So much can change in one year.
Last year I flew in from Israel on a visit to my neighborhood on the Upper West Side where I lived for over a decade and still had my apartment. I either arrived super late Wednesday night or super early Thursday morning of Thanksgiving. I remember I was beyond exhausted.
But I had been invited by some friends and especially my neighbors and their three adorable boys whom I love, to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with them from a high rise apartment facing Central Park West — a bird’s eye view of the famous parade.
Living on the Upper West Side — even on my first two-year stint there almost 20 years back — the Thanksgiving Day Parade is part of the neighborhood scene. The night before Thanksgiving, preparation for the parade takes place on the Upper West Side between 77th and 81st Streets outside the Natural History Museum. I can’t count how many times I’d gone there with friends, just passing by, taking part in this New York or Upper West Side tradition, watching the ginormous character balloons blown up. Snoopy and Charlie Brown characters stand out in my memory.
There were also years I glimpsed the parade just by walking around my neighborhood.
I had never formally watched it, though. And certainly not from an aerial point of view. I was exhausted, but I wasn’t going to miss this!
There was something so wholesomely American about it, especially in sharing it with three little boys who were so enthusiastic.
As we munched on bagels and lox, looking out down onto Central Park West, the magic unfolded. Fantastical floats floated by below us, sky high larger-than-life character balloons drifting down this famous New York City street. There were the synchronized marching bands and uniformed drummers marching confidently in perfect beat down the street. There were the costumed dancers, also in perfect synchronicity. The fresh damp autumnal air showcasing this beloved New York tradition — it was live, televised across America.
With each familiar character or float that passed by our excitement soared. Spiderman — sprawled in his climbing posture. Mickey Mouse. Bluey — and, of course: Snoopy!
There were many more characters I had no clue about that the kids were extremely excited about. Their sweet innocent joy was palpable, bringing us all along with them.
The scenic backdrop to the glorious American parade, was a pitch perfect fall foliage melange of color from bordering Central Park. The trees shown in their full splendor. Copper. Olive. Burgundy. Gold. Contrasted by the urban skyline.
It was an enchanting, very New York, especially Upper West Side, morning.
The 98th Thanksgiving Day Parade. The thought of seeing it again this year, on the special palindromic number of 99, and one short of a century’s worth of parades, felt like something cool to look forward to.
Yet this year, I feel so differently.
What a difference one year can make.
Thanksgiving is approaching, and the thought of spending a morning celebrating New York or America in this way feels so far from where we the American Jewish community is at. So much of Jewish New York City’s future hangs in the balance, with a great sense of anxiety.
Last Thanksgiving was just over a year from the barbaric massacre of Oct. 7. We had already understood the shocking and irrational gap that lay between us and those in the world who had aligned with supporting Hamas or expressing anti-Israel sentiment.
Overall, though, the American world as we knew it hadn’t seemed to have gone off the deep end.
Somehow, though, faster than we could have imagined, it feels like we are navigating a dangerous moment. As though the tipping point has come, things are closing in on the Jewish community from all sides.
While right leaning and left leaning pundits and politics usually deride each other’s views, all too suddenly there has been a convergence between the two.
A common ground.
Jew hate.
They can’t ever agree on much, but now their alignment about what and who are the cause of the ills in society seem perfectly clear to them both: The Jews. Israel. “Zionism.”
Of course, we’ve seen this movie before throughout history. It’s not new. “The oldest hate,” they call it.
But in my generation, airing such ideas became something you didn’t express in decent company. For a short fleeting American golden age, anti-Semitism had receded from the public square, suppressed, left to the marginalized. Today, it has been normalized.
The baseline is constantly shifting. Things that were unthinkable even just one year ago this Thanksgiving time are currently considered mainstream discussion.
Never mind that each side’s reasons for being against Jews contradicts the others. I suppose scapegoating Jews never is rational, is it?
To one side we are accused of the sin of colonialism; and to the other side, of capitalism.
Only in Jew hate-land can these contradictions live side by side.
Wherever we look in the news, from both sides, purveyors of anti-Semitism are normalizing it.
What comes next?
Deep down in our Jewish history souls, we know what this breeds. We know the danger it leads to. Time and again, history has taught us that.
Now it has arrived in the chapter of what many thought of as our Golden America — which for many decades it was.
Look around New York City alone and see the impact the Jewish community has had on this great city. Starting from merchants and peddlers to impacting the sciences, healthcare, the arts, the culinary scene, and let us not forget the humor. New York Jews have been part and parcel in leading this great melting pot.
And now, between last Thanksgiving of 2024 and this Thanksgiving of 2025, the wholesome autumnal magic of American Thanksgiving, here in New York City, feels tinged with an elusive cloud of anxiety, suffused with the possibility and the wondering about an impending goodbye.
© IJN 2025
