The wall I never forgot

“HAGA PATRIA, MATE A UN JUDÍO.”
“Be a patriot, kill a Jew.”

I was a child in Buenos Aires when I first saw those words.

They were painted in enormous letters on the corner of a building. Next to them was the drawing of a gallows.

I was still in elementary school.

I do not remember exactly how old I was, but I remember perfectly what I felt.

Until that moment, I knew I was Jewish. What I had not understood was that, for some people, that made me different.

And worse: that there were people who hated me without knowing me, simply because I was a Jew.

That image stayed with me.

It was not the only one.

My childhood and adolescence in Argentina were marked by antisemitic incidents and threats.

Jewish schools, clubs and synagogues needed protection simply because they were Jewish.

As I grew older, I went from seeing those guards as a child to joining other young Jews in helping protect our own community.

Being Jewish was something I was deeply proud of. But from an early age, I also understood that it could make us a target.

Years passed. I built my life, raised a family and remained deeply connected to Jewish communal life.

I would later live through two devastating terrorist attacks in Buenos Aires: the bombing of the Israeli Embassy and, two years later, the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center.

At the age of 47, just one week before the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers, I made aliyah.

I came to Israel with my wife, my daughter, my mother, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law and even our dog.

We did not simply change countries.

For me, we came home.

I am not religious. My connection to Israel does not come from religious observance. It comes from something much more difficult to explain: the feeling of belonging to thousands of years of Jewish history concentrated in this tiny piece of land.

Israel is far from perfect. We argue constantly about politics, religion, the government and almost everything else imaginable.

But there is something fundamentally different about living here as a Jew.

Here, being Jewish does not make me a guest.

It does not make me a minority whose security ultimately depends on the goodwill of someone else.

Israel is a diverse and complicated society. But this is the place where the Jewish people are responsible for their own destiny.

That distinction matters to me more today than ever.

For many years, I wanted to believe that antisemitism was gradually becoming something from the past. There would always be extremists, of course, but I believed modern societies had learned the lessons of history.

I am no longer convinced.

Antisemitism does not always arrive wearing the same uniform. It changes its vocabulary and adapts itself to each generation. It can come from the extreme right or the extreme left, hide behind conspiracy theories or present itself as political activism.

But I recognize it.

Perhaps because I saw that wall in Buenos Aires when I was a child.

Perhaps that is why I have never taken Jewish security for granted.

A person can have a beautiful home, a successful career, good neighbors and complete confidence that the country where he lives will always protect him.

History teaches us to be careful with the word always.

I am not writing this out of fear, and I am not asking anyone to feel sorry for Jews.

I am writing because I believe Jews in the Diaspora should ask themselves questions that are uncomfortable precisely when life is comfortable.

How quickly can acceptance turn into hostility?

And how long should we wait before recognizing that something has changed?

I already made my decision.

Israel became my home.

This is where my family lives. This is where my grandchildren are growing up. This is where I intend to remain.

I no longer need to ask myself where I belong.

But when I think about the long road that eventually brought me here, my mind does not go first to the day I arrived in Israel.

It goes back to Buenos Aires.

I see that little boy again, standing on a street corner, looking at those enormous words painted on a wall:

“HAGA PATRIA, MATE A UN JUDÍO.”

And next to them, a gallows.

That was the day I understood that I was different.

I could not have known it then, but perhaps that was also the day my journey to Israel began.

Decades later, that journey brought me home.