Please, My Jewish Friends: We Desperately Need You Here in America

The call to make Aliyah to the Promise Land makes so much sense and I can't fault those who follow it, but I urge you all to resist the call and bring your light to this dark, fallen land.

Dec 29, 2022

close-up of lighted candle — Photo by David Tomaseti on Unsplash

This post is the seventeenth in an ongoing series on antisemitism and culture. See the previous installments here, which I very much appreciate you checking out any you’ve missed or if you’re new to this series;

These writings are part of my ongoing effort to overcome my PTSD by forcing myself to try to write and publish something every day commenting on and analyzing current cultural affairs and their impacts on politics, faith, and, well, everything through my admittedly strange "Psychedelic Zionist” perspective. “Politics is downstream from culture,” the late Andrew Breitbart popularized among conservative bloggers while he was alive. I’d go a step further: Everything is downstream from culture. The cultures you embrace determine who you are and who you become. You become what you worship.

One substack writer I’ve come to especially appreciate is

Ehud Ur

who writes the

A Pisgah Site of Palestine

substack which de describes as “If I were to try to define my target audience, it would be non-Jews who have an interest in reading about the renewal of the Jewish people in Israel.” Ehud left some friendly comments on this recent post of mine in my ongoing series on antisemitism and culture:

God of the Desert Books

3 Hidden Weapons to Defend the Jewish State

This post is the fifteenth in an ongoing series on antisemitism and culture. See the previous installments here: What It Means When the Leader of the Republican Party Dines With THREE Antisemites What Causes Someone to Be an Antisemite? When & Why Conspiracy Theorists Sometimes Stumble Onto the Truth…

3 years ago · 1 like · 5 comments · David Swindle

So I thought it only fair and courteous to offer a few thoughts on Ehud’s recent essay on a subject I care about strongly. On December 2 he offered some worthwhile thoughts on antisemitism:

A Pisgah Site of Palestine

Antisemitism

This is not a post that I would have chosen freely to write. As I have stated elsewhere, my target audience is non-Jewish family and friends, and of course any Gentiles or Jews who might find my posts of interest. This audience, to which the term “decent” applies, but which never had to be said out loud because it was understood, is now facing something…

3 years ago · 1 like · 6 comments · Ehud Neor

Ehud lays out the severity of the problem and I hesitate to disagree with his scary assessment:

What they are facing is a moment or a place in time just before the appearance of critical-mass Antisemitism. This is the definition of an indecent time, of indecency itself, and it has the power to roll over entire peoples and lead to wholesale extermination of Jews, while being celebrated by all participants. I never believed that this moment could arrive in America, but here it is, in what was once the far corners of “left” and “right”, now infiltrating through the viral-like guise of Anti-Zionism, Anti-Colonialism, Anti-Westernism or Anti-Racism, what have you, into the mainstream discussion of the public square in the United States of America.

Ehud also has the courage to call out a form of antisemitism that does not get enough attention, its manifestation among many American Christians today:

Today, the worse you see from Christians is a simple and honest disappointment with Jews for stubbornly not believing in the Christian Messiah. But even then, if you look closely at those Christians, you see that they are even more disappointed with themselves for failing to convert the Jews. They will go back to their lay groups and pray for guidance on how to succeed the next time.

In meetings I’ve had with a Zionist foundation which once funded my research I warned them about this: the Christian fundamentalists of America may appear to be Jewish allies with their often loud support of Israel. I warned them that Christian fundamentalists '“support” toward Jews was more based in nationalism and not sincere, Bible-based love. The Christians wanted to convert Jews and saw the national rise of Israel in the context of a literalist misinterpretation of Revelation-based Biblical prophecy. Beware of them! They are not to be trusted.

Ehud prophecies a dark vision of antisemitism in America which while I do not entirely share yet, I certainly understand and can feel sympathy:

At some point, a critical mass of Antisemitism will be reached, and then it will be open season on Jews. They will be attacked in their homes and in the streets, and anywhere they might be found. It will not be your once-a-year turkey shoot-up of a synagogue by some random nut. This deadly turn will be sudden and overwhelming and incomprehensible to decent Gentiles.

Where I most part ways with Ehud is in his stark, somewhat disturbing conclusion:

There is only one, and that is that the Jews must immigrate to Israel, the one and only true safe haven for Jews. If they leave the US under duress, then decent Gentiles must do all in their power to mitigate their hardships and suffering. For example, by paying fair prices for homes and businesses left behind. Helping the Jews pack their belongings. Subsidizing Jews of little means. Israel can absorb them all, even on short notice. At this stage decent Gentiles will be able to hold off the Antisemites by convincing them that they have won, and that soon America will be rid of her Jews, so they do not need to kill them. Hallelujah! Happy days!

I don’t begrudge at all Jews who feel compelled to make Aliyah to Israel. I have deep respect for my friend P. David Hornik who made that choice years ago and whose books I’m excited to publish next year exploring these themes. I’ll further admit that for a time last year I felt so low and depressed by my emerging PTSD and my friends and family’s reaction to it that I contemplated moving to Israel, finding an amazing Jewish woman to love, and then embracing whatever family traditions she practiced whether they be orthodox, reform, or secular. Of course I ultimately did not make that choice and now am deeply grateful to have found my amazing fiancee

Sally Shideler

whose love and devotion is giving me a reason to live in spite of how overwhelming my symptoms are on a daily basis.

So I get it: moving to Israel makes a whole lot of sense for Jews around the world horrified by rising levels of antisemitism and wanting to connect more deeply with their culture and history. But I have to beg you all to reconsider for a reason that’s ultimately admittedly selfish on my part: Please don’t leave us, you all are the light of the world, brining your God to life wherever you go, and endlessly enriching the pagan cultures poisoning America and the rest of the world. We need you to stay.

The Jewish contribution to American culture and American morality are unique and endlessly valuable. Our country needs as many Jews as it can get to provide a light in the darkness of our modern day Babylon. Please don’t go - I will miss you all so much. You endlessly enrich my life ad so many others around you who you may not even know.

And besides, this is very much worth saying: moving to Israel will not protect you form antisemitism at all. You will still be very much a target by those motherfuckers in Hamas and that evil regime oppressing Iran and making Jewish genocide state policy, the Islamic Republic. As I’ve laid out in previous installments in this series, antisemitism is a natural expression of the primitive impulses innate in man and it is so deeply widespread across the world. Israel may be the greatest shield the Jewish people possess to defend against the next Holocaust, but the rockets are going to continue firing.

So please stay with us - we need your light in this darkness so dearly. Antisemitism cannot be escaped - it can only be militantly opposed by both Jews and your gentile allies who care.