By Bruce S. Ticker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
A former Israeli soldier takes his life in Miami and so-called anti-Zionists vote to ban Israeli products at the Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn.
Israel’s losses from the Gaza War are relatively unpublished, but they are real, nevertheless.
Alex Miller, 23, died last week in Miami by apparent suicide, reports the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, citing Israeli media reports. He moved to Miami after he was discharged from the Israel Defense Forces’ Kfir Brigade. He was moderately wounded in a car-ramming assault in the West Bank. He underwent a rehabilitation process and returned to the military, stated the Katzrin Regional Council in the Golan Heights, home to his father, Danny Miller. Miller asked for and received recognition for physical wounds suffered in the attack, but not for mental trauma, a spokesperson for Israel’s defense ministry said.
The younger Miller, who is from the United States, was also affected by close friend Noam Shemesh’s death from anti-tank fire in Gaza in June last year, the council said.
“I don’t get it,” said his father. “I have invested my entire life in raising and nurturing him. We had a lot of conversations about the attack, but apparently, the attack and Noam’s death broke him. Even though he didn’t admit it, he suffered a lot.”
It stands to reason that “he suffered a lot.” Likewise, it stands to reason that friends and relatives of those killed by Hamas and other terrorists are suffering. They will be grieving the rest of their lives and those who survived attacks and kidnappings must grapple with physical and psychic wounds.
Anyone care? We are constantly reminded of the deaths, injuries and damages in Gaza, which is fair, yet we hear very little about the impact on Israelis outside the reports of sexual violence.
I have heard scattered reports of suicides by Israeli soldiers and grieving relatives, but until this JTA article was published on Wednesday I was not aware that 22 active-duty IDF soldiers died by suicide, which was the highest number since 2010. The Knesset Research and Information Center last October reported that 279 active soldiers attempted suicide between January 2024 and July 2025.
Obviously, the news media need to report more on this side of the conflict, and Israeli leaders could try putting these aspects out front.
In Brooklyn, members of the Park Slope Food Coop voted 67% to 31% to boycott Israeli products Tuesday night, thereby slapping the faces of the many Jewish members who belong to the coop. The Jewish members have nothing to do with the decisions, right or wrong, of Israeli leaders.
JTA reports that the members passed a resolution that read, “Until Israel complies with international law, including by ceasing unlawful discriminatory practices in its treatment of Palestinians, the Coop will not sell goods produced in Israel (pre-1967 borders) or in Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
What about “unlawful discriminatory practices” against Israelis?
Fortunately, Jewish New Yorkers do not seem to need advice as to what to do about it. Coop4Unity, founded two years ago to oppose the boycott, has filed a state human rights complaint that alleges antisemitic and anti-Israel harassment at the coop. Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council, has urged an investigation.
The resolution is antisemitic. They voted to boycott Jewish foods from the world’s only Jewish state. Brooklyn Jews cannot vote for Israel’s government, and most American Jews are probably confused by hostilities between Israel and Hamas. One boycott supporter said during a meeting that “Jewish supremacism is a problem in this country.”
The vote by coop members does not matter if an anti-discrimination agency rules that said vote is discriminatory, specifically antisemitic.
I also have no doubt that most Jews worldwide remember Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas murdered 1,200 Israelis in southern Israel and took 250 others hostage, some of whom died while under detention in Gaza.
Congregants at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope were urged by their rabbi to vote against the boycott.
“This proxy war for the war between Israelis and Palestinians is now dividing our local community into two camps,” Rabbi Rachel Timoner said during a sermon at Congregation Beth Elohim earlier this month. “Why is this petty, annoying fight in our neighborhood grocery store worth so much time and effort? Because it is part of something much larger. In the end, it is about antisemitism, a real and rising threat which ultimately carries existential danger both for Jews and for every society in which it takes hold.”
The rabbi said it all.
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist.