WhatsappI’ve been thinking about this topic for a long time—years, actually—and then something happened the other day and I knew I had to write about it.
Anti-Semitism. The word that makes everyone uncomfortable.
I was at an event the other day, and the audience was a group of American Jewish teenagers. At some point during the event, the audience was asked: By a show of hands, who has experienced anti-Semitism in their school?
Every. Single. Hand. Went. Up.
Every single one of the people in the room said that they had seen a swastika in their school.
One girl told a story that she filmed someone doing the Hitler salute to her. She went to the principal with the footage and the principal yelled at her, said she didn’t believe her, and kicked her out.
Another girl said that in her school, they have a dedicated day for every minority and for every tragedy that took place throughout history. Guess what day is missing? That’s right, nothing for the Jews or for the Holocaust. This girl also went to the principal and asked why there’s no day to commemorate the Holocaust and was told, and I quote, “It’s not a priority right now.”
Another boy told us that in his class, as part of the actual curriculum they were taught that Hamas is a humanitarian organization that builds homes, gives shelter, and provides food for the poor. And, of course, they were told that Israel is an occupying country and randomly murdering Palestinians in the streets.
People! This is real. These things are happening. In 2022. In America! Nazi flags waving freely in the streets of America, but if someone were dumb enough to wave an Israeli flag or wear a Star of David, they can expect an expensive hospital bill!
I’ve spoken about this before, but growing up, learning about the atrocities that took place in Europe, one thing always troubled me. Why didn’t the Jews leave when they had the chance? Did they not see what was happening? All the anti-Jewish laws and propaganda? Why did they stick around?
Well, for starters, there was no State of Israel yet and our good friends in America were turning Jews away at the border. But more importantly, the answer is that the Jews were comfortable. They had good lives. They had money. They had power. They ignored all the signs.
It sounds so crazy, doesn’t it?
Does it?
I’m going to be very clear here. I’m not judging anyone or preaching here, but why are the Jews sticking around today in the United States and in Europe? What signs do they need?
Beatings in the streets?
Anti-Jewish leaders in government?
Lists of Jewish businesses to boycott?
Tell me, what has to happen for Jews worldwide to come home?
Well, as always and as was in Europe, many Jews don’t identify as Jews and for them, America is home. Many Jews are against Israel, so they’ll never come home to their promised land.
Guess who doesn’t care? Our enemies.
The Nazis didn’t measure anyone’s tzitzit or check if he was wearing a yarmulke. Whoever was Jewish was Jewish and there was no denying it or pretending to be German. If they were Jewish, they were pigs and therefore deserved to burn.
No one cares today if a Jew is secular or observant. No one cares if a person is pro-Israel or not. If you’re Jewish, then you are, by definition, loyal to Israel over America.
And you know what else made the Jews stay? Denial. They didn’t want to believe that the worst would happen. Some even agreed with the Nazi propaganda that the Jews were too powerful and causing the economy to fail.
Today, it’s not the economy, it’s the State of Israel. You know the catchphrase. “It’s not anti-Semitism. It’s just anti-Zionism.”
That is about the dumbest sentence anyone has ever uttered.
Zionism is as core to Judaism as the church is to Christianity or Mecca is to Islam.
I’m going to say it loud and clear.
If you are anti-Zionism (you don’t believe the Jews deserve to have their own state and that state should be in “Zion,”) you are a flaming anti-Semite. Period.
So many Jews today are anti-Israel and they like to believe that doesn’t make them self-hating Jews. But guess what? There have always been self-hating Jews in history. We were always our own worst enemy!
We know the story of the exile from ancient Egypt in the Torah. But did you know that only one-fifth of the Jews left Egypt? One interpretation is that the other four-fifths stayed because they were comfortable. Yes, they were slaves, but they had all their needs taken care of. They had food, shelter, a community. Why would they leave?
Today is no different.
Nazi flags can wave, Jews can be beaten, Jew haters can sit in Congress, and still, the Jews will turn on their own people and side with the enemy in the hope that these enemies will return the favor of loyalty when the time comes. But they won’t. Those people in Congress don’t care how religious you are. You are Jewish and therefore…
Am I the only one who finds it fascinating that the far left and the far right disagree on everything? They disagree on the definition of life! What can be more fundamental than knowing when life begins and ends? They don’t see eye-to-eye on anything—anything except their mutual hatred of Jews.
So, don’t say you didn’t know. You know. It’s happening again. Right in front of your eyes. But today, you don’t have to sit there and take it. Get on a plane and come home.
Israel is not perfect—far from it. But it’s ours and we call the shots here.
Outside of Israel today, you might be able to succeed despite being a Jew. In Israel, you can succeed because you’re a Jew!
Here is a statistic my father speaks about often, and I quote him every chance I get. Every life lost in Israel, due to terror or wars, is a tragedy and should never be belittled.
However, if one were to examine the wider picture and look at it from a historical perspective, something fascinating becomes apparent. There has never been a 74-year period since the destruction of the second Temple in which so few Jews have been killed!
Read that again.
People think of Israel as a dangerous place, but, in reality, it is the safest place the Jews have ever known. There was always something: the Inquisition, pogroms, the Holocaust, and many other historic events in which Jews were persecuted and murdered at scale.
So, the State of Israel is finally defending the Jews, and we can finally stand up for ourselves. We don’t need to ignore the signs or the writing on the wall; we can get on a 10-hour flight, come home, and finally stand proud as Jews and not let the world bully us anymore.
A few months ago, I had an interesting thought. I asked myself why it is that the world takes shots at us, cheap shots, from a diplomatic perspective.
Why the world hates us in the first place is another question altogether. But why is the world, starting from the UN, BDS, and many other organizations, so obsessed with anti-Israel activity?
And then it occurred to me. It is like a bully in high school who beats up another kid for years. One summer, the victim goes to the gym every day and buffs up.
In the beginning of the school year, he shows up all jacked. The bully can no longer physically hurt this boy.
Everyone comes to the bully as if to ask him, “What now? You can’t bully him anymore; what’s your next move?”
Knowing full well that he can no longer use his muscles to bully this other boy, he turns to his words. He abuses him emotionally and uses other tactics to put this boy down because he can no longer do it physically.
The world is the bully, and they have always bullied us physically. Persecution, genocide, mass murder, gas chambers. You name it, they’ve done it.
But guess what. The Jews now have Israel, the IDF, and the world can’t take it. They can’t bully us and put us in camps anymore because we’ll beat them to a pulp. We know it and they know it.
What did they do instead? They turned to their words, their organizations, their parliaments, their law makers. They boycott us, they prevent us from eating ice cream. I mean, how absurd can it get?
The bottom line is, I’m not judging anyone who decides to stick around and wait for history to repeat itself. But I am proclaiming that the writing is on the wall and anyone who ignores it or thinks they can side with the enemy and not with their nation has never read a history book.
Wake up, folks.
Originally published on Hillel Fuld’s facebook page.
