By Rabbi Ze’ev Smason in St. Louis Jewish Light

A rabbi recently shared a story from a flight home from Israel.

While preparing for a Torah class he was scheduled to give upon returning to the United States, he realized he didn’t have access to the material he needed. Through a series of last-minute efforts, someone tried to send him an electronic recording, but the plane was already preparing for takeoff. Nearby, a secular Israeli was working on his laptop.

Overhearing the situation, he offered his help. The rabbi thanked him and said, “You’re doing a mitzvah.” There was only one problem: the Wi-Fi was about to be shut off and there was no clear way forward.

In the weeks after Oct. 7, columnist Bret Stephens coined the phrase “the October 8th Jew,” someone who, in his words, “woke up trying to remember who he or she truly is.” It is a powerful idea.

But it also raises a deeper question: What does it mean to remember who we are?

For many, that remembering has taken shape through small, tangible acts. A young man in Israel went to get a tattoo but asked that it not be placed on the arm where he has now decided to wrap tefillin. A teenager in the United States began wearing a Star of David necklace for the first time, and she refuses to take it off, even when traveling.

Across the world, people who had long felt distant from their Jewish heritage are lighting Shabbat candles, attending a class, learning a few words of Hebrew, or simply choosing to identify more openly and proudly as Jews.

These are not stories of perfection. They are stories of movement.

In fact, a national study found that more than four in 10 American Jews became more engaged in Jewish life after Oct. 7, reflected in increased synagogue attendance and a surge in participation in Jewish campus organizations. While some of that initial surge has stabilized, something real and lasting remains.

But statistics, as important as they are, cannot capture the depth of what is happening. This Jewish awakening is not just about engagement. It is about memory.

The October 8th Jew is not a new Jew, but a revealed one.

Something long quiet, sometimes dormant, perhaps buried beneath layers of routine or distance, has begun to surface. Not all at once, not completely, but undeniably.

And that is what makes this moment so important, because while antisemitism can wake us up, it cannot keep us Jewish. Fear can ignite identity, but it cannot sustain it. That work belongs to us.

For decades, many Jews experienced their identity as optional, something cultural, symbolic or situational, something that could be set aside or revisited when convenient. Oct. 7 dispelled that illusion and reminded many that being Jewish is not something the world allows us to forget.

And in response, many chose not just to react, but to reconnect, not out of pressure, but out of recognition. Not because they had all the answers, but because something within them had begun to ask long-dormant questions.

So what does it mean to become an October 8th Jew?

For many, it has begun with something small, not with a dramatic change: wearing something that expresses your Jewish identity, showing up for our community, learning one idea, doing one mitzvah, taking one step toward a connection that already exists. Not everything at once, but something.

As the plane prepared for departure, the man turned to the rabbi and said he would purchase Wi-Fi so the file could be downloaded. The rabbi offered to pay, but he refused.

“No,” he said. “You told me it’s a mitzvah. I want the merit.”

He downloaded the file and handed it over. Later, after they landed, he approached again, this time with tears in his eyes, and asked, “Could you give a blessing for my wife and family? I’m so grateful I was able to do that mitzvah.”

He didn’t change everything that day, but something in him changed, and that is what it means to become an October 8th Jew.

Not to arrive all at once, but to begin; not to become someone new, but to remember who we are and to reveal what has always been there.

Cover Image: Pro-Israeli rally in Los Angeles taken by Israeli-American Council, accesed via Wikimedia Commons with CC BY-SA 2.0 deed