Dr. Gil Troy spoke of being inspired by Ben Mizrachi and other young Jews, who he described as Zionist lions. (screenshot)
Vancouver’s Ben Mizrachi died a hero saving others at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023. On that terrible day, and since, a new generation of Zionist lions has emerged, exemplifying the heroism that Mizrachi and so many others epitomized.
This, according to the American-Canadian-Israeli academic and author Dr. Gil Troy, is one of many miracles that have risen from the tragedy.
Troy, an American presidential historian and McGill University professor who lives in Jerusalem, knew Mizrachi well. One of Troy’s sons participated in an Israeli program with the Vancouverite.
“They became close, close friends,” said Troy. “He was one of those kids who walked into the door and straight into your heart. He was really part of our family.”
On Oct. 7, Mizrachi, who was a trained medic, and his friend Itai Bausi, went back into the festival site and saved the lives of others before being murdered themselves.
“What I learned from his heroism was, yes, the Israeli government failed that day,” Troy said. “Yes, the IDF failed that day. But Zionism was vindicated that day. Zionism raised a generation of lions. Zionism raised a generation of Bens and Itais, who fought back, and that was the real miracle of Oct. 7. What saved Israel was Israelis. What saved Israel was Zionism, which taught them to defend themselves, which taught us the value of defending ourselves, which taught us the language of defending ourselves, which sometimes is with words and sometimes is with arms and sometimes with our bare hands.”
Troy was speaking Feb. 2 at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue. As a professor used to daily interactions with North American college students, Troy has witnessed Jewish young people undergo an awakening on and after Oct. 7. People who had never been deeply invested either in Israel or in their own Jewish identity realized they were the object of the terrorists’ wrath.
“This is happening to me. I’m being targeted. This wasn’t just anti-Zionism. This was antisemitic anti-Zionism,” Troy said of how he characterizes the realization among Jewish students. “So many young Jews had an awakening, had their Herzl moment, had their ’67 moment, had their reawakening.”
Rather than hide from their Zionism, Troy said, Jewish young people are recognizing its centrality and resisting others’ attempts to separate their Jewishness from their Zionism.
“At Columbia University, 600 Jewish students signed a statement saying Zionism is central to our identity,” said Troy. “Zionism is who we are.”
The signatories called out those who would define for Jews the acceptable parameters of their Jewishness and Zionism – and they called out anti-Zionist Jews in language deliberately formulated to stick it to their ideological heart, accusing them of being “colonized” by antisemitic forces.
“We’ve seen, from coast to coast in Canada … Jewish students stand up and say, this shall not stand. This is not acceptable,” Troy said. “We’re watching new chapters in Zionist history being written. And we’re seeing it in Israel too.”
This is not easy, he acknowledged. The challenges are enormous. Jews on campus and elsewhere are being betrayed by the very groups who should be counted on as allies, he said.
“Too many of my women colleagues – not all, but too many feminists either decided that it didn’t happen or that we deserved it, or that rape is resistance,” said Troy. “I can’t make this stuff up. They showed at that moment that their hatred for Israel trumped, if I can use that verb, their commitment to fighting gendered violence. That’s how deep the hatred goes.”
Troy calls this the “triple double-cross.” Activists threw Jews under the bus, threw liberalism under the bus and threw their own core ideals under the bus, he said.
The fight of which Jewish students are at the vanguard is not just a fight for Jewish security, Troy contended.
“Who waves the American and Canadian flags at rallies and who burns them?” he asked. “Who disrupted shopping malls and the Toronto mayor’s ice-skating party? Who showed a hatred for Canada, again and again and again? The fight against this academic intifada is not just a fight for Israel and Zionism and Judaism, which should be enough, but it’s also a fight for Americanism and Canadianism and liberalism and for academic values.”
In the face of all the hatred seen in Canadian streets and on campuses in the past year-and-a-half, he said, it could be easy to spin into despair.
“But, you know who doesn’t allow me to despair? Our students,” Troy said. “We’ve seen such heroism. We’ve seen zeal on their part, a gleam in their eye, pride.”
The inspiring courage of young Canadian Jews is mirrored in a million ways, he said. Reserve soldiers living abroad or traveling around the world came to the rescue after Oct. 7.
“Two hundred thousand Israelis flew home,” he said. Many non-Israeli volunteers mobilized as well. “So many of you, since Oct. 7, instead of running away, came toward us – either physically or spiritually and financially, which was part of the language of love.
“There has been something mystical happening here,” he continued. “For all that high price we paid, Israel is now safer than it was Oct. 6 and the United States and Canada and the world is safer than it was on Oct. 6.”
Amid all the darkness, including the tragic loss of his son’s friend, Troy sees inspiring resilience and determination.
“Every moment since that funeral I’ve had Ben on my shoulder, inspiring me and inspiring us to fight like lions and to save the state but also to make it better,” said Troy. “Because Zionism is about defending the state when necessary but building, rebuilding and being rebuilt by it always. That’s the power of the story. That’s our good fortune amid all our grief.”