The Israelification of Diaspora Jews

Since October 7th, diaspora Jews have become more Israeli, and even Israelis have become more like diaspora Jews.

photo: Chris Hearn/Unsplash

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Before October 7th, the relationship between Israelis and Jews of the diaspora was marked by affection, but also oftentimes by doubt.

Israelis saw their overseas cousins as privileged, sheltered, and slightly sanctimonious: generous donors, eloquent debaters, but typically naïve about what it takes to survive in a hostile region. From Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the diaspora’s moral debates often looked like a luxury afforded only to those who never had to send their children to the army or run for cover during a rocket siren. Israelis admired the comfort of Jewish life abroad, but they also viewed it as a kind of innocence: a world built on assumptions of safety that Israelis could never afford to make.

Diaspora Jews, in turn, often saw Israelis as brash, insular, and untroubled by the moral nuances that preoccupied Western liberal life — direct to the point of aggression, hardened by geography and history, impatient with unfettered Palestinian terrorism, and uncomfortably at ease with power. To their overseas cousins, Israelis seemed too certain, too forceful, too unwilling to question themselves — the very traits that made them survivable, but also, somehow, alien.

That drift was made possible by a historical luxury. For nearly eight decades, Jews in the West lived with a sense of unprecedented safety. Antisemitism was an irritant, not a threat; Jewishness could be softened into culture, ethics, cuisine. Israel could be loved or critiqued from afar without consequence. For many, being Jewish was a private matter, not a public identity. Israelis, by contrast, never had that privilege. They lived in a constant negotiation with history’s rough edges, where survival was not an idea but a discipline.

October 7th collapsed that distance overnight.

The pogrom that tore through southern Israel destroyed not only lives, families, communities, and an entire nation, but also illusions in the diaspora. Chief among them: the illusion that Jewish security could be outsourced. In the hours and days that followed, as evidence of barbarity surfaced and much of the world’s sympathy evaporated in record time, diaspora Jews found themselves awakening to an ancient reality: that the moral concern of others for Jewish suffering is conditional, shallow, and fleeting.

Suddenly, Jewish identity felt exposed again. Synagogues, schools, and community centers hired extra security and reinforced their walls. Jewish students on college campuses faced mobs chanting genocidal slogans, which turned into aggression, intimidation, and violence. Social media feeds filled with conspiracy, slander, and celebration of Jewish death. For many diaspora Jews, it was the first time they understood, viscerally, what Israelis have always known: that Jewish existence remains provisional in the eyes of much of the world.

And so began what might be called the Israelification of the diaspora.

Jews who had long been cautious about asserting their identity found their voices. They became louder, bolder, more defiant. They began to rally, to organize, to challenge lies in public rather than whisper frustrations in private. They rediscovered the word chutzpah — not as a punchline, but as a survival tool. They learned that safety does not come from politeness or apology, but from solidarity, self-respect, and readiness to fight for one’s place in the world.

Something deeper stirred beneath the surface: a rebirth of peoplehood. For decades, Jewish identity in the West had been privatized — “I’m Jewish, but…” After October 7th, it became collective again — “We are Jews, period.” The internet, for all its noise, became a kind of digital synagogue: a gathering place for grief, anger, and affirmation. Jews who had never been to Israel began to feel, for the first time, that its fate and theirs were inseparable. The idea of a shared Jewish destiny, so old as to seem antique, suddenly felt urgent again.

The crisis also forced a moral reckoning. For years, many diaspora Jews had built their sense of righteousness around universalist causes: fighting racism, climate change, inequality. These were noble pursuits, but when Jewish lives were at stake, many of their supposed allies turned away. Progressive movements that preached inclusivity excluded Jews. “Human rights” organizations rationalized or outright ignored Jewish suffering. Governments warned against imagined “Islamophobia” right alongside skyrocketing antisemitism. The betrayal cut deeply, exposing the limits of a moral vision that celebrates diversity but erases the Jew.

For many, October 7th was not just a geopolitical shock; it was a spiritual one. It stripped away the decorative Judaism of comfort and exposed the covenantal Judaism of responsibility. Jews who had long experienced Judaism as a cultural flavor or ethical stance began to experience it as something harder to define but impossible to ignore: a bond of fate, of memory, of survival. In rediscovering Israel, many rediscovered God — not as abstraction, but as the pulse of endurance that has carried the Jewish People through every century of exile.

With that awakening has come a new acceptance of Jewish strength. For generations, Western Jews were uneasy with the idea of power, associating it with arrogance or moral compromise. Israel’s very existence complicated their self-image as a minority defined by ethics rather than might. But power, it turns out, is not a betrayal of Jewish ethics; it is our precondition. The diaspora is now learning what Israel learned long ago: that without the means to defend oneself, morality becomes performance.

To be Israeli, in the cultural sense, is to live without illusions. It is to know that history can turn overnight, that civilization is fragile, that peace is earned and must be guarded. It is to balance trauma with faith, realism with hope. Since October 7th, diaspora Jews have begun to internalize that psychology. The fantasy of permanent safety has vanished. In its place is a new sobriety, and, paradoxically, a new pride.

This transformation carries political implications. The old boundaries between Left and Right are eroding; the word “Zionist,” once avoided in polite company, has become a statement of dignity. Liberal Jews who once distanced themselves from Israel’s “harder” politics now understand that security and morality are not opposites, but partners. The diaspora’s identity is becoming less theoretical and more historical, anchored not in abstract ideals but in the hard fact of peoplehood.

Israelis, for their part, are empathizing with diaspora Jews more than they ever had. For years, many Israelis assumed that antisemitism abroad was largely theoretical, a relic invoked in speeches or history books but not something that shaped daily life. October 7th and its aftermath shattered that illusion.

Watching Jews in London, New York, Toronto, and Melbourne face virulent Jew-hatred has moved Israelis in unexpected ways. They now understand that the diaspora’s struggle is not only about advocacy or image; it’s about belonging, fear, and identity. For perhaps the first time in decades, Israelis see diaspora Jews not as distant observers of their war, but as comrades in it. Jewish identity is once again something that must be carried, protected, and lived with intention.

And this new empathy has rippled outward among the many Israelis living abroad. Before October 7th, Israelis living abroad often clustered within their own tight-knit circles. They built their own social networks, comfortable microcosms of home that rarely intersected deeply with local Jewish life. Many saw themselves as temporary expatriates rather than part of the broader diaspora story.

But since October 7th, something has shifted. Israelis abroad have begun to seek out and connect with Jewish communities in ways that would have felt unlikely before. They’re joining synagogue events, volunteering with local Jewish organizations, and attending rallies and vigils not just as Israelis, but as Jews among Jews. The shared grief, fear, and sense of purpose following October 7th have blurred the old boundaries. What once divided “Israelis abroad” from “diaspora Jews” is now being replaced by a recognition of shared destiny, and a rediscovery of the global Jewish family.

This new chapter in the Jewish story is not a passing reaction; it is a civilizational correction. It marks the end of an era of innocence and the return of an older Jewish reflex: courage, clarity, audacity. The post-October 7th Jew is less comfortable, but more aware; less assimilated, but more alive.

And perhaps, for the first time in generations, a variety of Israelis and Jews across the Americas, Canada, Europe, South Africa, and Australia can now look each other in the eyes and say: We’re all in this together.

Of course, this is nothing new. Jewish faith and thought have long framed peoplehood as a collective bound by covenant, responsibility, and shared destiny. The Talmud states: Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh (all Jews are responsible for one another).

Prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah highlighted that Israel’s fate is tied to its unity; communal sin brings communal consequences, and communal righteousness brings communal reward.

Rabbinic texts recognize that Jews living far from Israel still share responsibility for one another, reinforcing the idea of a transnational peoplehood.

Zionist figures like Ahad Ha’am and Rav Kook extended the concept of peoplehood to culture, language, and spiritual mission. They framed Jewish identity as not just a religion, but as a shared historical and national destiny, transcending geography.

October 7th revived our collective Jewish consciousness. If one blessing-in-disguise can be drawn from that horrific day, it is precisely this.

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