It’s the end of August in New York. That means U.S. Open season and Labor Day concerts. We’ll have all sorts of summer wrap-ups and back-to-school trends. For the fortunate, 2025 will be remembered as all the others: lazy luxury, heirloom tomatoes, fresh blueberry pies and corn on the cob, Montauk sunsets and Aperol spritzes.
For others, it’ll be remembered as that peak moment when the unleashing of latent antisemitism became full-blown mainstream. When we heard “Death to the IDF” at the legendary Glastonbury festival. When young French campers were kicked off their flight home from Spain and the Spanish minister of transportation alluded to them as “bratty Israelis.” When an Israeli tourist had his ear bitten off in Greece. When in Montreal, a Jewish father of two young children was beaten to the ground and Jewish marchers at the Pride parade were doused with urine. When an Uber driver in Vienna kicked an Israeli family out of his car and assaulted the father. When “Zionazi” was scrawled on JetBlue kosher plane meals. When flags bearing swastikas were waved on the streets of New Hampshire. When a prominent Belgian politician decided that it was too complicated to wish their Jewish citizens the customary “Shanah Tovah” greetings. When the Toronto Film Festival disinvited a documentary film to be shown about October 7 because the producers hadn’t obtained “permission” from Hamas to use their genocidal footage broadcast to the entire world, and only re-extended the invitation under severe pressure and intense lobbying. When in France, the memorial tree for Ilan Halimi, the 17-year-old French Jew kidnapped, brutally tortured for 24 days and murdered in 2005, was chopped down. And when, also in France, 150 young Israelis were denied entry into an amusement park solely because they were from Israel. When the list of countries ready to recognize a Palestinian state with no conditions grew like a weed. When Israeli families vacationing on the Upper West Side chose to speak in forced English instead of Hebrew out of fear. That’s right: in the most Jewish neighborhood in the world (outside of Israel) – the neighborhood of Philip Roth, Barney Greengrass, Zabar’s and an abundance of synagogues – I heard Hebrew pushed back into hushed whispers.
This doesn’t even scratch the surface of the number of attacks. The above are just those I remember from my doom-scrolling.
Speaking of doom-scrolling: This was the summer when so many celebrities found their calling as activists. Not just the celebrities. The influencers. And not just the influencers. The minor-league Substackers with mind-numbing newsletters filled with travel tips and fashion recommendations, peppered in a light dose of “Free Palestine”. Along with these newly minted Middle East geopolitical experts, it seemed like everyone who had fingers managed to put down their glasses of chilled rosé and find the time for an “All eyes on Rafah” meme or whatever the latest was.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Having a voice and using it properly is a good thing. If this newfound passion for human rights leads millions to amplify the message of “Woman, Life, Freedom” in Iran, to call for the establishment of a free Kurdistan for the approximately 45 million stateless Kurds who were promised a homeland over 100 years ago, and of course, to stand with Ukraine as their brave defenders and civil society fight a barbaric war against imperialist, terrorist Russia, I will be elated.
And there should, of course, be widespread public support and massive aid to alleviate the vast humanitarian crisis and devastating suffering of the Palestinian civilians. But for so many, the facts, nuances, nearly impossible challenges of an asymmetrical war, and the simple point that to stop this devastation, everyone should be resoundingly calling for the release of 48 hostages stolen 696 days ago, do not seem to matter. My head spins. I am so angry. And as I watch the vicious antisemitism increasing world-wide, I am sad. Sad and frustrated. Kudos to Hamas. With their useful idiot accomplices embedded right here in America, they waged psychological warfare so successfully this summer.
During this time, I found myself in the Dolomites for a week with my family, with a pitstop in Innsbruck, Austria, home to an actual genocide, the scene of the forced labor camp, Reichenau and where Kristallnacht was most ferocious, and had all the hallmarks of what was to come on October 7.
One of the families whose life was destroyed on November 9, 1938 was that of the young 13-year-old Ilse Brüll. Fortunately, Ilse was in Munich on Kristallnacht, but her parents, Julie and Rudolf, were violently attacked. Afterwards, Ilse returned to Innsbruck and was forced to leave school. Her parents attempted to emigrate to America but to no avail, and in April 1939, she and her cousin Inge Brüll were sent to Amsterdam on a Kindertransport organized by the Quakers. The two girls were hidden in a convent for several years, but in 1942, the Nazis demanded that any non-baptized children be turned over. On August 5, 1942, Ilse was sent to Westerbork transit camp (where Anne Frank and her family would be sent just two years later) and a few weeks later, she arrived at Auschwitz. She was murdered on September 3, 1942.
Our hotel was down the street from the synagogue where Ilse’s father became President of the community following World War II until his death in 1957. I called and asked if we could stop by to learn a bit about the local Jewish community and history. My 10-year-old daughter, husband, and I were warmly welcomed by an American who had moved to Innsbruck years ago and now leads hostage rallies. She walked us through the modest sanctuary, and in their study room she unveiled a torn Torah scroll in which parts of the parchment had been cut by the Nazis to use for laundry. At the end of the hall, a glass cabinet holding precious artifacts awaited. In it were Ilse Brüll’s shining red dancing shoes and her yellow star.
My daughter stood silent, then tugged at my wrist and the tie-dye Nova Festival bracelet I wear.
“Same star of David. Except you choose to wear it. She was forced to,” she whispered.
After taking it in for another moment, we thanked the woman and stepped outside.
“What did you think?” I asked.
“It’s just so sad. And it feels, other than her shoes, she’s disappeared. No one knows her story in New York. She reminds me of Anne Frank. But who remembers her?”
Twenty minutes later and we’ve moved on to discussing her imminent departure to summer camp. I nudged her. “What are you most excited for?”
“The independence and responsibility. I can’t wait.”
“Independence, I get. But what kind of responsibility are you thinking about?”
“Dunno, to decide by myself if I’ll have dessert or not after dinner. If I’ll remember to eat vegetables like you told me. And if I remember, will I listen? That’s responsibility. To choose to do the right thing. Or not.”
She paused. “You know, Anne Frank had lots of responsibility.”
“What kind?” I prodded.
“To not make noise. To protect her family. I wonder what I’d do with all that responsibility. It’s huge. I bet Ilse had lots also. With her cousin, Inge. To always be good. She probably tried not to cry, even when she wanted to.”
Troubled, she stopped to think…and then spoke…
“Why do you think Ilse’s neighbors didn’t feel responsible to help her? And why did people give her up in the end? Do you think people today feel responsible to tell her story?”
I didn’t know the answer to her questions. After this summer of hate with its onslaught of antisemitism, the casual belittling of the Holocaust, its survivors, its memory, I’m not so sure many people feel much responsibility.
Pained, I turned the question back to her: “Do you feel responsible to tell her story?”
“Yes, of course.”
Well then, that’s a perfect start.
Emily Hamilton is the Executive Director of Justice for Kurds and producer of four documentary films: “Why Ukraine,” “Slava Ukraini” ,“Glory to the Heroes” and “Our War” by Bernard-Henri Lévy on the extraordinary resistance of Ukraine against the full-scale Russian invasion.
