The Diary Of Anne Frank Redux, In The United States Today

Anne Frank was a young teenager living in Amsterdam when the Nazis invaded Holland. She went into hiding in an attic with her family, fearful of genocidal maniacs who roamed the streets. For a few years, she kept a personal diary of her thoughts and how she and her family were living in hiding, before ultimately being discovered and sent to their deaths. Her diary has become an important document read by people around the world about a disgraceful period in human history which began with hatred, lawlessness and fear, and ultimately genocide.

People today – especially young people – live their lives online. With postings on Instagram, X/Twitter, TikTok and Facebook, people share their thoughts and activities with friends and strangers.

So when hate and lawlessness come for Jewish youth in the United States today, anyone around the world can see and read the testimony. The brave came to congress to testify about their classmates calling for the genocide of Jews. The unbowed sued their universities for not providing a safe environment. The fighters came onto the public stage and recounted the scourge of antisemitism they experience going to classes.

But they are few. Most young Jews are trying to just experience high school and college. They let teachers’ snide comments about “Jewish baby killers” go by, lest they lose a grade. They don’t report their mezuzahs being torn down at their dorm, pretending they fell on their own. They hide in rooms and skip events and parties with peers who have revealed themselves to be Jew haters.

Some young and older Jews have quietly lobbied for change at schools and local governments. Others have opted for a less forward approach such as writing blogs.

This blog, First One Through, started ten years ago in May 2014 as the Obama Administration was failing to secure a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as well as failing to end the Iranian nuclear program. It focused on the terrible media coverage, particularly of The New York Times, in excusing and ignoring any horrible action by the Democratic administration and Islamists, while sparing no vicious ink on the Jewish State.

Over time, the posts captured the media’s antisemitic bias, which included deliberately obfuscating the direct connection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. It described America’s priorities in fighting racism while ignoring growing Jew hatred. It detailed the moral rot of the United Nations and America’s leading universities.

Over 1,500 articles by a single author over the decade.

While the Shoah Foundation has collected important testimonies of thousands of Holocaust survivors about their recollections of World War II, they are colored by history and age. Anne Frank’s diary gives us something unique: a vision of a world gone mad in real-time, without the perfect hindsight of how the story played out.

We are witnessing Anne Frank in students’ public testimonies and blogs penned by those who prefer the written word. It is imperative to heed their warnings and to take actions to help them and mass of Jewish students in hiding.

And preserve western civilization as we know it.