In August 1933, only months after Hitler rose to power, a chilling interview appeared in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Dr. Max Naumann, a proud German patriot and the founder of the Verband nationaldeutscher Juden - the Association of National German Jews - declared his unwavering loyalty to the Nazi government. Even as Jewish livelihoods were being dismantled, professions confiscated, and families terrorized, this group of proper, non-Orthodox German Jews insisted that Jews had nothing to fear if they behaved correctly, shed their national identity, rejected Zionism, and embedded themselves wholly within German society.
At that time the Jewish establishment - intelligent, cultured, deeply assimilated Jews - believed wholeheartedly that Germany would never turn on “its” Jews - the loyal, enlightened, patriotic German Jews who had fought in World War I, who contributed to science, medicine, industry, and culture. They believed the danger was “the others”: Eastern European Jews, poor Jews, Zionist Jews, religious Jews, those who insisted on being "different". This group believed that if only Jews blended in, the Nazis would eventually calm down.
Even as Jewish shops were vandalized, even as Nazis marched through Berlin and Jews were being purged from the workplace, the Association of National German Jews issued statements urging Jews to trust the new government and to reject Zionism as a poisonous idea.
Naumann declared that German Jews “intrinsically belong to Germany” and that “patriotic German Jews” must oppose Zionist movements, including their youth organizations. Betar - the Jewish self-defense and national revival movement founded by Ze’ev Jabotinsky - was everything Naumann despised: disciplined, proud, nationalist, unapologetically Jewish. Betar youth marched in uniforms, trained physically, spoke of Jewish pride, demanded dignity, and refused to bow their heads. The Association of National German Jews resented it because many believed that if they kept a low profile, everything would pass.
But history was about to deliver its verdict.
The Rise and Fall of an Illusion
By 1935, the Nazis dissolved the Association of National German Jews. By 1939 Naumann had died at the hands of the Nazis.
This is the story of a worldview that has reappeared across Jewish history again and again: the belief that if Jews abandon their nationalism, and appease their oppressors, they will be spared. It is a story repeated in Spain before 1492, in Europe before the Holocaust, in the Soviet Union before Stalin’s “Doctors’ Plot,” and today - in the West, where large segments of world Jewry cling to the idea that blending in, apologizing, and avoiding “controversial” Jewish causes will somehow protect them.
Dr. Max Naumann is not an anomaly; he is a symbol. His story is a warning.
The Targeting of Zionism and Betar
It is important to understand that the hostility of the Association of National German Jews was not abstract. They explicitly attacked the Zionist idea, especially the strands of Zionism that insisted Jews were a nation - not merely a religious community. They condemned the very concept of Jewish self-defense.
Betar’s existence in Germany presented an ideological threat to this organization,Betar youths sang Hebrew songs, carried themselves with discipline, and insisted the Jewish people were a nation with a destiny. Where Naumann preached obedience, Betar preached courage. Where he praised submission, Betar trained for self-defense. Where he denounced Jewish nationhood, Betar affirmed it. In the eyes of people like Naumann, Betar represented a dangerous idea: that Jews could survive only by standing as a proud, independent people - not by pleading for acceptance.
History proved them right.
The Consequences of Appeasement - Then and Now
At first glance, one could treat Naumann as a figure locked in the past, but his story remains painfully relevant today. Across the Diaspora, Jewish communities are living through a renewed wave of open antisemitism not seen in generations. And how does a certain segment of world Jewry respond?
With fear. With appeasement. With 35 percent of NYC’s Jews voting for Zohran Mamdani, and groups like the ADL and the British Board of Deputies openly opposing Israel’s democratically elected government as leader of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, travels the world lobbying for the release from Israeli prison of arch-terrorist, murdered Marwan Barghouti.
There are diaspora Jewish leaders today who are not in line with Israel’s democratically elected leaders and have adopted policies hostile to the Jewish state. They repeat the same delusions Naumann preached: that appeasement will earn respect, that silence will earn safety, that bowing one’s head will spare us.
We know where that path leads.
The Eternal Lesson: Antisemites Do Not Distinguish
One of the most important lessons of the Holocaust - and indeed of all Jewish history - is that Jews do best when we fight back. This truth remains unchanged today. And just like in 1933, the Jews most desperate to blend in, the ones who insist “We’re not like those other Jews,” are often the first to be targeted.
This is the moment when we must remember the Zionist leader who founded Betar, Zeev Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky believed that every Jewish person must stand tall, walk with pride, and never bow their head and be capable of defending themselves wherever they are. Jabotinsky taught that the Jewish nation is eternal, that Jewish dignity must never be surrendered, and that the Jewish state is the only real guarantee of Jewish safety.
In the 1930s, Jabotinsky warned that Europe was becoming unsafe for Jews. Most of world Jewry dismissed that warning as hysteria. Naumann’s entire movement ridiculed the idea.
Today, not a single one of mainstream Jewish leaders of the Diaspora are talking aliya. Nor are they talking pushback.
Across the Diaspora, Jewish communities cling to institutions that no longer protect them, governments that no longer defend them, and illusions that no longer serve them. They dedicate themselves to endless dialogues with activists who openly seek their destruction. They send letters, petitions, pleas, and polite condemnations while their enemies march in the streets and terrorize their children on campus. It only took one Israeli soldier to fight back by pushing rampaging pro-Palestine protesters out of the Toronto University venue for his talk. Why didn't Jewish students fight back?
This is a Naumann mindset reborn - not in Germany, but in contemporary America, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Britain, and Europe. And just like in 1933, it is a deadly delusion.
A Hard Truth: World Jewry Has Failed to Learn History’s Lessons
It is time to say it clearly. World Jewry has failed to learn the most basic lessons of Jewish history. The lesson that no society, not even the most enlightened, guarantees Jewish safety. The lesson that Jewish security cannot depend on the goodwill of others.
But the difference between then and now is the Jewish state.
Instead of fighting back, many Jewish institutions abroad have become paralyzed by fear of “public perception.” They are more afraid of being disliked on social media than of the mobs calling for Jewish death. They speak of “holding the line” in New York while Jewish students are assaulted in broad daylight. They insist that Jewish life will continue “as usual” as mobs have made Jews terrified in so many places around the world. They cling to a fantasy that these are temporary inconveniences, not symptoms of a collapsing social contract.
The truth is simple: Only by fighting back can the mobs be contained. And even more crucial: Only in Israel is a full Jewish life possible.
At a time when New York, London, Toronto, Paris, Melbourne, and Johannesburg are becoming unsafe for Jews, Israel is thriving. Israel's cities - Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Raanana, Herzliya, Haifa - are full of innovation, culture, Jewish life, and Jewish safety. Hebrew is spoken without fear. Soldiers protect us. The national institutions - flawed as they may be - defend us. The Diaspora is in deep trouble, in part because many Jewish leaders abroad, like Naumann in his time, do not identify first and foremost with the Jewish people.
Ronn Torossian is an Israeli-American Jewish communal leader and entrepreneur who lives in Israel.