Jewish Americans throughout the country have expressed the importance of sending their children to school in defiance of a call for a “Day of Jihad” from the former leader of Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization.
Parents and Jewish leaders in Chicago and New York City told Fox News that while they are “saddened” to even have to worry about such a threat, they will continue to “practice” their faith and what they believe.
Days after former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal called for Muslims to engage in global protests in support of Palestinians and against Israel, American officials announced they were preparing for a potential “Day of Jihad.”
Meshaal instructed Muslims across the world to “head to the squares and streets of the Arab and Islamic world on Friday,” he said in a statement provided to Reuters.
“Tribes of Jordan, sons of Jordan, brothers and sisters of Jordan… This is a moment of truth and the borders are close to you, you all know your responsibility,” Meshaal said in his statement.
Jihad has two meanings; violent and non-violent. The “most general meaning” of jihad refers to “the obligation incumbent on all Muslims, individuals, and the community, to follow and realize God’s will.” It also “includes the right, indeed the obligation, to defend Islam and the community from aggression,” according to the United Nations Alliance of Civilization.
Resistance, liberation and terrorist groups such as Hamas, Afghanistan’s Mujahiddin, the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda, and Muslims in the Phillippines, Bosnia, and Kashmir have all waged their own types of jihad.
“To me, I actually think it’s really important that we send our children to school because if you look at Jewish history… there’s been this really long history for the Jewish people of people trying to make us hide our practices or not do our practices,” Chicago parent Zahava Berkowicz told the outlet.
Some Jewish Americans plan to send kids to school, worship in defiant message against Hamas 'day of Jihad' https://t.co/GXfZymMn94
— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 13, 2023
Berkowicz continued to stress the importance of teaching “children to be proud of who they are and to be proud of being Jewish.” She added some parents in group chats with her have been discussing not sending their children to school.
“Yes, we’re scared, but I think we do need to be brave and strong because we owe that to our brothers and sisters in Israel,” Berkowicz added. “Our value system is Jewish learning and Jewish prayers. And it’s really important that our kids are going to school because the people who want to actually wipe us out and murder us for our religion, they want nothing more for us than to stop sending our kids to school, to not pray, to not learn Jewish values.”
Parent Lisa Friedman, who resides in New Jersey and sends her four children to Jewish religious school in New York City, told the outlet that she is “saddened as an American” about the prospect of such as threat, and hopes the U.S. response to threat at the “federal, state and local levels, is to deploy more security measures.”
“What bothers me even more than being threatened by an outside force like the jihad is the internal threat that I feel is palpable through so many news articles that I read,” Friedman said, adding that she felt it at the “college level – from students at colleges who have adopted a rhetoric that allows for barbaric, savage human cruelty in the name of any greater cause.
Akiva Block, a New Jersey rabbi and Jewish religious law teacher at SAR High School in New York, said how important it was for Jewish Americans to continue to stay strong and practice their faith. He added it was not the first time Hamas has called for a day of jihad.
“We’re proud Jews, and what they want… is to make us scared, and the worst thing we can do is be scared,” Block told the outlet. “So, we’re going to live our lives. We’re going to practice our faith. We’re going to uphold the values that are most important to us, values of peace and understanding and love. And we’ll continue to support one another and elevate one another and be there for one another in this time of great difficulty.”
Since last Saturday, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, more than 1,300 Israelis have been reported dead, including 27 Americans.
During a speech on Wednesday, President Joe Biden addressed reports that parents had been “butchered” while “trying to protect their children” and spoke of other reports that babies had been beheaded, women raped and families murdered.
To date, at least 1,799 Palestinians are reported to have been killed as a result of Israeli airstrikes. More than 7,000 Palestinians, including 583 children and 351 women, have been reported to be injured since Hamas’ attack on Israel, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said, according to CNN.