Israelis coming to Canada are incredibly naive and totally out of their depth. They are going from the frying pan directly into the fire, especially if settling in Toronto, but also in such communities as small as Saskatoon. They do not have the Jewish survival skills needed in the Diaspora, and are shocked and horrified there is deep Jew hatred in the open and supported by the Canadian government and most provincial governments, often by the issue being ignored, sneered at, or in fact openly supporting the vitriol. physical violence, threats of death, arson and vandalism. They go about their lives totally unaware of whose presence there is, and are stunned if thrown out of their Uber, physically attacked, or their children harassed in schools, for speaking Hebrew or wearing anything identifying themselves and Jews as well as Israelis. Wait until they realize Jews often are banned from Medical schools, Law schools, and from the Arts communities. Their dreams for their children may not be realized.
I am a new olah, living in Haifa. Every day I meet well-educated Israelis who are befuddled by the fact that I made Aliyah from the US. They have an idea of the US that floats somewhere between 1955 and 1985, a place of comfort and security. I have told them about the baseline antisemitism that always existed; e.g., in 1975, a teacher had written a test that singled my sister out for being a Jew (Q: What was the Dreyfus Affair? A: Horvitz's Horror) and the principal laughed it off. In that same year, I couldn't walk through the school corridors, sit on the school bus, or walk down the street without being barked at by hoards of perfect strangers for my Jewish nose. And in that same year, 1975, one of my sister's Jewish friends had been murdered with her nose bitten off in a case that has never been solved because they let the perpetrator leave the country. So as early as the mid-1970s the antisemitism was intolerable and my parents took us out of the Massachusetts school system and put us into private schools, a move that required privation because they really didn't have the money. This was during the supposed golden age of American Jewry, when theoretically there was no antisemitism in the US. Now our students are hounded and hunted, and adult Jews are being cast out of all fields, always with plausible deniability. Many of us have lost all our old friends due to the propaganda. I tell Israelis this and they shrug. They don't believe me, or they think I'm exaggerating. One even told me he thought I was insane, that there is no antisemitism in the US. And I think, they are in denial, they will leave, they will see, and it may be too late for them.
Here in Haifa I rarely meet olim from English-speaking countries. The ones I do meet are elderly and almost all from England. Yesterday I finally met an American after three months, an elderly Texan who was a delight. But I ask myself, WHERE ARE ALL THE AMERICANS? WHERE ARE THE CANADIANS? WHERE ARE THE YOUNG FROM THE UK? WHERE ARE THE AUSTRALIANS? Why haven't they gotten the memo????? Maybe they're in Jerusalem. Maybe they're in Tel Aviv.
Maybe in a year they'll come. It takes many months to get your documents together to make Aliyah. Maybe in two years they'll come.
Aliyah is not easy. As an adult, having to learn a whole new language with a completely different alphabet and a completely different way of thinking about grammar is very difficult. Not being able to find everyday things that were indispensable to your life, because the whole fricking world boycotts Israel, is beyond inconvenient, you find that in everything you're making do. But almost every person I have met here has been a delight. Even the bureaucrats, when you sit down and talk with them, have been cheerful and helpful. People I meet when dog-walking are the kind of kind, thinking, educated, plain-speaking and funny people I've always wanted to know. I never met this quality of person in the US when I was just walking around, not even in Cambridge. The Israeli people are simply wonderful. I miss my American comforts every single day, but I think as this indoctrinated young generation in North America and Europe come to power, it will daily get more and more dangerous for people who are ethnically Jewish, whether they are As A Jews or not.
Diaspora Jews are now being shot in the streets. Their businesses are being shut down. Police don't protect them. What are they waiting for?
Aside from the antisemitism, as you mentioned, the livability, the culture, language, there are many reasons for a Jew, a Hebrew, to move to Israel. I also ran into the types of Israelis that you have mentioned, for decades actually. Their basic premise that the only thing that matters is the standard of living, although understandable, is also irritating.
For what a sea-change Israel is in the history of the Jewish people. What an incredible accomplishment and opportunity. The befuddled Israelis are as dull in perception, thoughts, awareness, and sensitivity to the situation as the family members who surrounded Kafka's protagonist in The Metamorphosis were.
There's another aspect to the "standard of living," being the only relevant metric to determine the comparison between the USA and Israel that is so irritating about the Israelis and Jews in general that assert that idea, and that aspect is the idea of irrevocability. That is, the concept that the social fabric and human rights in places like the USA and Canada could never disintegrate into something like Nazi Germany.
They often, without even a thought of ever being wrong, completely believe that somehow Humanity has evolved into something that it cannot devolve out of. It's incredibly naive not to say delusional. For example, as late as something like 1930 or 1932 the City Council in Berlin was debating about what to gift it's famous son Albert Einstein. If I'm not mistaken they gifted him a yacht that he enjoyed. Just a few years later he would have been incarcerated and potentially killed.
Jews didn't move to places like Germany and Poland for the ambience of the Nazis and Auschwitz. They moved to those places because at times they were good places for Jews to live.
You speak only for yourself and not others. What you went through (if true) then I am sorry for you and your family. Yes as a young kid I came into contact with kids in school who tried to either bully me or physically attack me. But they only did it once. I attacked them immediately either physically or verbally. Yes sometimes I got the snot knocked out of me. But I got it across to these cretins that there was a price to pay for their hate. After a while they got the message and they gave me a wide berth. I remember one time in retort to some insult a kid threw at me I said "yes my parents are Jewish, but they are not drunks like your folks". The kid started to bawl and now in my later years I wish that I had not said it because it lowered me to his level of cruelty. But to defend myself physically, ABSOLUTELY.
It is not surprising that many Israelis need to experience the current state of the West and not just read about it. On the positive side, the Diaspora Jews will benefit from the sabras more offensive attitudes rather than defensive postures against antisemitism.
I think eventually when normalization rolls around and Israel will be recognized by more Arab/Muslim countries for way too many reasons to go into here, Israeli immigration leaving the country for "greener pastures" will be a lot like Irelands. That country in the past has been way too small for the fecund proclivities of the population and because of that the Irish have supplied their excess population to various parts of the world. It was not only because of the potato blight that caused wide spread hunger back in the 19th century. This in effect will strengthen Jewish participation in foreign lands with the infusion of more Israeli/Jewish cultural activities into the diaspora. Again much like the Irish descendants in the states. All in all a very positive trend if it is to happen.
Good article, it’s easy to forget there is a positive outlook based in fact rather than hopeful fantasy. I appreciated the read and was a good share with friends of a more practical orientation rather than religious focus.
This rosy outlook will only be possible if the rapidly expanding charedi demographic abandons their “triple threat” lifestyle (avoidance of work, service and secular studies). Otherwise the country cannot survive.
And the only way to counter their obscene political influence is for large number of diaspora Jews to make Aliyah and vote in upcoming elections.
You do not mention Turkey a NATO member who has gone from a major trading partner with Isrsel to looking like they want to be the replacement for Iran in leading the elimination of Israel.
Saudi Arabia is managing to get most of what it thought would require Joining the Abraham Accords without doing so. Most countries still think funding UNRWA within Palestine/Israel is a solution!
So yes it is nice (and helpful) reading an article just with positives but I am still so worried.
It’s a sorting process that has been going on for a hundred years and has naturally intensified during this longish war. Think of how many Ukrainians have left during the war with Russia and likewise how manu Russians have also left and guess where the Jews among them have gone. If you’re a Jew and want to live among your people Israel is the only place to be. Not even New York comes close in that respect and that coty will only get worse under Mandami. Outside of Israel no one that matters will care whT happens to you if you are a Jew. The weak will leave, the strong will stay and the state of Israel will only get stronger as time goes on.
There is a series on Ted Talks where Hans Rosling explains the ubiquitous 50 year gap between impression and reality. Israelis lapse into an even older myth of the anglosphere as economic powerhouses of egalitarian opportunity.
Economists measure income inequality using the Gini Index. It's getting worse. The USA is no longer the land of opportunity for the middle class, but increasingly favors billionaires and a small number of people who can game the system...
Let's take Europe. Europe has 1 and 1/2 times as many people as the United States and their business opportunities are a total joke. I lived in Germany, had a business in Spain and have very successful relatives in Italy and the UK and they tell me how bad it is vs. the US
Facts to back that up
Valuation Gap: US-founded companies with $10B+ market caps far outnumber and outvalue EU counterparts, with some analyses showing the US cohort valued 70x higher than the EU's.
VC Funding Disparity: The US VC market is many times larger (e.g., 6x in 2024), providing more capital for US startups to scale from inception.
Unicorns (>$1B Valued): The US hosts significantly more unicorns, with over half the world's total, compared to Europe's less than 10%.
Top Tech Giants: The combined market cap of Europe's largest tech firms is a fraction of that of the top US tech giants (e.g., 20x smaller in 2023).
Scaling Challenges: European startups struggle to raise capital across borders due to fragmented markets, hindering growth compared to US firms that benefit from a unified, massive market.
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
Europe by and large does evrything it can to NOT allow its people to get ahead and start new businesses. The US and Israel are just the OPPOSITE.
The only people I know who are "gaming the system" are the Somalis and other garbage imported by the Democrats. These are the bloodsuckers that damage America and in turn the middle class.
We welcome all our brothers and sisters from the Diaspora to come home and carry the torch 🔦 of the Jewish nation into the next millennium. 🙏 Am Yisrael Hai.
You’ve described exactly how it feels here: “a postmodernist dystopia where Left-wing ideologues declare moral categories “social constructs,” Islamist immigrants are welcomed as though their imported medieval hatreds constitute some kind of cultural enrichment, and the unlovely Far-Right is dusting off its old regalia and polishing its jackboots.” (Had to 😂 at that). Reminds me of the line from the song “Stuck in the Middle” from the ‘70’s: “clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you!” Only it’s not a romantic meet-cute at a party, it’s a lonely, politically homeless desert! My husband is dusting off the luggage.
What this article failed to mention is that American Jews for the last complete year on the stats, (2024) Israel from foreign countries took in about 30,000 immigrants in total from various places. Of that amount it is estimated that less then 3,000 were from the states. A country that has by various surveys between 6 and 7 million Jews in residence. That number is so statistically small it hardly registers as a "movement" that is a signal of a sea change among the thinking of American Jews.
What really happened is that in 2024 the Times of Israel reported almost 50,000 Israeli's left between Jan and Aug 2024. Yes it might have increased because of the war in Gaza and and its cause on Oct 7. Yes it might be a temporary anomaly. But only time will tell.
As for why Israeli's leave in more normal times is because many fall for the B.S. they hear from relatives who have immigrated to either the U.S. or Canada about how well they are doing and that its easy to make a better living with "your skills and education". Many young Israeli couples find it almost impossible to buy even a small apartment or house because of the prices vs their salaries. The discrepancy's between the price and their income is even greater then American couples have when up against the same thing. Many Secular Jews also resent all the exceptions the orthodox get under Israeli law which for some is so bothersome, they leave for more self described "freedoms".
However without Israel Jewish life no matter where you live or how strong or weak your attachment is to religion, you would be a lot lot more frightened and less safe if you did not have the Israeli military not only protecting Israeli citizens but by its actions saying to the world when we said "never again" that's exactly what we as a nation and a people meant.
So no, I am not going to flee because as a 4th generation Jewish American I will stay and fight off the anti Semites that do not represent America or its ideas of equality under the law and I will do it publicly while also supporting Israel publicly. This is not Germany in 1932 and its certainly not Poland where my ancestors had to escape over 115 years ago.
No, the US is not Germany 1932, but it is approaching the state of the Weimar Republic in the mid 1920s, and we should not sugar coat the situation or think that what happened in Germany cannot happen here.
We are seeing extremism sometimes disguised as anti-Zionism but more often as overt and undisguised Jew hatred coming from left aligning candidates, universities, the media and even entertainment. Now we are starting to see antisemitism being more open from the extreme right (ala the Carlsons, the Owens, the Fuentes, etc.) with very limited if any reproaches from Republican political leaders.
The golden age of Judaism in the liberal western democracies is coming to an end. It may not result in a violent holocaust promoted by governments, but the result of government inaction and in some cases promotion or subtle support of Jew hatred will be the same.
You are seeing more and more 'progressive' candidates running as part of the mainstream Democrat party, and more attacks on Jews in the streets. Our governments seem incapable or unwilling to address this violence.
We are seeing more and more young Americans frustrated because they are straddled with 100s of thousands of student debt, lack job opportunities that are meaningful let alone financially useful, and can no longer even see the dream of owning a home. This a recipe for acceptance of extremism and the trend is increasing.
While the US is better for Jews than the rest of the Anglophile world and definitely compared to western Europe, we are not immune. It is nice to believe we can stay and fight the antisemites, but to be honest, the American Jewish community is not united and the current leadership organizations are still dealing with antisemitism as if it was the 1960s.
I agree with your assessment. Add this to it: Jews are being maligned in college and K-12 curricula in America. The rising and future generations, voting for and staffing the U.S. government, have been taught this Jew-hatred.
Joint Jordainian/Israeli industrial zones. Do you think we will get a new Hydroelectric plant on the exit of the Kinneret?
Despite almost all green parties in the world seemingly denouncing Israel, I think no countries innovation has done more to tackle climate change and its impacts locally or globally than Israel.
Israelis coming to Canada are incredibly naive and totally out of their depth. They are going from the frying pan directly into the fire, especially if settling in Toronto, but also in such communities as small as Saskatoon. They do not have the Jewish survival skills needed in the Diaspora, and are shocked and horrified there is deep Jew hatred in the open and supported by the Canadian government and most provincial governments, often by the issue being ignored, sneered at, or in fact openly supporting the vitriol. physical violence, threats of death, arson and vandalism. They go about their lives totally unaware of whose presence there is, and are stunned if thrown out of their Uber, physically attacked, or their children harassed in schools, for speaking Hebrew or wearing anything identifying themselves and Jews as well as Israelis. Wait until they realize Jews often are banned from Medical schools, Law schools, and from the Arts communities. Their dreams for their children may not be realized.
It's been like that for decades.
I am a new olah, living in Haifa. Every day I meet well-educated Israelis who are befuddled by the fact that I made Aliyah from the US. They have an idea of the US that floats somewhere between 1955 and 1985, a place of comfort and security. I have told them about the baseline antisemitism that always existed; e.g., in 1975, a teacher had written a test that singled my sister out for being a Jew (Q: What was the Dreyfus Affair? A: Horvitz's Horror) and the principal laughed it off. In that same year, I couldn't walk through the school corridors, sit on the school bus, or walk down the street without being barked at by hoards of perfect strangers for my Jewish nose. And in that same year, 1975, one of my sister's Jewish friends had been murdered with her nose bitten off in a case that has never been solved because they let the perpetrator leave the country. So as early as the mid-1970s the antisemitism was intolerable and my parents took us out of the Massachusetts school system and put us into private schools, a move that required privation because they really didn't have the money. This was during the supposed golden age of American Jewry, when theoretically there was no antisemitism in the US. Now our students are hounded and hunted, and adult Jews are being cast out of all fields, always with plausible deniability. Many of us have lost all our old friends due to the propaganda. I tell Israelis this and they shrug. They don't believe me, or they think I'm exaggerating. One even told me he thought I was insane, that there is no antisemitism in the US. And I think, they are in denial, they will leave, they will see, and it may be too late for them.
Here in Haifa I rarely meet olim from English-speaking countries. The ones I do meet are elderly and almost all from England. Yesterday I finally met an American after three months, an elderly Texan who was a delight. But I ask myself, WHERE ARE ALL THE AMERICANS? WHERE ARE THE CANADIANS? WHERE ARE THE YOUNG FROM THE UK? WHERE ARE THE AUSTRALIANS? Why haven't they gotten the memo????? Maybe they're in Jerusalem. Maybe they're in Tel Aviv.
Maybe in a year they'll come. It takes many months to get your documents together to make Aliyah. Maybe in two years they'll come.
Aliyah is not easy. As an adult, having to learn a whole new language with a completely different alphabet and a completely different way of thinking about grammar is very difficult. Not being able to find everyday things that were indispensable to your life, because the whole fricking world boycotts Israel, is beyond inconvenient, you find that in everything you're making do. But almost every person I have met here has been a delight. Even the bureaucrats, when you sit down and talk with them, have been cheerful and helpful. People I meet when dog-walking are the kind of kind, thinking, educated, plain-speaking and funny people I've always wanted to know. I never met this quality of person in the US when I was just walking around, not even in Cambridge. The Israeli people are simply wonderful. I miss my American comforts every single day, but I think as this indoctrinated young generation in North America and Europe come to power, it will daily get more and more dangerous for people who are ethnically Jewish, whether they are As A Jews or not.
Diaspora Jews are now being shot in the streets. Their businesses are being shut down. Police don't protect them. What are they waiting for?
Aside from the antisemitism, as you mentioned, the livability, the culture, language, there are many reasons for a Jew, a Hebrew, to move to Israel. I also ran into the types of Israelis that you have mentioned, for decades actually. Their basic premise that the only thing that matters is the standard of living, although understandable, is also irritating.
For what a sea-change Israel is in the history of the Jewish people. What an incredible accomplishment and opportunity. The befuddled Israelis are as dull in perception, thoughts, awareness, and sensitivity to the situation as the family members who surrounded Kafka's protagonist in The Metamorphosis were.
I am with you.
There's another aspect to the "standard of living," being the only relevant metric to determine the comparison between the USA and Israel that is so irritating about the Israelis and Jews in general that assert that idea, and that aspect is the idea of irrevocability. That is, the concept that the social fabric and human rights in places like the USA and Canada could never disintegrate into something like Nazi Germany.
They often, without even a thought of ever being wrong, completely believe that somehow Humanity has evolved into something that it cannot devolve out of. It's incredibly naive not to say delusional. For example, as late as something like 1930 or 1932 the City Council in Berlin was debating about what to gift it's famous son Albert Einstein. If I'm not mistaken they gifted him a yacht that he enjoyed. Just a few years later he would have been incarcerated and potentially killed.
Jews didn't move to places like Germany and Poland for the ambience of the Nazis and Auschwitz. They moved to those places because at times they were good places for Jews to live.
🎯
You speak only for yourself and not others. What you went through (if true) then I am sorry for you and your family. Yes as a young kid I came into contact with kids in school who tried to either bully me or physically attack me. But they only did it once. I attacked them immediately either physically or verbally. Yes sometimes I got the snot knocked out of me. But I got it across to these cretins that there was a price to pay for their hate. After a while they got the message and they gave me a wide berth. I remember one time in retort to some insult a kid threw at me I said "yes my parents are Jewish, but they are not drunks like your folks". The kid started to bawl and now in my later years I wish that I had not said it because it lowered me to his level of cruelty. But to defend myself physically, ABSOLUTELY.
It is not surprising that many Israelis need to experience the current state of the West and not just read about it. On the positive side, the Diaspora Jews will benefit from the sabras more offensive attitudes rather than defensive postures against antisemitism.
I think eventually when normalization rolls around and Israel will be recognized by more Arab/Muslim countries for way too many reasons to go into here, Israeli immigration leaving the country for "greener pastures" will be a lot like Irelands. That country in the past has been way too small for the fecund proclivities of the population and because of that the Irish have supplied their excess population to various parts of the world. It was not only because of the potato blight that caused wide spread hunger back in the 19th century. This in effect will strengthen Jewish participation in foreign lands with the infusion of more Israeli/Jewish cultural activities into the diaspora. Again much like the Irish descendants in the states. All in all a very positive trend if it is to happen.
Your country is so wonderful. I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to live there.
Good article, it’s easy to forget there is a positive outlook based in fact rather than hopeful fantasy. I appreciated the read and was a good share with friends of a more practical orientation rather than religious focus.
This rosy outlook will only be possible if the rapidly expanding charedi demographic abandons their “triple threat” lifestyle (avoidance of work, service and secular studies). Otherwise the country cannot survive.
And the only way to counter their obscene political influence is for large number of diaspora Jews to make Aliyah and vote in upcoming elections.
You do not mention Turkey a NATO member who has gone from a major trading partner with Isrsel to looking like they want to be the replacement for Iran in leading the elimination of Israel.
Saudi Arabia is managing to get most of what it thought would require Joining the Abraham Accords without doing so. Most countries still think funding UNRWA within Palestine/Israel is a solution!
So yes it is nice (and helpful) reading an article just with positives but I am still so worried.
It’s a sorting process that has been going on for a hundred years and has naturally intensified during this longish war. Think of how many Ukrainians have left during the war with Russia and likewise how manu Russians have also left and guess where the Jews among them have gone. If you’re a Jew and want to live among your people Israel is the only place to be. Not even New York comes close in that respect and that coty will only get worse under Mandami. Outside of Israel no one that matters will care whT happens to you if you are a Jew. The weak will leave, the strong will stay and the state of Israel will only get stronger as time goes on.
There is a series on Ted Talks where Hans Rosling explains the ubiquitous 50 year gap between impression and reality. Israelis lapse into an even older myth of the anglosphere as economic powerhouses of egalitarian opportunity.
Economists measure income inequality using the Gini Index. It's getting worse. The USA is no longer the land of opportunity for the middle class, but increasingly favors billionaires and a small number of people who can game the system...
Really?
Let's take Europe. Europe has 1 and 1/2 times as many people as the United States and their business opportunities are a total joke. I lived in Germany, had a business in Spain and have very successful relatives in Italy and the UK and they tell me how bad it is vs. the US
Facts to back that up
Valuation Gap: US-founded companies with $10B+ market caps far outnumber and outvalue EU counterparts, with some analyses showing the US cohort valued 70x higher than the EU's.
VC Funding Disparity: The US VC market is many times larger (e.g., 6x in 2024), providing more capital for US startups to scale from inception.
Unicorns (>$1B Valued): The US hosts significantly more unicorns, with over half the world's total, compared to Europe's less than 10%.
Top Tech Giants: The combined market cap of Europe's largest tech firms is a fraction of that of the top US tech giants (e.g., 20x smaller in 2023).
Scaling Challenges: European startups struggle to raise capital across borders due to fragmented markets, hindering growth compared to US firms that benefit from a unified, massive market.
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
Europe by and large does evrything it can to NOT allow its people to get ahead and start new businesses. The US and Israel are just the OPPOSITE.
The only people I know who are "gaming the system" are the Somalis and other garbage imported by the Democrats. These are the bloodsuckers that damage America and in turn the middle class.
We welcome all our brothers and sisters from the Diaspora to come home and carry the torch 🔦 of the Jewish nation into the next millennium. 🙏 Am Yisrael Hai.
GOD BLESS ISRAEL AND ITS PEOPLE
This is such a great uplifting article, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. I have always loved Israel, and I did live there in the 80’s.
You’ve described exactly how it feels here: “a postmodernist dystopia where Left-wing ideologues declare moral categories “social constructs,” Islamist immigrants are welcomed as though their imported medieval hatreds constitute some kind of cultural enrichment, and the unlovely Far-Right is dusting off its old regalia and polishing its jackboots.” (Had to 😂 at that). Reminds me of the line from the song “Stuck in the Middle” from the ‘70’s: “clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you!” Only it’s not a romantic meet-cute at a party, it’s a lonely, politically homeless desert! My husband is dusting off the luggage.
Suzy, are you in the UK ?
No, Canada! Same same.
What this article failed to mention is that American Jews for the last complete year on the stats, (2024) Israel from foreign countries took in about 30,000 immigrants in total from various places. Of that amount it is estimated that less then 3,000 were from the states. A country that has by various surveys between 6 and 7 million Jews in residence. That number is so statistically small it hardly registers as a "movement" that is a signal of a sea change among the thinking of American Jews.
What really happened is that in 2024 the Times of Israel reported almost 50,000 Israeli's left between Jan and Aug 2024. Yes it might have increased because of the war in Gaza and and its cause on Oct 7. Yes it might be a temporary anomaly. But only time will tell.
As for why Israeli's leave in more normal times is because many fall for the B.S. they hear from relatives who have immigrated to either the U.S. or Canada about how well they are doing and that its easy to make a better living with "your skills and education". Many young Israeli couples find it almost impossible to buy even a small apartment or house because of the prices vs their salaries. The discrepancy's between the price and their income is even greater then American couples have when up against the same thing. Many Secular Jews also resent all the exceptions the orthodox get under Israeli law which for some is so bothersome, they leave for more self described "freedoms".
However without Israel Jewish life no matter where you live or how strong or weak your attachment is to religion, you would be a lot lot more frightened and less safe if you did not have the Israeli military not only protecting Israeli citizens but by its actions saying to the world when we said "never again" that's exactly what we as a nation and a people meant.
So no, I am not going to flee because as a 4th generation Jewish American I will stay and fight off the anti Semites that do not represent America or its ideas of equality under the law and I will do it publicly while also supporting Israel publicly. This is not Germany in 1932 and its certainly not Poland where my ancestors had to escape over 115 years ago.
No, the US is not Germany 1932, but it is approaching the state of the Weimar Republic in the mid 1920s, and we should not sugar coat the situation or think that what happened in Germany cannot happen here.
We are seeing extremism sometimes disguised as anti-Zionism but more often as overt and undisguised Jew hatred coming from left aligning candidates, universities, the media and even entertainment. Now we are starting to see antisemitism being more open from the extreme right (ala the Carlsons, the Owens, the Fuentes, etc.) with very limited if any reproaches from Republican political leaders.
The golden age of Judaism in the liberal western democracies is coming to an end. It may not result in a violent holocaust promoted by governments, but the result of government inaction and in some cases promotion or subtle support of Jew hatred will be the same.
You are seeing more and more 'progressive' candidates running as part of the mainstream Democrat party, and more attacks on Jews in the streets. Our governments seem incapable or unwilling to address this violence.
We are seeing more and more young Americans frustrated because they are straddled with 100s of thousands of student debt, lack job opportunities that are meaningful let alone financially useful, and can no longer even see the dream of owning a home. This a recipe for acceptance of extremism and the trend is increasing.
While the US is better for Jews than the rest of the Anglophile world and definitely compared to western Europe, we are not immune. It is nice to believe we can stay and fight the antisemites, but to be honest, the American Jewish community is not united and the current leadership organizations are still dealing with antisemitism as if it was the 1960s.
I agree with your assessment. Add this to it: Jews are being maligned in college and K-12 curricula in America. The rising and future generations, voting for and staffing the U.S. government, have been taught this Jew-hatred.
Joint Jordainian/Israeli industrial zones. Do you think we will get a new Hydroelectric plant on the exit of the Kinneret?
Despite almost all green parties in the world seemingly denouncing Israel, I think no countries innovation has done more to tackle climate change and its impacts locally or globally than Israel.
Thank you Joshua .. another addition to your well thought and executed pieces. Best to you for 2026.