It was eleven days before my mission to Israel when I walked into Park’s Tailoring on Clarks Lane near Reisterstown Road for the first time. I needed alterations on several pairs of pants, and Park’s Tailoring had showed up in the results of a Google search for “tailors near me.”

From the moment I walked in, the proprietor, a senior Korean gentleman by the name of Mr. Kim seemed less interested in my pants than he was in my yarmulke. He got right to the point: It was terrible what Hamas did to Israel on October 7^th, he said. It’s terrible the way college kids here in America are blaming Israel for what happened, and it’s terrible how Americans, in general, don’t recognize the debt of gratitude we owe Israel for destroying an enemy whose next target would be us.