We’ve all felt it—that moment of standing in the middle of a crowd yet feeling completely alone.

You look around and wonder, Do I have anything in common with these people beyond liking the same music? Can they tell that I’m different? Do they even care?

It happens in smaller spaces, too. Years ago, at a company-wide meeting, I sat beside a Black colleague. She leaned over and whispered, “We’re the only outsiders here. I’m Black, and you’re a Jew. But at least you can blend in.” Instinctively, I reached up to make sure my Star of David necklace was tucked into my blouse.

Recently, I received an angry response to an essay I wrote. The writer accused me of painting all non-Jews with the same broad brush, saying that they don’t care about Jewish people. That wasn’t my intent. I had expressed a personal feeling of isolation in a world that can sometimes seem indifferent. It wasn’t an objective reality—but in that moment, it felt very real.

I know I’m not alone in this.

Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, who writes as the Velveteen Rabbi, recently reflected on the deaths of Ariel and Kfir Bibas. The red-haired siblings, ages five and nine months, were kidnapped 16 months ago from their home in Israel. Last week, their bodies were returned, and the world learned that they had been strangled—killed by someone’s bare hands.

Rabbi Barenblat wrote, “I’ve spoken to so many Jews who feel alone in this. It’s unfashionable to care about Jewish deaths, about Israeli deaths. Our hearts get stuck in our throats like a bone of grief every time we see a baby with ginger hair, and it feels like the rest of the world doesn’t understand or notice or care.”

She continued, “That is an old groove, carved on our collective hearts by centuries of persecution and Jew-hatred, and it is easy to reinforce that groove now.” She described the difficulty of “trying to sand away the edges of the groove” and letting go of generations of grief.

Israeli historian Avi Shilon, writing in The Forward, expressed a similar sentiment. Shilon, who came to Columbia University to teach a course on the history of the 1948 war in Israel, notes that Jews call it the War of Independence, while Arabs refer to it as the Nakba—the catastrophe of displacement. Same war, different perspectives.

He writes, “The [current] war and the events surrounding it have proven that regardless of one’s level of sympathy or criticism toward the Israeli government, if you are Jewish, you have almost certainly felt that your experience in the last year was different from that of non-Jews because of what is happening in Israel.”

But this feeling of being alone is not unique to Jews.

Halle Berry, who won an Oscar for Best Actress in 2002, has spoken about being the only Black woman to have ever received that honor. “I hope this year someone stands next to me,” she said recently. “This year, I hope it happens, because I’m tired of occupying that space alone.”

The person who wrote to me so angrily is a member of the LGBTQ community. They’re not Jewish, but they’re married to a Jew, and they were upset that I said I feel alone. That surprised me—as a gay person in a straight society, don’t they sometimes feel alone too?

And yet, Rabbi Barenblat, Professor Shilon, and I are not truly alone. We are surrounded by fellow Jews who share our feelings, and by friends and allies who stand with us. As many have reminded me, I am anything but alone.

The truth is that many people care deeply. They read beyond the headlines and understand the depth of our pain. They step forward as allies, friends, and supporters. They recognize that we, too, are sickened by the war in Gaza.

We live in an age of overwhelming information and freely expressed opinions. Words and images swirl around us like a vast ocean. Anyone can say anything. Hate and anger spread unchecked, and responding can feel like an invitation for further attack.

The person who wrote to me chose to take my words as a personal affront. Unwilling to see my all-too-human expression of sorrow for what it was, they interpreted it as an attack on them. Which, ironically, left me feeling even more alone.

In the end, I believe all we have is each other. The world can be lonely, cold, unfeeling. The news is unrelenting. We can lash out, or—we can, I hope—open our hearts.