. No national security program through the creation pipeline. But to throw donor banquets while our communities were actively under siege.
And now that Sarah and Yaron are dead, what do we get? Peace? Protection? Training? No. Another statement. Another fundraiser. Another insult.
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Draw the line from Durban to D.C. From BDS to bullets. From policy failures to pavement soaked in Jewish blood. This isn’t an unfortunate oversight. This is a total, historic failure.
This hubris, this pathetic American Jewish leadership incompetence. Every executive, every board chair, every committee member who sat on their hands for twenty years while antisemitism metastasized into murder—this is your legacy. You all need to own this. All of you.. This is your legacy
At this point, statements are not expressions of grief. They are obituaries for institutions that should no longer exist. Sarah and Yaron's names now live in blood on the timeline of Jewish history. Let them be the last.
But, unfortunately, they won't be if we don't change everything. Dismantle the rot. Defund the cowards. Train the people. Build infrastructure. Establish ideological clarity. Arm our communities with knowledge, power, and, yes—weapons.
If your Jewish leadership isn’t talking about training, arming, educating and preparing your family to survive this century, they are not your leadership. They are your liability.
We are not a broken people. We are not a powerless people. But we are a people betrayed by those who thought Jewish safety could be outsourced to press conferences.
Draw the line in blood. Let this be the end of cowardice. Let this be the beginning of Jewish strength. It ends now. Or we end.
- Adam Scott Bellos is the founder of The Israel Innovation Fund and author of the forthcoming book Never Again Is Not Enough: Why Hebraization Is the Only Way to Save the Diaspora.