The End of the Diaspora? While governments pay lip service to fighting antisemitism, acts of Jew-hatred multiply daily and are rapidly normalizing.

By Michael Oren

Speaking at pro-Israel events around the world for nearly fifty years, I rarely receive a question I haven’t heard a hundred times. But at a recent conference of American Jewish donors, someone asked me a question that was utterly and terrifyingly unique. “Do you think Jews have a future in the United States?”

We must emphasize Jewish peoplehood rather than strictly Halachic criteria for establishing Jewish identity, thus opening our doors to the greatest possible number of Diaspora Jews

Only a few years ago, that question would have been unthinkable to most American Jews, much less asked out loud. Yet now, every person in my audience agreed that the answer may well be “Tragically, American Jewry is doomed.”

That is certainly the case for many Diaspora communities where the future for Jews looks bleak. During my last visits to Canada and Australia, and in my many conversations with British Jews, I heard repeatedly how the situation for Jews in those countries has become intolerable and will only get worse. While governments pay lip service to fighting antisemitism, acts of Jew-hatred multiply daily and are rapidly normalizing. The brutal stabbing of two Jews in London, and even the massacre of Jews on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, are no longer aberrations. Rather than discourage antisemites, such atrocities spur them to commit more.

In America, meanwhile, synagogues and Jewish community centers are resembling fortresses with armed guards positioned at their entrances. Soon they’ll look like their European counterparts with soldiers and armored vehicles outside. Jewish parents increasingly fear sending their children to Jewish schools and summer camps or participating in family religious services. Wearing visible signs of Jewishness–kipot, Stars of David–has become hazardous.

Clearly, we are witnessing a profound and most likely irreversible change in Diaspora Jewish life. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in the fight against antisemitism, yet the hatred keeps metastasizing. Soon, Diaspora Jews will have to decide just how much harassment and physical threat they are willing to endure, and whether being an identified, practicing Jew is worth the risk. In time, even thoroughly assimilated Jews may also be targeted. Many Diaspora Jews will determine not to let the antisemites win and continue the fight in their host countries. Whether they can win or not remains to be seen. Others will decide to make aliyah.

For Israel, skyrocketing antisemitism has many ramifications, negative and positive both. In the diplomatic and strategic sphere, the rise of Jew haters to positions of power could prove deleterious to our foreign relations and even our ability to defend ourselves. The danger of boycotts and sanctions could grow. At the same time, the loss of Diaspora Jewry’s financial and political support would be sorely missed by Israel. Zionist orthodoxy might insist on the ingathering of all the exiles, but in reality, Israel has always relied on a strong and pro-active Diaspora.

Now, nearly eighty years after our founding, we must learn to stand much more on our own two feet. On the positive side, Israel could once again be the destination for mass aliyah. Warmly welcomed and effectively absorbed, waves of new immigrants could settle the Negev and the Golan Heights. Once hoped to be the answer to the demographic challenge of Israeli Arabs, mass aliyah could now be the answer to the demographic challenge of the Haredim.

Israel must be prepared. Having failed to attract the majority of refugees from antisemitism in France—most moved to Canada, Britain, and the United States—Israel must actively encourage aliyah, remove the red tape and bureaucracy from the absorption process, and plan for large-scale resettlement. We must emphasize Jewish peoplehood rather than strictly Halachic criteria for establishing Jewish identity, thus opening our doors to the greatest possible number of Diaspora Jews. In this direction, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s support for civil marriage in Israel was a significant step.

After receiving that question about the future of American Jews, I took a breath and spoke about how the world was reverting to the antisemitic form known to our ancestors. Many learned to live with that hatred, I recalled, but a great many others paid with their lives. Others presciently immigrated to the Land of Israel, where their descendants are today proud Jews capable and willing to defend themselves. It’s a lesson that the Jewish people, both in Israel and the Diaspora, must robustly remember today.