The requirement to address levels of hostility toward Jews in our society today is evidently urgent. Still within living memory of the Holocaust, people have been proudly demonstrating their brazen antisemitic vitriol in our streets virtually unchallenged since October 7, 2023. Nothing has brought people together more, than the greatest massacre of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust.
How can we react to this?
The Community Security Trust documented 4,103 anti-Jewish hate incidents across the United Kingdom in 2023 – an average of over 11 incidents per day, the highest ever on record. As the sturdiest organization protecting Jewish life in Britain, the CST has strengthened greatly since that day, but this isn’t enough.
In times like these, with no sign of a reduction in the aggression – in fact, arguably the opposite – Jews must take a stand as individuals to bolster the community as a whole, and hope to secure the future of Jewish communities outside of Israel. This concept had been taken for granted by our long-privileged constituency.
The frequency of anti-Jewish hate crimes was already increasing markedly even before October 7, with the war against Hamas in Gaza simply being used as an excuse to further increase hostility against Israel and Jews and win over public opinion.
The fact that hostility often begins by being against the Jews is seemingly only evident to us, although it is Judeo-Christian values in general that are now under immense threat. We have witnessed university campus vandalism, public flag burning, calls for the destruction of Western society, and the swift and popular return of the age-old antisemitic tropes of baby killing and government control. All of this has come about as a result of complacency.
When discussing the situation for Jews outside of Israel, I often hear that “it’s not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’” a large-scale attack on our community will occur. The concerning reality is that despite many sharing this frightening outlook, the majority of Jews have continued to go about their everyday lives.
This is no longer an option.
The luxury of complacency
WE NO longer have the luxury of complacency, as human beings, as Westerners, and certainly not as Jews. Since 1948, the State of Israel has understood this harsh reality. There is no option for weakness, comfort, or complacency for the Jewish people.
In the lead-up to October 7, this fact appeared to have been forgotten, and immense complacency combined with internal political divisions were interpreted as weakness by the world – which includes our enemies big and small.
On Israel’s first Independence Day in 1948, thousands of Holocaust survivors immediately picked up arms to defend their ancestral homeland. These individuals understood immense weakness better than anyone, and the consequences of complacency in the presence of evil. Though many were the sole survivors of their families after the Holocaust, the requirement for fortitude must have greatly outweighed their feelings of despair.
Although less obvious and still possible to hide from, Jews across the Diaspora are facing this very same issue today. We are presented with blatant and passionate hate for our very existence, which is something we cannot and must not ignore.
In the words of G. Michael Hopf: “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”
Our “Greatest Generation,” born between 1901 and 1927, battled through the hardest of times to save Europe during World War II and liberate the ancestral Jewish homeland after millennia of subjugation and exile.
Following this, Westerners and Jewish communities stretching from Europe to the United States have been living immensely privileged lifestyles and experiencing decades of unnatural levels of comfort, security, and luxury. One-tap online purchases, goose-feather coats, one-day deliveries, and 30-second TikToks have changed the very fabric of our brain chemistry, and of civilization itself. Western society had become weak and complacent.
Now, with difficult living conditions and costs rapidly increasing for everyone – from the UK to Australia, Belgium to Canada, and Germany to the US – the decline is evident. Therefore, we as Jews should already know what to expect, and arguably, keep our bags half-packed.
WEAK INDIVIDUALS look for a scapegoat when they find themselves in dire situations, and who better to blame than the disproportionately successful Jewish people – some of whom may live lives somewhat distanced from secular society as a whole. When humans are at their most desperate is when they can be at their most evil, notably in pre-WWII Germany.
So I ask again, how can we react to this?
If we want to remain in Britain – or in any other Western society for that matter – we must strengthen ourselves as individuals, or prepare to leave.
As former Israeli premier Menachem Begin told then-senator Joe Biden in 1982, when threatened with the withdrawal of American aid to Israel, “I am not a Jew with trembling knees.”
The leader of the Jewish state stood up to a threat from the greatest superpower and the leader of the free world. That was a true demonstration of strength. The only alternative is to bow our heads to those who threaten us, agree to negotiate with the devil, and bend a knee to our oppressors, at home and in the Diaspora.
Now is the time to consider our future. We cannot continue as we are, but for many, leaving does not feel like an option.
Regardless, individual strength and resilience is essential, and as Jewish people we cannot and must not continue with our false perception of security and normality.
“Peace through strength” is an important model to understand, one which Israel and its Western allies endeavor to employ. As individuals, there are lessons we can understand from this: Your kind nature can only take you as far as your next encounter with evil, then your absence of strength will become alarmingly evident.
The priority for Jewish people in the Diaspora should be strength and formidability, mental and physical – and to deeply consider making aliyah, as the embodiment of Jewish strength and resistance lies within Israel.
After all, Israel does not exist because the Holocaust happened; the Holocaust happened because Israel did not exist.
Out of concern for his personal safety, the writer has altered his name in public communications. He is a real-estate consultant who teaches self-defense and has invested much of his time since October 7 in community leadership and social media activism. Follow him @sammyahood on Instagram.