The Jews will survive; I hope America does too

Zayde, in whose presence I spent my entire childhood and merited to study with each Shabbos (Saturday), escaped as a young boy of twelve from Siedlce, Poland and with G-d’s grace survived, never seeing his family again. His parents, my great-grandparents, were Shmuel Zanvil and Menucha Kraindel and his six siblings, my great uncles and aunts, were Chana, Leah, Tzvi Hirsh, Chaim, Yaakov and Yosef were all snuffed out. Chana, the eldest of the kids, was engaged to be married and the only surviving photo of Zayde’s family is one of Chana and her fiancé.

One Shabbos morning, as we walked together to the grand synagogue on Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway, he told me that though he loathed the Nazis, he felt more anger toward the Poles, his neighbors, the parents of the kids with whom he played soccer after school each day, as they turned their back on their fellow citizens, without thinking twice. Sure, there were righteous non-Jews who helped save many Jews, they are honored at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, but the vast majority were silent at best, and complicit at worst.

Zayde fled Poland through Lithuania, Russia, Japan and China, and in 1946 finally made it to America. In 1949 he married my Bubbe, grandma, Esther, and they had four children, close to 30 grandchildren, and over one hundred descendants. They lived life with joy, thanking G-d every day for the blessings of these United States. Zayde believed in America, and never once did it cross his mind that Nazi-like hatred could reach our beloved shores.

Yet, since Oct. 7, for the first time in my life, I am pondering whether America is still a home for Jews. We are blessed to live in Montana where people are kind, leadership is decisive, and the concept of real neighbors still exists, but when looking around the country, I wonder what America’s future will look like.

Make no mistake, while it’s the Jews who are currently under assault, we will survive, we always do. Hamas and their sympathizers in Europe, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Ireland and on many American college campuses are out for Jewish blood, but it doesn’t scare me, it doesn’t scare us, because we have the gift of Eternity bestowed upon us by God. We survived the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Medians, Romans, Greeks, Byzantines, Spaniards, Cossacks, Nazis and many more former, presently “nonexistent”, nations. We’ve overcome massacres and expulsions, blood libels and ghettos, the holocaust and suicide bombers; We hurt, we cry, we mourn, we pray, and we get back up and march forward.

Yet, America must look inward and ask itself whether it can survive as a free nation, when a segment of its citizens believes that Hamas are the good guys, referring to them as “resistance fighters”; think that Jihad is hip, as they proclaim, “Globalize the Intifada”; deliberately attack, demonize, and torment any Israel-loving Jew. Take one look at London and Paris, peek at Berlin and Brussels, explore Columbia and Harvard, and ask yourself if that’s the type of place you’d like to call home? Will it be a home for your children and grandchildren? Will it be safer for Jews in Dubai and Moscow than at Princeton and UCLA? If Americans don’t choose life, choosing instead to stand with the baby butchers or remain silent as they are celebrated, then please refrain from complaining later when the America you knew and loved, the America that believed in religious and personal freedom, the America that celebrated the Constitution, is gone forever.