Should I stay or should I go?

I was in Israel for two weeks on a tourist trip and during that time, two elections of significance took place. The results were not surprising in either case. In Israel, the votes split between the right wing governing coalition and the center-left opposition. In the US, the expected blue wave materialized. Voters expressed their frustration with high gas and food prices, the war with Iran, the unaffordability of health care, and with Trump himself. For American Jews, however, there is a significant subtext to the election results; many of the newly voted-in Congress members made anti-Israelism an integral part of their campaign. The Congresswoman-elect Melat Kiros, representing Denver, based her campaign on the denial of the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. The Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El Sayed built his primary contest on a frontal attack against AIPAC, an American citizen-based organization supporting Israel, and declared, among other statements, that Iran and Israel were both, in equal proportion, enemies of the United States. El Sayed unequivocally stands against Israel’s existence. His election to the powerful body of the US Senate by voters of a  quintessentially American state, should be an ominous sign to American Jews. His future presidential candidacy, and presidential election victory, are within the realm of possibility. It is not implausible that at some point, Jewish Americans will be officially tolerated only under the condition of disavowing Israel. And, judging on the increased frequency of physical violence against Jews in the US regardless of their political or spiritual beliefs, their rejection of Israel will still not be enough to guarantee their personal safety.

I visited the city of Sderot during my stay in Israel. Through the years, I’ve read in the news about this plucky southern town exposed to relentless Hamas rocket attacks, culminating in the bloody invasion of October 7th, 2023, and I wanted to have at least a brief direct impression of the city and its residents. The main battle of Sderot on the 7th of October took place at the police station. Here, dozens of police officers and other heroic defenders of the city paid the ultimate price. The police station was destroyed during the firefight and its remnants were subsequently torn down. In its place, a memorial consisting of eighteen tall pillars pointing to the sky was erected. The population of the city has grown substantially over the past three years. Businesses abound. Older men sit at outside restaurant tables, drink coffee and banter, and children play. People shop at the mall. Roads are congested. The city thrives, notwithstanding its distance from the Gaza border of mere 0.6 miles.

The story of Sderot is emblematic of the story of the whole country. In its eighty-year existence, Israel has continued to face multiple existential threats. The desert sands, the coastal plains, the hills in the east and north are soaked with Israeli blood. Yet, defying common sense, the land prospers. Whether one walks the streets of gritty Sderot, of unassuming Ashkelon, of spiritual Jerusalem, or the seaside promenade of Tel Aviv full of bodies sculpted to perfection, or whether one travels on a train crowded with young soldiers with machine guns slung over their shoulders, riding back to their bases after having spent Shabbat with family, the impression emanating from the Israeli society is that of confident, steadfast survival against all odds, in its own land. And here, making the comparison between the life in Israel and the uncertainty of the future in the Diaspora is inescapable. Judging on how much French can be heard spoken on the Israeli street these days, many Jews from Western Europe have already made that comparison, and arrived at a conclusion. With antisemitism now mainstreamed in the American society, it is not unlikely that before long, American Jews will also be faced with a decision of whether to remain or whether to leave for the country that has been created and exists for people like them.