Matt Blumenthal's Remarks
I asked State Rep. (and TBE member) Matt Blumenthal if I could share the text of his impassioned remarks from this morning. I feel it's important, because so many people have been asking me how to respond to those who are falling into the trap of equivocation and moral fuzziness in conjoining what happened on October 7 to the wider conflict. People are seeing this grotesque insensitivity everywhere, at school, at work, at social and cultural events. People are resorting to stale, "knee-jerk" thinking, or worse, often without realizing what it is they are defending: an act of genocide. Here's what Rep. Blumenthal said:
It’s been just over a week since October 7—just over eight days. It feels like an eternity, and also no time at all.
You would think that, over those eight days or so, my feelings and thoughts would have clarified. That they would have settled. But as the days have passed, and the toll of innocent Israelis subjected to Hamas’s brutality has climbed—more than 1300 brutally slain, more than 150 taken hostage—like many of you, I’m sure, I have felt only a deepened fog of grief and confusion.
As we’ve grieved, as friends and family have reported for duty, it’s been comforting to see the condemnation of the attacks, and the support and solidarity for Israel and Jews, here in Stamford and around the world.
But we have seen other things, too. All too often, it feels like statements of grief or condemnation for the shedding of Jewish blood—seemingly only Jewish blood—are followed by the word “but.”
And even more heartbreakingly, from some corners, we have seen people condone, excuse, or even celebrate Hamas’s premeditated, genocidal barbarism. This is moral depravity. There is no excuse, no condoning, no justification for Hamas’s purposeful slaughter of innocent Israelis, the kidnapping of children and women and the elderly, the rockets still raining down over Israeli towns and cities. There is no justification or excuse for terrorism.
That’s why it’s so important that we—that you—are here today, standing with Israel and the Jewish people.
That’s not to say we can’t acknowledge the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians to have their own state, living in peace alongside Israel. That’s not to say we don’t mourn and feel for the innocent Palestinian civilians killed or caught in the fighting. How could we not? We are the people whose patriarch negotiated with God, even in the face of God’s wrath, for every life he could save.
But there I go again: but, but, but.
How about this: Like every other nation on earth, Israel has the right to defend itself and its population, and to exist as a free, peaceful, and democratic state and a homeland for the Jewish people. And that sentence, my friends, ends with a period.
And so let us pray. Let us pray for the safety and success of the Israeli soldiers and the defeat of Hamas. Pray for the safety and well-being of the civilians caught in the fighting, Israeli and Palestinian alike. Pray for peace.
As we grieve, as friends and family report for duty, as Israel defends itself, may we continue to live by our Jewish values. May we never let our grief, our fear, and our confusion at the actions of monsters harden our hearts.
As Reb Nachman said long ago said, and so many of us have sung: “All the world is a narrow bridge. The thing is not to be overcome by fear.”
We, the Jewish people, will not live in fear.
Am Yisrael Chai. | 
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