Keeping Israel in the news in normal times

(Oct. 14, 2026 / JNS)

Do you consider yourself an “Oct. 8 Jew”?

A Jew who woke up the next morning feeling different? A Jew who lost friends because you stand with Israel? A Jew who realized you wanted to make more Jewish friends and get involved in Jewish life? A Jew who decided to start using your voice?

Oct. 7 changed something in all of us.

It’s been three years since thousands of Hamas terrorists and other Palestinians attacked communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Three years since Jewish people around the world woke up to horrifying news from Israel. So many of us realized that we were no longer the same people we had been the day before.

For some, that meant going to synagogue or lighting Shabbat candles for the first time. For others, it meant putting on a Star of David necklace, learning more about their traditions, finding a Jewish community and deciding to visit Israel.

And for a lot of people, it meant talking publicly about their heritage, religion, and how the world viewed boh them and the State of Israel.

Suddenly, Jews who had never spoken publicly about being Jewish were posting about Israel. Existing content creators completely changed the focus of their platforms. New accounts were created specifically to advocate for Israel. People who had never considered themselves activists became activists overnight.

And a new group of what we often call “hasbara creators” emerged.

I’ve never really liked the word hasbara. It means “explanation,” and I don’t love the idea that Jews constantly have to explain themselves or that they’re always on the defensive. Still, I’ve always been grateful to be part of this community.

I’ve been sharing my Jewish life online since 2011, and talking about Judaism and Israel on TikTok since 2020. But I never had a name for that. I was being openly Jewish and sharing parts of my life that mattered.

For the last three years, I’ve watched this world grow by leaps and bounds. And I’ve also watched people burn out.

There are highs and lows. Creators come and go. Accounts become incredibly active during moments of crisis and then quiet when the news cycle moves on. People who were posting multiple times a day suddenly disappeared.

And I get it. Putting your face online and publicly standing up for Israel can bring an unbelievable amount of hate. The comments and messages can be vicious. And spending every day consuming horrible news just so you can turn around and explain it to everyone else takes a toll.

But I think there’s another conversation here, especially three years later: What does hasbara look like when there isn’t a crisis?

We spend so much time thinking about what the world sees when something happens. How do we correct the misinformation? How do we defend Israel? How do we begin to confront the challenges of these past three years to a growing crowd that doesn’t want to listen?

And what happens when things are quiet? What happens when life gets easier because others have moved on to another trending topic?

Sometimes, we spend so much time defending Israel that we forget to talk about it like any other place. after all, Israel is so much more than whatever terrible thing is happening in the news.

It’s a real place filled with real people. There is food, music, religion, technology, archaeology, and history. There are beaches and traffic and brunch places. There are families heading to work, and kids going to school. There are Jews from around the world living and working alongside Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and other ethnicities. There are completely ordinary days.

Social media trains people to chase shiny objects. Something happens, everyone talks about it, the algorithm rewards it, and then suddenly, everyone moves on to the next thing.

There will be moments when Israel dominates every headline and moments when almost nobody is talking about it. There will be awful days when we need people correcting misinformation in real time. But there will also be completely ordinary days when inviting someone out to try Middle Eastern cuisine, introducing them to an Israeli business, teaching a piece of ancient history or simply showing what Jewish life actually looks like is also advocacy.

Hasbara doesn’t always have to look like fighting. And I think that might be how we keep doing this without burning ourselves out.

But we also have to ask ourselves a bigger question: Are we just in when things are bad for the Jews?

Being “in” doesn’t mean posting about Israel every day. It doesn’t mean agreeing with every Israeli policy or defending every decision. And it definitely doesn’t mean your entire identity or platform has to become Israel.

Maybe the future of hasbara is less about constantly reacting and more about figuring out how we keep showing up. Teaching when there isn’t a crisis. Sharing Israel when it isn’t trending. Letting people get to know us, instead of only talking to them when we need them to understand another tragedy.

I realize that tragedy gets more views. It gets more shares. That’s how social media works. But is that what’s best for our community?

Oct. 7 woke up a lot of people. Three years later, the challenge is figuring out how to stay awake.