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This week’s Big Marketing Minute is going to be a bit different. 

Today is October 7th. It’s been a year since the world changed. And there is so much I have learned not just about myself but about the world around me and how social media has affected that. This post is going to get a bit personal because for me, it is still the morning of October 7th, 2023 and while I have navigated this year and done the best I could for my clients, with the collaboration of my team, it has been a very tough year. If you aren’t familiar with personal stories related to that day, maybe this piece will give you something new to think about. At times I get emotional here. And at times I spin into streams of consciousness. I won’t apologize for that. Not today.

I want to start today’s Big Marketing Minute by talking about the year that has passed. When I woke up that Saturday morning, my first message was to my friend who lives near Tel Aviv. At that time, no one yet knew how bad it was. “Do you think they’ll cancel my trip to Israel in 2 weeks?” I asked. She said to hang tight. “Sometimes these things are over in a few days.” No one knew yet the depths of the terror.

And I remember the first people I heard from that day…. Lindsay D, Ashley and Brian, Peggy, Liz and Nick. They were the immediate first. They knew before even I did just how bad this was going to be, not just for Israel but for me, personally. I got one other voicemail from a friend later in the afternoon. I didn’t pick up, I couldn’t speak. I assumed he was calling to let me know he cared. Nope. He was calling about a birthday dinner. So in that moment I knew… this isn’t going to affect everyone like it will affect me. This won’t get the attention other world terrorist attacks have gotten. Hmm.

That afternoon I heard a reporter on CNN refer to the attacks as “spectacular.” And I saw Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL come on and let the reporter have it. He said something to the effect of “those words are dangerous.”

By Monday the Harvard letter came out with the littany of student organizations BLAMING Israel for this attack.

The PR war had been won before the physical war began. And social media holds a lot of the blame.

Where my head went…

Immediately I started sharing content about the history of the conflict to help educate those around me. And the number of people I heard from who sent me messages about this was truly overwhelming. “Thank you for sharing this. I didn’t know,” They said. “I’m so glad you are sharing this information, I wish I was more educated” others said. Terri, Jenny, Elizabeth, Anna, Katey, Cindy… so many. “Please don’t stop sharing. I’m learning so much. We are with you.”

By Monday afternoon the mishegos was everywhere. The signs protesting Israel’s existence that quickly morphed into the right of the JEWS to exist. I began digging and learning more about what has happened on these college campuses to make these kids at the US Ivies think they have an opinion on this or that they have any knowledge on the subject whatsoever. I learned about DEI in schools and how its promoting of this “oppressor/oppressed” narrative completely leaves Jews out. I had had a feeling about this from my experience volunteering in our school but couldn’t put it into words until all of this started happening. I began sharing videos on my social about that only to be called a white supremacist by parents in our small, secular, Louisville Kentucky private school. I received threatening emails from students and turned those over to the authorities. Yes, that’s right. A fellow parent called me that. For an intelligent woman, she seems to not understand that the Holocaust happened because we were not considered “white enough.” 

I took those videos down not because I don’t believe what I stated in them, but because I feared for myself and my family.

Fear.

The kind of fear that makes me look around and wonder “who here would hide me and who here would turn me in?” And if you’ve never had that kind of feeling, then please don’t make statements on a war in the Middle East. You just cannot understand.

I looked around and was dumbfounded.

In the summer of 2020, after the murder of Breonna Taylor, the Jewish community stood with the black community as they grieved and fought. We called Congress. We sent money to causes the black community asked us to. We met with our black friends to understand. We read books.

When the Pulse nightclub shooting happened, we stood with the gay community as they grieved and fought. We called Congress. We donated money to organizations that would help. We met with our gay friends to understand and empathize.

When President Trump instituted a Muslim ban, we reached out to our friends to give them support. We called Congress. We donated.

We continued our fight for gun control.

We continued our fight for women and the right to choose.

But now. Now the Jewish community stood alone.

Silver linings.

But here’s the thing. The negative nonsense on social also brought together a community and made us stronger. I was brought into the world of Lindsay Pinchuk and Aliza Licht and Samantha Ettus and Eitan Chitayat and Daniel Ryan Spalding and Hen Mazzig and Jonny Daniels and Alex Duchene. And the Jewish community learned who our allies are – because they tell us they are – and we grew closer. And our Jewish pride is strong. And no matter the horrible awfulness we see in the signs these dumb kids hold up on their college campuses, we remain steadfast in the idea that we have a right to exist.

But I said I was going to talk about Marketing, didn’t I? Here’s what I know to be true. If you are believing all the awful crap about Israel and the Jews… if you have ever shared the words “genocide,” “apartheid” or “occupation” as related to this conflict, you have been caught up in this PR war. You have been duped. And if you’ve known your college kid was marching in the streets for the destruction of Israel or the annihilation of… well.. ME, and you didn’t speak up, then you are an antisemite. And if you’ve called for a ceasefire but have never mentioned the hostages and if you blame Israel for there being no ceasefire but not the terrorists, you need to take a good hard look in the mirror and ask yourself why. You have been fed a lie of marketing built in Qatar and spread on your screen. I actually had a friend tell me that the LGBTQ+ community isn’t welcome in Israel – the country with one of the largest Pride parades in the world. I know. I couldn’t believe it either. 

Grief.

In Jewish tradition, the death of a loved one has several phases that are meant to help the living move through their grief. Shivah – the first seven days; Shloshim – the first 30 days and then we are in a third phase until 11 months. By the year anniversary, we rejoin the living. But we were not allowed this series of moments by the world. We have not been allowed, as a people, to sit shivah let alone allow our mourning to be respected. Instead we are blamed and scapegoated by nonsense posts on social media – and college students on our campuses believe it all.

And now.

So here we are on October 7th. We are a month from the US election. A year out and there are more than 70,000 Israelis still displaced from their homes in the north, there are still 101 hostages in Gaza and there are people – right now as I write this – in their bomb shelters to protect themselves from rocket fire. Right. Now. We are between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In Jewish tradition, these are the 10 days of Repentance. If you are not Jewish and you have not been a good friend to the Jewish community this year, maybe it’s time you shared in our tradition and reached out.

I ask that as we go forward, because there is no going back, that you start to think critically and use your brain instead of believing whatever is being fed to you on social.

Our agency is authentic on behalf of our clients. We share the truth. We would never share on social that our clients’ product is the “cheapest” if it’s not. But we will share that their customer service is the best. The people writing the crap you are believing on social, they have no interest in the truth. But you should.

My friend Danielle shared an important post this week on her personal page about verifying the “facts” you are being served. Don’t just believe it because it’s on social.

Check out factcheck.org or politifact as we get closer to the election. Not sure about something related to Israel or the Jewish community? ASK. If I don’t know the answer I will find someone who does. I have more than a few Rabbis I’ve known for many years.

A little of my history.

In 1990 I traveled to Poland on a high school youth trip. We spent 7 days in 3 cities and toured 5 remains of concentration camps: Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek, Auschwitz and Birkenau.  We bore witness. And then we traveled to Israel to celebrate that we are still here, as a people. It was around that time I started reading a lot of historical fiction about the Holocaust and that is still my genre of choice. I feel like I have to soak in every story, real or representative, to truly understand what happened. And today, I feel it in real-time.

Last week I traveled on a plane and purposefully did not wear my hostage pin or any noticeable Judaic jewelry. The number of stories of Jewish passengers being thrown off planes these days is astounding. Straight out of the books I read, but real. This is my life now. I live in fear on some days and in resilience others. Life is no longer normal and likely never will be. I have lost friends this year. I have judged people for believing what they see on social and I have been disappointed. But I have also found my voice and been able to convey it through writing (if we are Facebook friends then you know).

I want to thank those who have continued to stand up and let me know they are on my side as a human being, that I have the right to exist, that Israel has a right to exist and defend herself. Those who have said anything at all – I appreciate you. I want to thank my teammates for having my back on days I just couldn’t do it. And I want to thank my clients who have reached out to let me know they are thinking of me.

We in the Jewish community are still stuck on October 7th, 2023. And we will be until they all come home, the terrorists are removed from earth and we can live in peace. We spend all day every day jumping between grief, fear and having a normal day like everyone else. We go to the gym, we have zoom calls and in-person meetings, we pull our reports, we follow up on action items, but all through the day, every day, right above our shoulder is a little reminder that the hostages are still not home, that Israel has been bombarded with bombs and rockets for a year and that we continue to be different.

The future is unknown. It’s scary. And as much I love being Jewish I’m not going to stay silent. This was a long post. I have had all of these thoughts in my head for a few months and now that we are at the anniversary, I just put them all down on paper. Is it the most-succinct message I’ve ever put out there? It is not. But it is honest? That it is. Thank you for reading it.

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