Don’t be silent… and cancel your subscription

Ever seen a time like this? I hear this daily from so many people, including friends, neighbors, and readers of this newspaper who I interact with on a daily basis.

It’s all about the Jews. The news gets worse and worse. Seems like not a day goes by when I don’t receive some form of correspondence describing another heinous act against our people. That same narrative. The constant obsession with the Jews. And to think that we’re a mere 2 percent of the population.

I visit Manhattan, and my friends are all ill at ease. Every day another protest, another attack on a Jewish institution, while Mayor Mamdani basks in his glory, seemingly finding this unrest commonplace. It boggles the mind. I’m always waiting for him to ask, “What’s the big issue?” Even as my friends ask, “Where do we go? Where do Jews go in 2026?”

Archie Gottesman is the co-founder of JewBelong, the strong and courageous woman behind those thought-provoking billboards that strike a nerve… as intended. She has dedicated her life to addressing the antisemitism we face every day.

As she says, there’s a need for JewBelong because “Judaism is a great product with lousy marketing, and we’re out to change that.”

And as I listened to her recent appearance on CBS’s “The Point with Marcia Kramer,” she challenged her listeners not to remain silent.

“I need to be able to tell my children, our grandchildren, I did not stay silent because someday they are going to look at us and they’re going to say, what were you doing in 2026 when people were being attacked for being Jewish or were standing with the Jewish people?” Archie said.

“I want to have a good answer.”

And what’s the good answer to New York Times columnist Nick Kristof’s May 11 opinion piece detailing incendiary claims of rape and sexual assault by Israelis against Palestinian detainees? Those allegations were called “false and entirely unfounded” by medical examiners.

And then there are the Israeli dogs who were trained to rape that he references. Sounds like a Fellini movie, but it’s not.

The Washington Examiner’s David Harsanyi reports that even columnists have an obligation to abide by the basic standards of evidence and Kristof does not do that. He adds, “His most cartoonishly evil accusation contends that Israelis use trained dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners. The hoax is a favorite of online antisemitic podcaster types. Not only has there never been a shred of evidence that this happened, but it’s probably ‘biologically and cognitively unfeasible’ for humans to train dogs to rape people.”

And while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu potentially prepares a libel suit against the Times, the paper steadfastly supports Kristof.

And that’s the question. How did such a piece get published? How many editors signed off on Kristof’s column? It’s clear that they felt his findings were accurate and fit to print.

That’s the egregious part. The Times always feels infallible. And then time moves on, and people forget.

Well, this time we won’t forget. We’re exhausted, annoyed, and angry. We have had enough.

Today, I ask you, our readers, to cancel your subscription to the New York Times. Stop funding this institution. Fund an October 7th charity instead.

As Archie Gottesman says, be vocal, take a stand, and most important, be able to tell your children and grandchildren that your voice was heard, and you were not silent.

This is not a time for quiet. Our enemies are emboldened. Silence is not golden.

James L. Janoff is the publisher of the Jewish Standard and the New Jersey Jewish News.