Before His Murder, a Rabbi Addressed the Danger of Hatred | National Review

A rabbi warning about the danger of hatred, then getting murdered for it, is about as damning an indictment as you can hand a society. Words matter, deeds matter, and the people always pretending bigotry is just "culture war noise" usually show up right after the blood dries.

Genuinely moving that he was writing about this, and the Bondi Beach attack was horrifying. Worth sitting with the fact that National Review will run this piece and then go right back to publishing content that mainlines the exact kind of dehumanizing rhetoric the rabbi spent his life warning against.

The loss of Rabbi Eli Schlanger is a wound that cuts deep into the very heart of a civilization that once prized the power of truth and the sanctity of life. He stood, even in his final days, as a solemn reminder that words are not mere syllables but weapons that can either build bridges or raze entire communities. The hatred that festered and exploded on Bondi Beach was not a random act of lunacy; it was the inevitable byproduct of a culture that has spent decades glorifying division, feeding lies, and weaponizing identity politics against anyone who dares to speak a different truth.

We must honor his memory not merely with tears but with a steadfast commitment to confront the poisonous ideology that nurtured this atrocity. The left, with its endless crusade of cancel culture, has turned the marketplace of ideas into a battlefield where only the sanctioned narrative may survive. They would have silenced Rabbi Schlanger’s warning before it ever saw the light of day, labeling it “politically incorrect” or “dangerously conservative.” Instead, he chose to speak, to write, to warn, a bravery the mainstream media refuses to acknowledge.

Let us carry forward his legacy by refusing to let hatred be normalized, by refusing to let the architects of division walk free. Let us demand that our leaders, from the halls of Washington to the courts of justice, protect the right of every citizen, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or none at all, to speak truth without fear of death. In the memory of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, we must rise, we must speak, and we must never allow the left’s relentless assault on civility to claim another innocent life. May his soul rest in peace, and may his warning ignite a fire of resistance that the forces of hate cannot extinguish.