Oct. 7, 2023, should have made certain things impossible to misunderstand.

Jews were hunted and murdered. Families were slaughtered. People were kidnapped from their homes and from a music festival.

And it was worse than that. Things I can’t even bear to write down.

Whatever else anyone wanted to say about Israel, Palestinians, Gaza, or the Middle East, what happened that day was not particularly difficult to understand.

And yet almost immediately, reality began to be rewritten. The murderers were explained. The victims were contextualized. Within days, Jews found themselves having to defend Israel before they had even finished burying the dead.

Something is wrong? Look at the Jews. Jews are murdered? There is context. Israel is attacked? There is history. Hostages are taken? There is a larger story. Antisemitism rises? Let’s talk about what the Jews did to produce it.

Whatever happens to Jews, the explanation eventually leads back to the Jews; the system is remarkably resilient.

For a while, it was tempting to believe this was an educational problem. We convinced ourselves that people didn’t know enough, didn’t understand the history, or hadn’t seen enough evidence. If we could just show them one more video, explain one more fact, or correct one more lie, maybe they would get it.

And so we tried.

For three years, Jews have explained, corrected, documented, supplied context, and pointed out double standards, all while operating on the assumption that knowledge would eventually lead people to the truth.

Well, little good that did us. We’ve reached the point where ignorance can no longer serve as an excuse. People know what’s happening. They see it in the news every day. They may not know every fact or every piece of history, but they know what they are looking at.

Which leaves a much more troubling possibility: What if they know better and choose this version of reality anyway?

That is a very different problem.

Because the world in which Jews are responsible for what happens to Jews is familiar. No one has to reconsider why Jews keep finding themselves on trial for what is done to Jews: everything fits as long as we are at fault.

Which brings me, naturally, to a 1999 Keanu Reeves movie.

In “The Matrix,” Morpheus offers Neo a choice: take the red pill and discover the truth, or take the blue pill and return to the reality he knows, believing whatever he wants to believe.

Spoiler alert: He takes the red pill.

But the more interesting part comes later, when Morpheus explains that most people are not ready to be unplugged because they have become dependent on the world they know. They have learned its rules, they have made a life inside it, and some will even fight to protect it.

And then there’s Cypher, who has seen the real world, knows his steak isn’t real, and takes the deal anyway. He isn’t deceived; he chooses the illusion. That may be the real dystopia: knowing what is true and still choosing the lie.

We have spent three years trying to unplug people. We assumed that if they saw what was happening, reality would eventually win. Unfortunately, the reality most people prefer is the one where every explanation leads back to the Jews.

So, we have misunderstood the problem; the uncomfortable truth asks more of them than the familiar lie.

I used to think my job was to wake people up, but now I’m starting to think they were never asleep.

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