For now, the quiet seems to be holding. No one is sure if this is the start of a real and lasting peace or if, as is more likely, this is just a chance for Hamas to regroup, rearm nd bury explosives on all the roads Israel might want to retake. Still, whatever the future holds, for now, life in Israel seems to have gone back to normal.
But for Jews in the rest of the world, there’s no way to go back. The old normal they grew up and thought would always be there is gone. Worse still, it turns out that it was never even really there at all.
A new day has dawned for Western Jews. That means it's time for them to awaken.
Until October 7th, most Jews outside of Israel lived their lives operating under certain assumptions.
1. They were respected, valued members of their society.
2. The old antisemitism that had plagued Europe before the war was a thing of the past, impossible to exist in a modern, educated nation.
3. The Jews’ tireless commitment to social justice and helping the oppressed had earned them the goodwill, respect, and admiration of other progressive minds.
They were living the dream.
Which is what has made it so hard to wake up. On October 7th, Israeli Jews awoke to horrors beyond belief. On October 8th, Jews in the rest of the world woke up to a different but equally painful shock, that everything they thought they knew was wrong.
In the weeks and months that followed, Jews in America and the Western world watched with astonishment as their friends, neighbors, even family members took to the streets in droves, protesting not the pogrom that had occurred but the Jews themselves. Rather than being comforted as the victims of a horrific crime, the Jews of the Western world found that they themselves were the ones on trial. Forced in front of their peers to defend their very existence.
As time went on, things have only grown worse. Protests and riots against the Jewish State became frequent and accepted, making Jews fearful of walking in their own cities. Jewish students found themselves attacked in their universities, supposedly places of enlightenment and rational thinking. Hate crimes and antisemitic attacks increased to record numbers that would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. As things went on, Jews were forced to hide their identities in public, something not seen since World War II.
What made all this so much more painful was that, unlike in Israel where the attacks were coming from an outside enemy, here the attacks all came from within. People found friends they had known their entire lives turning on them. Neighbors made it clear that they were no longer part of the community. Many even found that their own intermarried non-Jewish family now saw them as the enemy. The attacks hurt all the more because they were personal.
The censures came from people Jews knew and loved and whom they thought knew and loved them. People who should have known better. Who did know better but perhaps simply didn’t care once they had an acceptable outlet for the hatred that always lay boiling deep inside.
At first Jews were confused as to how so many people could be so misled. Some, like Professor Daniel Pipes, even blamed Israel, called the Jewish State a danger to Diaspora Jews, and threatened to stop donating to it (the fact is that Israel can do very well without those funds, ed.).
Then, as time went on, a harsh truth settled in. The Jew-haters weren’t being misled at all. They hadn’t fallen victims to the waves of lies being spread against the Jews. Deep down, this is what they had believed the entire time. The countless libels against the IDF weren’t what turned the world against the Jews. Instead, they finally gave the world an excuse to vent the hatred it had always felt.
All the progress, all the enlightened ideals, all the work of the past century evaporated before the eyes of the Western Jews. These same Jews who had spent their lives fighting for these ideals and values, who were there at every liberal protest and championed every civil rights and humanitarian cause, found that the world they were fighting for had no place for them in it.
What’s become clear is the events of October 7th didn’t cause Jews to lose friends. It exposed their enemies. Such is the state of affairs Jews of the diaspora find themselves in. The question to ask is:
“What now?”
The Jewish world finds itself at one of the biggest crossroads it has faced in the modern age. What will the diaspora community do going forward? What changes will they make based on this new paradigm? And how will they confront the trauma of what they have been through?
What will Jewish students do knowing that universities are hotbeds of hatred and breeding grounds for antisemitism? Can they ever trust these institutions again, after what they have experienced over the last two years? And will parents continue to send their children to these schools, knowing what awaits them? Knowing too that these universities have become indoctrination centers, funded with Qatari money and bent on the overthrow of Western civilization?
Intermarriage was an epidemic before October 7th. Will anything change? Can a thinking, feeling Jew honestly build a life with someone who they know is capable of bearing a deep-seated hatred for the very core of who they are? I’ve witnessed a lot of mixed marriages in shambles in the past two years, with Jewish spouses blindsided by the reactions of their supposed soul mates. Too late, they found out that marriage doesn’t change the fact that they would always be Jews.
Recent events have proven that Jews and Gentiles are intrinsically different, and that no matter how loving or kind he is, a non-Jew will never fully understand what it is to be a Jew. But will the the lessons be learned?
Will Jews still strive for success and acceptance among the Gentiles? Studies have shown that now, having a Jewish name significantly lowers one’s chance of employment. Is their solution to change their names as we used to do? Will they hide our Jewishness to get ahead? Will we still base Jewish achievement on how much we have succeeded in the non-Jewish world? Will we sacrifice everything for the status that comes with success and bragging that “Jews have made it?”
When the protests and riots finally die down, then what? Should Jews around the world pretend like nothing happened? Pretend that only a few weeks previous, they didn’t witness their oldest friends calling for their destruction? That they don’t know that their neighbors believed the Hamas lies without question, see them as nothing more than genocidal baby killers? Is it best to just forgive and forget, to try to move on and pretend we don’t know what we know?
Many will choose the easy route and try to carry on as before. They’ll try to put what happened behind them and pretend, as Jews have done for thousands of years, that somehow the next time it will be different. Somehow, next time they will make it work.
It’s like an abusive marriage. No matter how many times the gentile world abuses us, we keep coming back, arguing that things have changed, they didn’t really mean it, that they are really good people. Arguments that we know are not true.
But leaving is hard, and many Jews will try desperately to go back to how things were before. They’re trying their hardest to pretend it never happened and that everything is just like it always was, never realizing that it was never like that to begin with. They’ll continue to date non-Jews, fight for the very people who would see them dead, and view themselves as welcomed members of a global community that has made it clear that they don’t belong.
Living a comforting lie is easier than admitting a painful truth. Admitting the truth requires changes and actions, which in turn require strength and willpower.
However, for a strong number of American Jews, going back is impossible. They’ve gone too far and seen too much to ever go back to sleep again. The number of these Jews is growing daily. Each day brings some new event to drive the point ever deeper home.
Jews in the UK are in real danger. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) was forced to conduct an “urgent review” into anti-Semitism after “recent incidents of anti-Semitism from doctors, which drew stark attention to problems of culture and the regulation in the health system.” Among the reported incidents are a junior doctor in the NHS who recently referred to Hamas as “martyrs”, made a “slit your throat” gesture to Jewish protesters, and claimed the Holocaust was “fabricated". She was not punished for her actions in any way.
This week in London, there was another of the endless anti-Jewish marches. The streets were full of people calling for Israel’s destruction and death to Jews. Calls for violence were being shouted by thousands of people. Yet only one person was arrested, a Jew wearing a Star of David necklace. He was arrested by British police and held for ten hours. In their official statement, police officers noted that they believed the 'presence' of the Star of David could cause 'offense' to those who had gathered at the protest. In this new world, simply being Jewish is now considered offensive.
Also, this week in England in response a local football club playing an Israeli team, police banned Israelis from the event, claiming they could not protect them. Even putting aside what this says about safety for Jews in the UK, and who the British care about, this is nothing more see a government-sanctioned ban on Jews.
Modern England has ruled that protesters waving the jihadist flag are not committing an offense. But a Jew displaying his faith is. How much clearer does it need to be that this is not home?
Whenever we try to act like the rest of the world, the rest of the world reminds us that we’re not.
And accordingly, the question remains. For all these Jews who have woken up to the harsh light of truth, where do they go from here?
The easy answer, of course, is to go home. Israel is ready and waiting to receive you. The world is telling you that you don’t belong. Maybe it’s time to listen to them and come to where you do belong, to where everyone is telling you were always meant to be.
For those Jews who still won’t make aliyah, the question is harder, but the answer is inherently the same. You belong with your people. This is the time for the Jewish communities of the diaspora to come together. To strengthen themselves internally and to remove themselves from a world that never wanted them in the first place.
It’s time to end our unhealthy relationship with the non-Jewish world. To separate from them before they forcefully separate from us. Changing is hard, but continuing to do what’s been proven not to work is much harder in the long run.
And so, World Jewry must end the dream that they will ever be accepted if only they help build the great world community. Instead, they should focus on building their own community and making it as great for Jews as they used to make it for others. No one is coming to help them, that much is clear. Diaspora Jews must find the strength and unity to help themselves. There will be other attacks, and Jews need to be prepared for what is to come.
Diaspora Jews know the truth now, and they must never let themselves forget, no matter how comfortable they become. They must remember everything. Jews cannot allow themselves to forget those who turned against them in their hour of need, vilifying us and fanning the flames of hatred because it was easier, safer, and more popular. We also must remember those who stood silently by watching and did nothing.
At the same time, they must remember those few friends who did come through for Jews and Israel in their dark hour. These heroic few who proved themselves friends when needed deserve to be celebrated, and their kindness must never be forgotten.
I know that it's easy to offer advice from the safety of Eretz Israel. The truth is that I see what's happening in the Diaspora, and I'm scared. I'm much more scared of the fate of Jews out there than I am here at home.
So, this is a call to action. The specific actions needed are for the Jewish communities around the world to figure out for themselves. But figure it out they must. The world has changed, and Diaspora Jews must likewise change if they are to survive. Things can't go on as before, with the Jews of the world sleepwalking through life.
Once it became clear that the dream turned into a nightmare, there's no other choice but to wake up. Will we see a great Jewish awakening?
Ilan Goodmanis a museum collections professional and exhibition curator. He also serves as a rabbi and educator. He made Aliyah to Israel in 2011 and lives with his wife and children in Beit Shemesh.