When will the Jews wake up?
It is time for Jews to fight back again, or look for another place to call home.
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The glory days of “The Jews” in “the West” is over.
That is not my opinion; it has been explicitly articulated by a countless number of folks — journalists, rabbis, community leaders, politicians, historians, academics, and so forth — since October 7th.
When enough people say the same thing over and over again, I have learned that it is wise to listen. Denial does not make something magically disappear. Neither does wishful thinking.
During the last few months, I have heard many a Jew tell me, in more or less words, that they do not want to be the Jew who did not leave Nazi Germany or one of its neighboring countries “before it was too late.”
Nazi Germany is an overwhelming reference point for Jews, because the Holocaust left the Jewish People terribly traumatized, even to this day, which is of course completely understandable. But in overemphasizing the Holocaust, many Jews make the mistake of not realizing that this unspeakable tragedy was just one of many heavily antisemitic periods that the Jews have historically experienced — and no period looks the same.
For example, in the Soviet Union, Jews could get by so long as they denounced their Judaism and Zionism. During the Spanish Inquisition, Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism or faced expulsion.
In the ancient and even more modern Arab world, Jews had to pay fees in exchange for safeguarding their life and property, as well as for the right to worship unmolested. Jews were also to conduct themselves with the demeanor and behaviors befitting a subject population:
They were not to carry arms, ride horses, or use normal riding saddles on their mounts.
They were neither able to build new places of worship, nor repair old ones.
They were not to hold public religious processions (including funeral processions) or pray too loudly.
They had to wear clothing that distinguished them from the Arabs.
Thus, the question of whether “another Holocaust” could happen, say, in the West is not the right thought process. The more suitable questions are ones that mimic all of the historic periods of intense antisemitism, not just those surrounding the Holocaust.
For instance, could you foresee a situation where Jews are effectively forced to hide their Jewish identity in public? Or where a Jew calls the police to report an antisemitic attack, and the police do nothing about it, which only encourages more such attacks? Or where a “progressive” political party rises to power and decides to levy an additional tax on Jews because they are part of the “White oppressor” class?
I am not trying to frighten you; I am simply holding up a mirror to reflect these increasingly frightening times.
Speaking of frightening, an anti-Israel protest at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) turned violent last week as pro-Israel counter protestors tried to dismantle a “pro-Palestinian” (i.e. antisemitic) encampment on the campus.
“If you’re a student who’s not biased in this situation, and you’re looking at the sides, and you see a pro-Israel mob rush what they think is a peaceful encampment — even though we know this is not a peaceful encampment — it makes us look really bad,” said one of the UCLA students. “I’m here to let them know, this was a small group of what the majority of the Jewish people actually believe. We don’t support what they did.”1
I appreciate this student’s emotional intelligence and well-meaning intentions, but I am afraid that his words reflect a far greater mentality among many Diaspora Jews, a sort of “politically correct” or “nice guys” approach — as if doing so is going to defeat or greatly minimize the wide spectrum of antisemitism. Spoiler: It will not, for no other reason than that this approach has been tried countless times before, in many countries and cultures, to no real avail.
The Jews should know by now, thanks to an extensive sample size of history: Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. This does not mean that we should go around terrorizing people with some sick and twisted ideology, but it does mean that we should be unapologetic about standing up for ourselves in self-defense, including preemptively in some cases.
If I was this student, I would have said something like, “Generally I do not condone violence, but the UCLA administration was directly complicit in allowing this obviously antisemitic encampment to build and fester for weeks, so I understand why some decided to take the situation into their own hands.”
Let’s recall the Jewish American judge Nathan D. Perlman, who was also a big believer in physicality. In 1938, he called up notorious Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky to ask him for a favor: to direct Jewish gangsters to violently break up meetings of the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization for Americans of German origin.
“I want you to do anything but kill them,” Perlman told Lansky, prompting the organized crime boss to tell his associates that they could “marinate” but not “ice” those who showed up at Bund meetings, rallies, and marches, where speakers spewed Jew-hatred.2
Lansky gave his comrades the license to use more than their fists, though. Baseball bats, clubs, and other street fighting paraphernalia were fair game. Guns were out of bounds, as were the ice picks, the preferred weapon of killer Abraham “Kid Twist” Reles.
At the time, Perlman secretly directed an “army” led by Jewish gangsters across the United States in a successful campaign to squelch two key American Nazi organizations, the Bund and the Silver Legion (better known as the Silver Shirts) — while giving these organizations the extrajudicial punitive treatment.
Approximately 100 antisemitic groups operated throughout the U.S. during the Great Depression. During an era before hate laws were in effect, these Jew-hating organizations were thoroughly protected by the freedom of speech granted by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. As a result, they operated openly with impunity. Does this sound familiar? To me it sure does.
As they are now, American Jews and community leaders were also concerned and frightened back then. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration tried to act against pro-Nazi groups whenever and wherever possible, but there was nothing they could legally do to shut them down.
Fed up with the situation, Nathan Perlman took matters into his own hands. As a former congressman and justice of the Court of Special Sessions of the City of New York, his role in intimidating law-abiding Americans had to be kept on the down-low. So he requested the aid of men who wanted antisemites hurt, and had no compunction about acting outside of the law.
By 1939, Jewish gangsters had pounded enough Nazis to ensure that a significant number of them quit attending meetings, or at least went underground. The gangsters’ actions also emboldened ordinary Jews to protest and take action.
Unsurprisingly, the gangsters got away with cracking skulls and causing all kinds of physical harm because the police (who were in the their pockets) turned the other way. With no fatalities involved, the bloody fights never made newspaper front pages, and the perpetrators were never named.
“It wasn’t the numbers [of American Nazis] that really upset Judge Perlman as much as it was the brazen way they behaved,” said Michael Benson, who wrote a book on the subject. “It never occurred to them that they would encounter resistance. They assumed Jews were soft and would be afraid to fight back.”3
Indeed, it is time for Jews to fight back again, or look for another place to call home.
“Jewish students say pro-Israel violence at UCLA protest camp undercut their advocacy.” The Times of Israel.
Benson, Michael. “Gangsters vs. Nazis: How Jewish Mobsters Battled Nazis in WW2 Era America.” Citadel. 2022.
“Bam! Kapow! When 1930s Jewish mobsters beat up Nazis in the streets of America.” The Times of Israel.
100% correct. You're describing the nebbish mentality, which is the little voice that says, "If you don't make them angry, they won't hurt you." Unfortunately, that's not true. Weakness and passivity invites contempt and predation.
Look at how the October 7 attack was widely described as "resistance to Zionist aggression." In this world, simply existing while Jewish is considered a provocation that justifies violent reprisal.
There may only be a tiny fraction of the population that actually wants to go out and hurt Jews, but history shows that the rest likely would not object. That's why it is important to exercise forceful resistance at the beginning.
There was a huge outpouring of support for the frat boys who protected the American flag from being replaced with a Palestinian flag. People respect strength. I would love to see Jewish college students physically break through the human chains and barricades erected against them. That would do more to elicit public good will than the so-called high road.
When I was at high school someone made an anti-Semitic remark. Three of us, one the son of a Holocaust survivor, corned him after school, warned him, and punched him in the jaw. That ended that. The idea then was that you stop these things before they start. We seem to have forgotten this and let it spread.