Not the same America

In the America in which I was born, Jews did not need to have armed guards to pray, send their kids to school, go shopping, or take public transportation. Yes, there was antisemitism and discrimination. Quotas limiting Jewish enrollment in universities. Neighborhoods and upscale apartment buildings off limits to Jews. “Exclusive” clubs preventing Jewish members. Antisemitism in the pews. Jewish children chased and beaten up for “killing Jesus” or whatever other antisemitic tropes other children had been raised with. 

Jews were discriminated against, but not hunted. 

In the America I left in 2004, never in my life or career as a Jewish communal nonprofit professional did I have to hire security to have an event, whether a fund-raising event in the Jewish community, a movie premiere, kosher wine tasting, or a conference like I just did and for which “security” became a significant and unplanned budget item.  Never did I have to tell participants that they would only receive the location of the event after they registered (and could be vetted) for the event, or worry that the venue might be threatened, picketed, or influenced through the threats to cancel our event. 

That’s all changed. Possibly forever. 

As I am stranded in America, trying to get home to Israel where commercial flights are few and far between, I have spent my time doing many interviews and briefings. In one recent interview, I bemoaned this fact that it may never be the same in America. That the country in which I was born, raised, educated, and love so much has allowed antisemitism to become so permissible, the greatest country on earth with the most opportunity for the most people of all backgrounds, marks its own demise.  I also mentioned that now, more than ever before, I look over “all three of my shoulders” walking around the United States, not in fear, but fearful that as an identifiable Jewish man I will become a target of an antisemitic hate crime which has increased by hundreds of percent. 

I think I fear more for America that such an assault has become permissible in more than the assault itself. 

How is it possible, how is it tolerable, that Jews in America need to pray behind concrete barriers with private security? 

In the year in which we proudly celebrate the United States’ 250th year of independence, we also need to remember that we mark 25 years since the jihadi terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. If not checked now, the latter could undo the former. Not with airplanes flying into buildings, but corrupt dangerous ideologies being allowed and accepted as normal in our minds. 

For millennia, there has been a correlation between the demise of once dominant societies and how the Jews among them are treated. It’s just a fact. Where is the Roman Empire? Babylonians? Spain? Find one Arab country in which Jews once lived and thrived (albeit as second class citizens) and from which they were expelled that is not on the range from insignificant to a failed state. Nazi Germany and all their conquests got buried, and Germany only saw a revival after taking responsibility and making reparations for the lives and communities it eradicated. 

There’s been no diaspora better for the Jews, even with all the discrimination, than the United States. There is no society in which Jews have been more accepted and in which Jews have made more significant contributions to, from the very beginning than the United States.  Will it be possible that the golden age for Jews in what used to be called the Goldene Medina (the golden country) will evaporate, leaving a thin veil of extraordinary impacts that will never be recognized for their Jewish DNA as America goes down the drain? 

Shocking? Yes, I know. Frighteningly so. It’s so disturbing to articulate, much less think about when one wants to stop reading, defiantly declare “impossible, not in my America.” But history tells another story. 

It’s worth noting that America today, where anti-Zionism has become synonymous with antisemitism, where threatening, attacking and even killing Jews as Jews, loosely blaming Israel or justifying such threats because of Israel, even as the most prosperous diaspora, Jews are still in the diaspora. We were expelled from the Land millennia ago and dispersed across the globe because of antisemitism then, and now faulted for standing with (or appearing to) the modern Israel to which we have returned. 

Modern Nazi and misogynist Nick Fuentes who would lynch Candace Owens as a black woman are now on the same side. He must be laughing hysterically at the irony of her doing his hateful bidding. WASPy Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly have become bottom feeders, building their brand on the most insidious antisemitic tropes that were once just below the surface and are now widely liked and shared as if they are normal. They are not. They are evil. 

They say they are not antisemites because they redefine what it means to be Jewish. Thus, Tucker’s frequent and repetitive “whatever that means” statement after referring to the Jews. That a single advertiser pays them to market their products is obscene. 

I once had a conversation with a Jewish professor in college about why American Jews are so overwhelmingly politically liberal. Yes, Judaism is all about social justice. We birthed that. One of the many things the Jewish people and Judaism have bequeathed the world. My theory was that American Jews are overwhelmingly politically liberal because they are uncomfortable in their own skin, knowing deep down or at least subconsciously, that we are tolerated in America but not at home. My professor did not like that theory. 

I don’t know if I was/am right but I do know that the antisemitic genie is out of the bottle and not likely to go back in. Jews cannot live in America the same way as they did just two decades ago. Jews cannot worship freely. Jews cannot wear or display outward signs of being Jewish, just in case. The State will investigate the crimes committed, but only private security keeps the Jews safe. 

It’s not the same America. Can it ever be again? Will it ever be? The thought that the inevitable answer may be “no” is devastating. Unimaginable. But still.