Has the Heat of Anti-Semitism Around the World Become Too Hot?

By Gabriel Groisman/JNS.org

The stinging heat of anti-Semitism is being felt, yet again, around the world. Whether you live in Miami, Rome or Santiago, the goosebumps we all got when we heard the chants of the white supremacists in Charlottesville—“Jews will not replace us”—are the same.  

The lump in my throat when I learned that the pedestrians who were mowed down in Barcelona Aug. 17 were standing outside two kosher restaurants is the same feeling felt by Jews in Brussels, Sydney and Toronto. These feelings remind me of Robert De Niro’s character in the 1995 movie, “Heat.” De Niro’s character famously says that you have to be ready to drop everything and go, in 30 seconds, if you feel the heat coming around the corner. With the heat index of anti-Semitism on the rise, we must ask: Is it time for Jews to drop everything and move to the Jewish homeland, Israel? 

In 2015, then-Vice President Joe Biden said the only country in the world that can guarantee the safety of the Jewish people is Israel. Biden received a lot of criticism for that comment. American Jews felt slighted and concerned. Yet I believe he was absolutely correct. As Biden said, “No matter how hospitable, no matter how consequential, no matter how engaged, no matter how deeply involved you are in the United States…there’s only one guarantee. There is really only one absolute guarantee, and that’s the state of Israel.”  

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