My rose-colored glasses fell off my face on October 7, 2023. I lived in Toronto for almost 50 years until I made Aliya a little over 2 years ago. I faced very little antisemitism while I lived in Toronto. I loved living there and I will always be grateful for my life in the multicultural city of Toronto, but boy am I glad I am not living there anymore!
I have always felt safe during my time in Israel, as a tourist, as a post-high school student studying in a Yeshiva in Yerushalayim and now as a citizen of Israel. Even during this current war, with air raid sirens going off in Beit Shemesh and with the constant noise of Israeli warplanes flying overhead, Israel is the safest place in the world if you are Jewish.
Apparently, some Jews living abroad continue to maintain the delusion that it is safer where they are. Their rose-colored glasses have not yet fallen off.
My message to the Jewish people around the world is very simple:
COME HOME NOW!!!
In the 40 days since Israel’s 9/11, I have watched the world’s reaction to the worst massacre of Jewish blood since the Holocaust and I can’t believe what I am seeing. Wake up and look at what’s happening around the world.
-Paul Kessler was murdered by a pro-Palestinian Arab protestor in Los Angeles.
-Samantha Woll, president of her shul in Detroit, Michigan was murdered outside her home.
-A Jewish woman was stabbed in Lyons, France.
-An airport in Dagestan, Russia was overrun by a blood-thirsty mob looking for Jewish people to harm or kill.
-The world-famous Opera House in Sydney, Australia was lit up in Israel’s colors of blue & white and a crowd outside sang “gas the Jews” in reaction to the sign of pro-Israel support.
-The campuses of “higher education” in the USA, Canada, and around the world are having pro-Palestinian Arab protests.
-Jewish students on campus are having to barricade themselves in libraries until they are saved by the police.
-Buildings where Jewish people live in Paris, France were spray painted with blue Stars of David so “people” would know where to target for their antisemitic attacks.
-People all over the world are tearing down the posters of the 239 kidnapped victims.
Incredibly, I have seen videos of Jewish people tearing down those posters. To them I have a separate message:
STAY WHEREVER YOU ARE LIVING!! ISRAEL DOESN’T NEED YOU!!!
The world has really gone crazy. “People” are now denying that the October 7th massacre happened. They are minimizing the numbers and saying most of the dead people on October 7 were Israeli soldiers. I and most others think that Holocaust deniers are crazy but the Holocaust ended in 1945, almost 80 years ago. The Nazis documented what they did to the Jewish people during the Holocaust and “people” are still trying to deny that it happened.
Now fast forward in time to 2023. Hamas terrorists killed 1400 people on October 7 and they also documented what they were doing. Each terrorist unit was outfitted with Go-Pro cameras to film everything that the monsters did that horrible day, and “people” around the world have the gall to deny the Jewish blood that was shed that day. How can you deny something happened when the murderers and rapists took videos and pictures of the crimes that they perpetrated?
Media and social media are even crazier than the real world. The truth is never told. What or who can you believe? What is false news and what is real news? Media outlets believe Hamas without verifying anything, but Israel has to conduct forensic investigations, send in videos and intercepted phone calls to debunk Hamas’s version of the story. Most media outlets have a pro-Palestinian Arab slant to their news. Ironically, even the New York Times, which has a pro-Palestinian Arab bias in its presentation of the news, had a pro-Palestinian Arab mob break into its office and conduct a protest in its lobby. There, too, the protestors again had the gall to say that The New York Times is complicit in “Israeli war crimes” and the “genocide of all of the Palestinian children”.(Perhaps these highbrows cnfused it with the fair New York Post).
Some of you may be thinking, how can Israel be the safest place in the world for the Jewish people if 1400 Israelis were murdered on October 7? The answer is simple. In the Diaspora as a Jew you are a very small minority of the population. Jews are outnumbered by Muslims in every country of the world except for the USA and Israel. In Israel we have a Jewish army and a Jewish police force. Your neighbors are Jewish.
Two weeks before the October 7th massacre the people of Israel were divided into many groups and were demonstrating about what kind of services to have in Dizengoff Square on Yom Kippur and about the legal reform bill in the Knesset. When the wall surrounding Gaza was broken down by Hamas terrorists on October 7th all of our differences fell by the wayside. Nonkosher restaurants koshered themselves to provide food for our soldiers. Haredim have enlisted in the Israeli army in unheard of numbers. I have seen videos of different groups of Hassidim visiting communities that were hit the hardest on October 7th and they are singing and dancing to show support to their “brothers and sisters”.
My message to the Jewish people in the Diaspora is very simple:
IT’S NOT SAFE OUT THERE!! COME HOME NOW!!
One last item for you to contemplate. A large Hezbollah terrorist group was arrested a few days ago in Brazil before anything tragic happened, thank G-d. Do you know how they were captured? Israel’s intelligence community, including the Mossad, helped Brazil’s Federal Police capture these terrorists.
Jews around the world are only safe because Israel exists. The more Jews there are inside Israel the safer we will be. Israel has 7 million Jewish brothers and sisters eagerly waiting for your return.
Please come home before your rose-colored glasses fall - or are pushed - off your face!
Michael (Moishe) Weinberg.made aliya from Toronto two years ago and lives in Ramat Beit Shemes.