Three years ago, the world watched in horror as Hamas terrorists poured across Israel’s border and committed the deadliest attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
October 7, 2023 was not an abstract geopolitical event. More than 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage. Families were shattered. Communities were destroyed. And for Jews around the world, something changed that day.
I am Jewish. I am an American. I am a Republican. I am a Zionist. And over the past three years, I have experienced something that I never thought I would in this country: a fear of being openly Jewish.
The dramatic rise in antisemitic attacks should disturb every American, Jewish or not.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), there were 6,274 reported incidents of anti-Semitic assault, harassment and vandalism in the United States in 2025. That was lower than the extraordinary levels recorded in 2024, but still the third-highest annual total since the ADL began tracking these incidents in 1979. Even more alarming, physical assaults reached a record high.
This is not simply a criticism of the Israeli government.
Criticism of an Israeli prime minister is not inherently anti-Semitic. Criticism of Israeli military policy is not inherently anti-Semitic. Israelis themselves vigorously debate their government every day.
But targeting Jewish students because of a war thousands of miles away is antisemitism. Attacking Jewish institutions is antisemitism. Holding American Jews collectively responsible for decisions made by the Israeli government is anti-Semitism. Glorifying Hamas and other terrorist organizations that deliberately target Jews cannot be brushed aside as ordinary political disagreement.
And pretending otherwise has consequences.
In 2025, Americans were murdered in antisemitic attacks. Two Israeli Embassy staff members were murdered outside the Capital Jewish Museum here in Washington, D.C. In Boulder, Colorado, people participating in an event calling attention to Israeli hostages were firebombed with Molotov cocktails.
These are no longer warnings about what could happen. They are things that have happened.
And neither political party gets a pass.
On the left, we have watched elected officials and activists employ rhetoric about Israel that many Jewish Americans believe crosses the line separating legitimate criticism of a government from demonization of the Jewish state. We have watched debates over Israel fracture Democratic politics and calls to curtail American support for Israel grow considerably louder.
But Republicans who believe anti-Semitism exists only on the left are fooling themselves.
There is another strain of anti-Semitism gaining oxygen on parts of the right: conspiracy theories about Jewish influence, claims of divided loyalty, and personalities willing to provide platforms to people who traffic openly in antisemitism. Republican Jewish leaders themselves have sounded the alarm about it.
We should listen.
My opposition to anti-Semitism does not change depending on whether the person spreading it has a “D” or an “R” next to their name.
Neither should yours.
Israel is one of America’s closest allies in a region where Iran and its proxies have repeatedly threatened American and Israeli interests. The United States and Israel cooperate on intelligence, defense, technology and counterterrorism. Americans can debate the policies of any Israeli government while recognizing that the relationship between our countries is larger than any individual prime minister or administration.
Three years after October 7, that distinction seems increasingly difficult for our politics to maintain.
That is why this election season should cause Americans to look closely at the people asking for the privilege of representing them.
Do not stop at the party label. Look at what candidates have actually said. Look at how they have voted. Look at whom they have defended and whom they have condemned. Ask whether they recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Ask whether they can condemn Hamas without qualification. Ask whether they will confront antisemitism when it comes from their political opponents, and, more importantly, whether they will confront it when it comes from their political allies.
Those questions should matter at the ballot box.
And that responsibility does not begin in November. It begins in our primary elections.
Primaries are where Americans decide who will represent their parties in the first place. If we wait until the general election to start paying attention, we have surrendered one of our most important opportunities to determine the character of the people who will ultimately hold public office. While that time has passed for 2026, let this be a call to action for 2028 and beyond.
Then, on November 3, Americans will once again go to the polls for a federal general election. We should approach that responsibility with our eyes open. Party loyalty should never require us to excuse extremism, anti-Semitism or hostility toward America’s allies. If we are serious when we say that antisemitism has no home in America, then we must be willing to reject it regardless of which political coalition it comes from.
The U.S. Senate race in Michigan provides one example of why examining a candidate’s actual positions matters. The Democrats’ nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, has falsely called Israel’s conduct in Gaza a “genocide,” advocated ending both offensive and defensive American military assistance to Israel, compared the Israeli government to Hamas and resisted affirming Israel’s right to exist specifically as a Jewish state.
These positions make him the wrong choice for the U.S. Senate not because of his religion, but because of his record.
America has room for Muslims, Jews, Christians, people of every other faith and people of no faith at all. Religious liberty means that Americans should be free to worship according to their beliefs, but it also depends on a shared civic identity and a willingness to participate in the American community rather than demand that the community conform to a separate religious or political code.
Assimilation does not require anyone to abandon his or her faith. It requires immigrants and their children to embrace the laws, liberties and democratic principles that bind Americans together. That is why the extremism visible in places such as Dearborn, Michigan, is so troubling: the concern is not peaceful Muslim worship, but efforts by some activists and political leaders to reshape public life around Sharia law and a separate Muslim identity instead of joining a common American identity.
What it should not have room for is political extremism that excuses terrorism, treats antisemitism as an acceptable cost of ideological purity or abandons the fundamental American principle that people should be able to worship and live openly without fear.
Voting is how citizens peacefully decide who will be entrusted with defending those principles.
That means showing up in primaries. It means showing up in general elections. It means knowing more about the people on the ballot than the letter beside their names. And it means demanding that our elected officials understand that protecting religious liberty, opposing political violence, confronting anti-Semitism and maintaining America’s commitments to its allies are responsibilities of public office, not partisan conveniences.
Because “Never Again” was never supposed to be a slogan we repeated once a year.
It was supposed to be a promise.
For generations, Americans have asked how ordinary societies allowed antisemitism to become normalized. The uncomfortable answer is that it rarely happens overnight. It happens when language that once shocked us stops shocking us. When excuses replace condemnation. When political convenience becomes more important than moral consistency. When people decide that hatred is tolerable because the person expressing it happens to be useful to their side.
Three years after October 7, American Jews are watching that process with increasing concern.
We do not need Americans to agree about every decision made by the Israeli government.
We need Americans to agree that Jews should not have to hide who they are. That terrorists who massacre civilians should never become folk heroes. That America’s alliance with Israel deserves serious debate rather than conspiracy theories and hatred. And that anti-Semitism is unacceptable whether it comes wrapped in progressive activism, far-right nationalism, or anything in between.
On this anniversary, we remember the people murdered on October 7. We remember those taken hostage, and those where were murdered. We remember families whose lives changed forever.
But remembrance alone is not enough.
The test now belongs to us: what kind of country are we willing to be three years later?
Jackie Sackstein is the Chairman of the Maryland Young Republicans and a longtime Jewish community advocate. She also serves as State Chairman’s Association Chair for the Young Republican National Federation (YRNF). A proud Jewish American and Zionist, Jackie has been active in Republican politics at the local, state, and national levels.
