Next year in Jerusalem?

Between greater antisemitism in the West and the promise of Israel, a new question emerges: not where Jews should live, but how they can build the freedom to choose.

photo: Nefesh B’Nefesh/Facebook

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This is a guest essay by Vanessa Berg, who writes about Judaism and Israel.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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For centuries, Jews have whispered, sung, and declared these words at the close of Passover and Yom Kippur — not merely as a geographic aspiration, but as a spiritual orientation.

It was a hope shaped in exile, carried across continents, preserved through uncertainty. It was about longing more than logistics.

But what happens when that phrase begins to feel less like poetry and more like a practical question? Less like ritual and more like strategy?

Since October 7th, something has shifted. Across the Western world — countries long considered safe, stable, and even uniquely hospitable to Jewish life — there has been a visible, measurable, and deeply unsettling surge in antisemitism. Or maybe the antisemitism was always there and it is now just more exposed.

Does it really make a difference? The numbers should be cause for concern either way.

In the United States, the Anti-Defamation League recorded more than 8,000 antisemitic incidents in the months following October 7th, the highest number ever tracked in such a period and a dramatic increase (well over double) compared to the previous year.

In the United Kingdom, the Community Security Trust reported over 4,000 incidents in 2024 alone, also a historic high, with the sharpest spikes occurring immediately after October 7th. France saw thousands of incidents within months, prompting the deployment of tens of thousands of police and soldiers to guard Jewish sites. Germany reported a surge of more than 200 percent in antisemitic incidents in some regions. Canada experienced similar increases, with Jewish schools and synagogues repeatedly targeted.

It’s also impossible to forget the Chanukah massacre at Australia’s Bondi Beach in December, the terror attack at a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the murders in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., the pogrom in Amsterdam, and the list unfortunately goes on and on.

What makes this moment different is not only the scale, but the normalization. What was once fringe is now ambient. What was once shocking is now routine. The frequency has dulled the reaction.

The change is not only statistical; it is psychological. It is the quiet recalibration of daily life: the hesitation before wearing a Star of David in public, the second thought before speaking Hebrew on the phone, the extra security at Jewish venues, the awareness — subtle but persistent — that spaces which once felt neutral now carry a different energy. It is the shift from simply being Jewish to managing Jewishness.

And this is where history begins to whisper insistently. History does not repeat itself neatly, but it often rhymes just enough to make Jews uneasy when patterns begin to feel familiar. There have been other moments when Jewish communities felt deeply embedded, even secure, convinced that they had found a stable equilibrium within broader societies. Those moments did not always end the way people expected.

Today’s West is not yesterday’s Europe. The political systems are different. The legal protections are more advanced. The social fabric is more complex. And yet, for a people with a long memory, the instinct is not to panic but to pay attention.

Which leads, almost inevitably, to Israel.

For generations, Israel has existed not just as a homeland, but as a guarantee — a place where Jewish life is structurally centered rather than conditionally accepted. A place where Jews are not guests, not minorities, not symbols, but citizens. In Israel, Jewish identity is not something to explain, defend, or negotiate. It is the default setting of public life. The calendar, the language, the rhythm of society all align with Jewish existence in a way that is virtually impossible anywhere else.

In moments of crisis, the gravitational pull of Israel strengthens. Not only because it offers protection, but because it offers normalcy, the rare experience of not having to think about one’s Jewishness as something potentially at odds with the surrounding environment.

So the question emerges, more pointedly than before: Should Jews in the West stay — or should we go? Next year in Jerusalem?

On one hand, there is deep rootedness. Jewish life in the diaspora is not superficial. It is layered, institutional, generational. Families have built businesses, communities, synagogues, schools, philanthropic networks. Jewish culture in the diaspora has evolved into something rich and distinctive. There is a sense of belonging, not only as Jews, but as participants in broader national stories.

To leave is not simply to relocate. It is to disrupt continuity.

On the other hand, there is a growing discomfort with the fragility of that belonging. The realization that stability, even when it feels permanent, can be more conditional than assumed. That acceptance, even when it feels genuine, can shift under pressure. That the margin for uncertainty may be wider than it once appeared.

This tension creates a binary: diaspora or Israel. Stay or leave. Comfort or security. Integration or sovereignty.

But perhaps that framing is too narrow and too reactive for a people that has survived, in part, by thinking more strategically than emotionally.

The great Israeli statesman Shimon Peres once offered a piece of wisdom that feels particularly relevant here: When presented with two options, look for a third.

The third option is not indecision. It is not avoidance. It is design.

What if the question is not whether Jews should live in the West or Israel, but whether they can build the capacity to move between both? Not as a last resort, but as a first principle.

Optionality.

The ability to live with one foot in each world. To maintain ties (legal, economic, cultural, and emotional) across geographies. To ensure that one’s life is not entirely dependent on a single national context. To be able to shift, if necessary, without starting from zero.

This is not an abstract idea. It has structure. It means pursuing dual citizenship where possible. It means building professional networks that are not confined to one country. It means investing in opportunities — whether property, business, or community — in more than one place. It means raising children who are linguistically and culturally fluent enough to navigate multiple environments without dislocation.

For much of Jewish history, mobility was imposed. Expulsions, migrations, forced relocations. Movement was a consequence of vulnerability. Today, for many Jews, mobility can be a function of strength. And that changes the equation entirely.

Because the greatest vulnerability is not living outside Israel. It is being locked into a single place (economically, socially, or psychologically) with no ability to adapt if conditions change. At the same time, optionality is not equally accessible to all. It requires resources, planning, and foresight. And it raises its own set of questions about commitment, about community, about what it means to belong if belonging becomes fluid rather than fixed.

Does optionality dilute identity, or does it protect it? Does it weaken diaspora communities, or does it make them more resilient? These are not simple questions, but they are better questions than the binary ones they replace.

Because the real strength is not choosing Israel over the diaspora, or the diaspora over Israel. It is building a life that is not contingent on a single answer.

“Next year in Jerusalem” may no longer mean what it once did.

For some, it will mean making aliyah, permanently and decisively. For others, it will remain a spiritual aspiration, disconnected from immediate action. But for a growing number, it may become something more dynamic — less a destination and more a framework. Not a one-time move, but an ongoing relationship. A rhythm between places. A life designed with flexibility in mind.

For generations, “Next year in Jerusalem” was a dream deferred, a declaration of hope in the face of powerlessness. Today, it may be evolving into something else entirely — not a plea, but a plan. Not an escape, but an option. Not a reaction to crisis, but a proactive rethinking of what it means to be a people that has always lived between worlds.

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