Next Year in Jerusalem

By Michael Posner

© Great Untold Stories Inc.

There is no meaning of life in America, in England and France, but in Israel, there was meaning...Israel...serves to remind us what a small band of devoted men can do when they can understand one another as friends, and can build a common purpose on a common experience and shared knowledge...I can say that the whole world sees in Israel a symbol, and not just a symbol of courage, and not just a symbol of dedication, but of faith and confidence in man’s reason, and a confidence in man’s future, and in the confidence in man, and of hope. These are all now largely and sadly missing in those vast parts of the world which not so long ago were their very cradle.

-- Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer

Here’s a safe prediction. When Diaspora Jews gather next month to celebrate Passover -- the holiday that marks our liberation from slavery in Egypt 3,500 years ago -- one subject will dominate the Seder table: Is it time to think about leaving?

Leaving, as in selling property, resigning jobs, packing up the kids, saying goodbye to once comfortable lives in the West, and moving -- lock, stock and bagel -- to the one place that, increasingly, it still seems safe to be a Jew: Israel.

Because if the events of October 7th constituted a wake-up call for Israelis, vis-a-vis the genocidal ambitions of their Arab neighbours, the tsunami of antisemitism occasioned by that Black Sabbath has been a wake-up call for world Jewry as well.

Forced to confront the bitter reality -- that the world has seized upon the war in Gaza as a pretext to declare open season on Jews -- communities across Europe, North America, and Down Under, are suddenly wrestling with the same difficult questions.

Are we now witnessing what the Jews of Germany experienced in the early 1930s?

Are the recent paroxysms of hate -- pro-Palestinian throngs in the hundreds of thousands, openly calling for the gassing of Jews -- simply a passing moment, destined to end with Israel's eventual withdrawal from Gaza? Or are they harbingers of much worse to come, especially if the IDF, sooner or later, engages with Hezbollah in Lebanon or its sponsor, the mad, nuke-hungry mullahs of Iran?

Is the rich, abundant, fulfilling Jewish life we have been privileged to enjoy for several decades in New York, Toronto, Miami, Los Angeles, and other centres about to become far more tenuous, circumscribed by no-go zones, heavy security at every synagogue, day school and JCC, every Jewish event?

Will venues that once welcomed Jewish patronage -- music halls, theatres, comedy clubs and cinemas -- begin denying access?

This pattern, alas, is already underway. In the last few weeks alone, the Playhouse Cinema in Hamilton, Ontario cancelled its contract to host the city's Jewish film festival; Australia's Palace Cinemas Group cancelled shows scheduled by two Jewish comics in Sydney and Melbourne; and clubs in Chicago, Tucson and Sante Fe cancelled appearances by the the American Jewish reggae musician, Matisyahu.

What's next? Will Jews who once lived in Israel, worked on a kibbutz, or served in the IDF, be stigmatized, ostracized and denied jobs or promotion?

Will Jewish artists -- painters, writers, filmmakers, etc. -- be published and have their work exhibited and screened? Will art that even addresses a Jewish topic be deemed contaminated?

Will it still be safe to dine in Jewish restaurants, parade the Israeli flag, nail mezuzot on doorposts, or wear markers of Jewish identity in public -- the kippah, Mogen David (Star of David), tzitzit (tallis fringes), or the frock coats of the ultra-orthodox?

Will politicians who dare to defend Israel be harassed and hounded out of public office, as Jewish MP Mike Freer was last month in Britain, after being bombarded with death threats, and seeing his constituency office torched by arsonists; or as British Columbia cabinet minister Selina Robinson was in February, after her boss, NDP Premier David Eby, cravenly submitted to pro-Palestinians demanding her head.

As the temperature of invective rises, will Western governments strictly enforce laws expressly enacted to prohibit hate speech? Or will they instead, cognizant of the rising demographic and electoral power of Muslims and other anti-Jewish elements, carefully avert their eyes, and thus implicitly sanction acts of intimidation, vandalism and assault?

No doubt the Jews of 1930s Europe gazed with contempt and incredulity at the failed Austrian painter from Linz, who was able to hypnotize mass rallies and exploit their passion, by demonizing Jews.

No doubt they assured themselves and their familles: 'He's an aberration. We are secure. We Jews are too deeply embedded in European society, too important to the continued success of industry, commerce, the sciences and the arts.'

'This, too,' they must have said, 'shall surely pass.'

But it didn't. It got worse. Anti-Jewish legislation poured from the Reichstag, one restrictive, dehumanizing bill after the other. Then came Kristallnacht -- November, 1938: scores of Jews murdered, 267 synagogues destroyed, 7,000 businesses damaged or demolished, 30,000 people dispatched to concentration camps. Then Hitler took the Sudentenland and, emboldened by Western appeasement, the Nazi panzerkorps rolled over Poland. We all know the rest.

True, there are no obvious Hitlers on the Western horizon, although many people seem to think that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump nurses aspirations in that direction.

But as I've suggested in this space before, the next wave of truly consequential antisemitism is more likely to be a bottom-up affair. It will be driven by popular demand, mass demonstrations in the street, amplified by producers, reporters and editors in the mass media who openly share an anti-Israel bias.

That aspect, unfortunately, is already apparent: servants to genocidal terrorists, national news outlets like the BBC and the CBC have been broadcasting a daily diet of vilification, credulously echoing every lie, every invented casualty figure, every false allegation levelled by Hamas and its accomplices in United Nations agencies.

The IDF has probably fought the most ethical war in human history, but few if any media organizations have bothered to acknowledge it.

When the 'intifada revolution' comes to the West, it will first target avowed Zionists, and other staunch supporters of the state of Israel. But inevitably, the contagion will spread, engulfing the crypto-Zionists and, after that, those with Zionists in the family closet. Eventually, of course, every Jew will be suspect, even members of the self-hating contingents that now delight in performative disparagement of Israel.

On Passover, and at the end of Yom Kippur, Jews traditionally proclaim -- l'Shana Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim! (Next Year in Jerusalem).

Dating from the 15th Century, the phrase expresses the hope that Jewish communities living in exile will one day be able to return to the land of their forefathers.

In a few weeks, as Jews around the world recall the miraculous exodus from Egypt, the recitation of Next Year in Jerusalem is likely to acquire a different kind of resonance. They may mean it literally.