In a speech delivered in Europe on October 24, 1938, Zionist leader Zeev Jabotinsky said, “It is already three years that I am calling upon you, Polish Jewry, who are the crown of world Jewry. I continue to warn you incessantly that a catastrophe is coming closer. I became gray and old in these years. My heart bleeds that you, dear brothers and sisters, do not see the volcano which will soon begin to spit its all-consuming lava."
"I see that you are not seeing this because you are immersed and sunk in your daily worries. Today, however, I demand from you trust. You were convinced already that my prognoses have already proven to be right. If you think differently, then drive me out of your midst! However, if you do believe me, then listen to me in this twelfth hour:
"In the name of God! Let anyone of you save himself as long as there is still time - and time there is very little. And what else I would like to say to you on this day of Tisha B’Av: whoever of you will escape the catastrophe, he or she will live to see the exalted moment of a great Jewish wedding - the rebirth and the rise of a Jewish state. I don’t know if I will be privileged to see it; my son will! I believe in this as I am sure that tomorrow morning the sun will rise."
Today, the Jews have a state and yet we see so many Jews who live in New York refuse to leave even when Zohran Mamdani is elected Mayor, a man who wants to “Free Palestine". We see the Australian Jewish community refuse to leave after the Bondi Beach massacre, and we see Toronto Jewry and so many others under attack.
Dr. Max Nordau, a leading Zionist thinker had a conversation with Jabotinsky where he said, “The Jew learns not by way of reason, but from catastrophes. He won’t buy an umbrella merely because he sees clouds in the sky; he waits until he is drenched and catches pneumonia - then he makes up his mind."
Jabotinsky was shaped by the Kishinev pogroms in 1903 and today it seems that even though the pogroms have started once again, the Jewish people still have not woken up.
Today, too, we read Jabotinsky's words and urge Jews to come home to Israel.
The tragedy Jabotinsky warned of was not merely physical destruction; it was the moral and psychological paralysis that precedes it. Again and again, Jewish history shows a refusal to believe that this time will be different-that the hatred gathering in the streets, universities, media, and political institutions will somehow dissipate on its own. Jews convince themselves that integration, success, and good citizenship will shield them, even as the clouds darken overhead.
Just like as in previous generations, Betar and Jabotinsky Jews warn and are the first to be targeted as the "nice" Jews condemn Betar instead of the antisemites. In New York, the ADL and Jewish community describes Betar as a hate group and the Attorney General presses Betar US to get out of NY, and in France, the longtime head of Betar France is targeted with an arrest warrant.
Jabotinsky understood that danger does not announce itself with certainty; it whispers first, tests boundaries, and only later explodes. By the time the eruption is undeniable, escape routes are gone. His anguish in 1938 was not that Jews lacked intelligence, but that they lacked urgency.
Nordau’s “umbrella" metaphor captures this flaw with brutal clarity.. Zionism is not an abstract ideology but a demand that Jews stop outsourcing their safety to the goodwill of others. The Jewish state was meant to be the umbrella bought before the storm, not a memorial erected afterward. Yet today, even with Israel’s existence, the Jewish community continues to behave as though it is optional, theoretical, or irrelevant to their personal lives.
What makes this moment especially dangerous is that the warning signs are once again unmistakable-and yet rationalized away. Jabotinsky’s words ring with renewed urgency not because the story is identical, but because human behavior is. The question is no longer whether Jews have somewhere to go. The question is whether they will go while there is still time. History has already shown the cost of waiting to get wet before reaching for the umbrella.
As Jabotinsky told us, “I continue to warn you incessantly that a catastrophe is coming closer. I became gray and old in these years. My heart bleeds that you, dear brothers and sisters, do not see the volcano which will soon begin to spit its all-consuming lava. I see that you are not seeing this because you are immersed and sunk in your daily worries."
Ronn Torossian is the Israel based Chairman of Betar Worldwide, and serves as a board member of the Tel Aviv based Jabotinsky Institute, where he maintains an office in Metzudat Zeev, the headquarters of the Jabotinsky Movement.