A STUDENT'S VIEW - This Rosh Hashanah, a new generation of American Jews must decide whether trauma will make us hide or teach us how to stand taller.
I do not remember September 11, 2001. Like many people my age, I inherited 9/11 as a memory rather than lived it as one. I learned about the burning towers in school. I watched the videos years after they were recorded. I heard adults describe where they were when the first plane hit, when the second plane made clear that America was under attack, and when nearly 3,000 people never came home.
For my generation, September 11 was history. Then came October 7. Suddenly, I understood something I had previously known only through textbooks and other people’s memories: There are days when the world you woke up in is not the same world you go to sleep in.
As a young Jewish student, October 7 changed me. I watched the news coming out of Israel with horror. Families were murdered. Young people at a music festival were slaughtered. People were dragged into Gaza as hostages. Parents waited for news about their children. Children lost parents.
But something else happened after October 7. I began looking differently at the world around me. I saw antisemitism become louder and more comfortable. I watched conversations about murdered Jews turn almost immediately into arguments over whether those Jews deserved sympathy. I saw Jewish students confronted with questions no student should have to answer simply because of who they are.
For some of us, even ordinary decisions began to feel different. Do I wear the Star of David? Do I tell people I am Jewish? Do I speak when someone says something antisemitic? Do I stay quiet because speaking might make me the next target? Those are strange questions for a young American to have to ask. They are even stranger questions to ask in a country that promised generations of Jews that we could finally live openly and without fear.
That is why Rosh Hashanah feels different to me this year. The Jewish New Year begins on September 11 the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that changed America. There is something almost painfully appropriate about hearing the shofar on that day. The shofar does not whisper. It interrupts. It wakes us up. And maybe we need to be awakened.
Rosh Hashanah is usually described as a time of renewal, but Jewish renewal has never meant forgetting what came before us. Jewish history does not give us that luxury. We remember Egypt, exile, pogroms, the Holocaust, September 11, and October 7. But Judaism also teaches us something equally important: Memory is not supposed to become a prison. We remember because memory gives us responsibility.
My generation has grown up with crisis almost as background noise terrorism, school shootings, a pandemic, war, political hatred, and now an endless stream of suffering delivered directly to our phones. It would be easy to become numb. It would be easy to become bitter. And for young Jews, it would be easy to decide that being visibly Jewish simply is not worth the trouble.
Take off the necklace. Hide the kippah. Avoid the argument. Don’t mention Israel. Don’t make anyone uncomfortable. Just blend in.
But that cannot be our answer. If antisemitism teaches young Jews to hide, antisemitism has accomplished something without ever having to touch us. Our response must be the opposite—not louder hatred, revenge, or contempt for people who disagree with us, but more Jewish life, more knowledge, more courage, more community, and more willingness to stand beside one another.
Because being Jewish cannot simply become about fighting people who hate Jews. Judaism is bigger than antisemitism. It is Shabbat dinner with family and the sound of Hebrew prayer. It is questioning, arguing, and learning. It is grandparents telling stories their grandparents once told them. It is food, humor, music, faith, justice, responsibility, and community. It is thousands of years of people being told that their story was finished—and answering by writing another chapter.
That may be what Rosh Hashanah means to me most this year. September 11 taught America that security can disappear in a morning. October 7 reminded Jews that history does not always remain safely in history books. Neither lesson should condemn us to fear. They should teach us what is worth protecting.
Twenty-five years after 9/11, America still remembers those who were taken. Nearly three years after October 7, Jewish families are still carrying grief that cannot be measured by a calendar. We should mourn them. We should say their names. We should tell their stories. But then we must do something terrorism never expects its victims to do live.
Live openly. Live meaningfully. Live Jewishly.
The terrorists of September 11 did not get to write America’s final chapter. The terrorists of October 7 will not write ours. My generation will. We will decide whether fear makes us smaller, whether antisemitism makes us disappear, and whether the trauma we inherited becomes only a wound or also a responsibility.
When I hear the shofar this Rosh Hashanah, I will remember those who never had the chance to hear another one. And then I will think about the year ahead.
I cannot change September 11. I cannot undo October 7. I cannot bring back a single life stolen by terrorism. But I can decide what I do with the life that I have been given. I can refuse to hide. I can refuse to forget. And I can refuse to let those who hate Jews determine what being Jewish means to me.
This Rosh Hashanah, that is my prayer. And it is my promise.
We remember. We mourn. We live. And we are still here.
(Shoshannah Kalaydjian is a young Jewish student who writes about education, identity, and the challenges facing the next generation. Growing up in today’s climate, she has witnessed firsthand how rising antisemitism affects young people in classrooms and on college campuses. She is committed to sharing the perspectives of Jewish youth, amplifying student voices, and encouraging leaders to create safer, more inclusive environments for all students.)
