While we in Missouri argue over the IHRA definition of antisemitism, Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pursued a course that is morally indefensible, counterproductive, and a danger to the future of the state itself — and the Jewish community of St. Louis, by and large, has been silent.

If we care about the future of Israel, that silence is a failure. Not a legal one to be adopted in a state house, but a moral one with profound implications. Palestinian and Lebanese civilians are being killed at a scale that international courts and human rights organizations have described in terms that should shock every conscience — Jewish or otherwise. This isn’t hyperbole; we’ve seen it with our own eyes. Israel is approving new settlements and bombing civilian infrastructure. Opinion polls show that support on both sides of the aisle is dropping like a rock.

Israel is safe for Jews not because of its geographical boundaries, but because of its bond with the United States and the support of its allies. Netanyahu has chosen a course that has created a political rift in America and abroad, and now future American funding for Israeli defense is uncertain. Israel is less safe. And so are American Jews.

It wasn’t long ago that Netanyahu facilitated the transfer of millions of dollars to Hamas. In 2024, he was quoted by TIME: “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas…This is part of our strategy—to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” American Jews have been isolated as well — divided by personal views that have created a rift among what was already a small population.

Let’s be clear about what this argument is and is not. This is not a debate about Israel’s right to exist. It should. This is not a claim that peace was simple or that the region’s history is uncomplicated. And it is not an excuse for the atrocities of Oct. 7 — that was an unimaginable attack that still feels surreal. Before then, a two-state solution was not only imaginable but was the stated policy of most of the world, including the United States and significant factions within Israel itself. That path is now likely impossible.

So what’s the path forward? Endless wars that kill civilians on both sides? What is the definition of success? What is the acceptable amount of collateral damage? To a Jew who values all life, we crossed that threshold long ago.

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We should be disgusted that the path chosen by Netanyahu — a corrupt leader at the head of a broken governmental system — has been deemed acceptable and empowered by the United States. This desecrates values we hold dear as Jews and gives millions of people across the world an excuse to hate Israel and Jews as a consequence. Because whether or not the IHRA definition delineates the difference between criticizing Israel and criticizing Jews, antisemitism grows regardless.

Israel, as a concept, predates any modern government by millennia. It is woven into the Torah not as a geography but as an identity bound by shared values, covenant and culture. To allow that sacred identity to be defined by the actions of a corrupt government cheapens it — and inextricably links every Jewish person on earth to whatever policies the state of Israel chooses to pursue.

Historically, Jewish activists have been disproportionately represented in the civil rights movement precisely because our tradition demands that those who know suffering recognize it in others. “Never again” was never meant to be a tribal slogan. It was meant to be a universal one. So where is that tradition now?

America was built on the principle that citizens have not only the right but the obligation to call out their government when it acts against their values. American tax dollars, American weapons, and American diplomatic cover are implicated in what is happening in Gaza and Lebanon. Silence is not neutrality. It is complicity.

That silence has a cost closer to home. Our Jewish children are growing up in a moment when antisemitism is rising at a rapid rate — on college campuses, in physical actions, in rhetoric that makes no distinction between the Israeli government and Jewish people everywhere. That conflation is dangerous and wrong. But the Jewish community’s collective failure to separate itself from the actions of the Israeli government makes that conflation easier, not harder. When American Jews are silent in the face of war crimes committed in a country that claims to act in our name, we do not make our children safer. We make them more of a target.

The best protection we can offer is moral clarity — a clear and public declaration that Jewish identity does not consist of defending the indefensible.

History will ask what we said. History will ask what we did. I write this because one day my children will ask what the state of Israel did to tens of thousands of people in the Middle East, and I want them to know that while war crimes were being committed, our community was vocal and stood for what was right. Not because of geographic boundaries or definitions. Because we are Israel.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Spencer Toder is a lifelong St. Louisan, a father of two, and an advocate for a more compassionate world.