In 1290, King Edward I of England, acting on a prior false allegation by an apostate Jew, ordered all Jews expelled from his kingdom, an edict that stood for over 350 years, until they were quietly allowed back by Oliver Cromwell, thanks to the efforts of Menasseh ben Israel.
Such allegations weren’t uncommon during the Middle Ages. For example, a similar charge leveled against the Talmud by another apostate led to the public burning of hundreds of volumes of the Talmud in Paris. (In that instance, what I believe to be retribution occurred in the form of a fire in 2019 that substantially damaged Notre Dame Cathedral. G-d’s patience is infinitely greater than ours.) Expulsion from France followed in 1306.
Think such an expulsion couldn’t occur again in our enlightened modern era? Think again. Writing on HotAir.com, David Strom observes, “Soon enough, it will be illegal to be Jewish in the United Kingdom,” while a new survey published by the Campaign Against Antisemitism found that only a third of British Jews believe that they have a long-term future in the U.K., and half have considered leaving the country over the past two years because of antisemitism. The same could be said about France and most of Europe, with few exceptions.
What is different today is that the expulsions will be not by government edicts, which could be appealed in court, but, with government and public cooperation, through violence, termination of employment, boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses, bans on attending public events, and so on – in other words, social pressure.
This time, the supposed trigger is the Gaza war. It is undeniably the case that while Israel may have won on the ground, Hamas has won the larger propaganda war, so that most of the world, including a steadily increasing percentage of Americans, especially the younger cohorts, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z believe that it is Israel, not Hamas, that is committing genocide.
As examples of how far Jew-hatred is going global, fueled by the descendants of Yishmael, consider the following:
- In Birmingham, England, on the recommendation of Birmingham’s Safety Advisory Group, and purportedly in consultation with civic groups, the police banned Israeli fans from attending the November 6 soccer match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Aston Villa. Their justification was that a year ago, on November 7, 2024, during a match in Amsterdam between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax, Amsterdam’s team, scores of Muslim men roamed the streets beating up anyone who appeared to be Israeli or Jewish. British politicians, led by Birmingham’s virulently antisemitic MP, Ayoub Khan, blamed the Jewish fans because their very presence was a “substantial provocation.” The decision was so outrageous that even British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, whom I refer to as Stϋrmer for his appeasing of Islamonazis, found it excessive and said he would fight it. London’s Muslim Mayor, Sadiq Khan, isn’t helping the situation when he says that whether the phrase “From the river to the sea” is antisemitic or not depends on context, the same line taken by presidents of elite American universities.
- A Jewish lawyer monitoring pro-Palestinian demonstrators in London was arrested by police, who claimed his wearing a Star of David less than one inch in size was antagonizing and agitating the demonstrators. The man was handcuffed with his hands behind his back and taken to a police station for hours of intensive questioning before being released at 4:30 a.m. His lawyer asserted that the police were trying to criminalize wearing a Star of David.
- A Jewish film festival in Malmö, Sweden, a city with a large Muslim population, was cancelled over “security concerns.”
- Israeli gymnasts were denied visas to compete in the World Artistic Gymnastics Competition held in predominantly Muslim Indonesia, with the International Olympic Committee making no effort to intervene, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling against an appeal by the Israeli Gymnastics Federation.
- In July, the Spanish airline Vueling forcibly removed a group of 44 French youth and 8 adults who were returning to Paris from a summer camp in Spain. (Vueling representatives accused the teens and their counselors of being disruptive; the campers and their minders countered that they did nothing wrong and were removed after singing Jewish songs.) Following the incident, Spain’s Transportation Minister, Oscar Puente, called the French Jews “Israeli brats.”
- In August, when 150 Israeli children who were attending a Spanish summer camp arrived at Tyrovol, a popular outdoor adventure park in France’s Pyrenees region, near the Spanish border, the manager promptly informed them that he was closing the entire park. Florian Sollac claimed the reason was an unplanned safety inspection, but French police arrested him for “refusal to provide service or conduct business based on religious discrimination.” [Note: Spain’s socialist government has expressed a desire to destroy Israel.]
- Israelis and Jews have been refused service in restaurants and bars in numerous countries, including here in America, where a restaurant in Oakland, California twice refused to serve visibly Jewish customers, a violation of the public accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Venues in Chicago, Santa Fe, and Tucson pronounced it was “too dangerous” to present concerts by American Jewish singer Matisyahu.
In the words of Dr. Yvette Alt Miller, writing at aish.com, “Jewish presence itself is framed as a provocation, and Jewish participation in civic, cultural, or sporting life is now contingent on the goodwill of those who might be ‘offended.’ …The world is testing whether Jews will quietly accept exclusion as the new normal.”
Arguably the most frightening development was a combined car-ramming and knife-wielding attack on a synagogue in Manchester, England on Yom Kippur, which killed two and wounded four others. The attack was carried out by a British citizen of Syrian descent out on bail after being arrested on suspicion of rape. Meanwhile, in September, a man shouting “Free Palestine” recently opened fire at a Saturday night wedding reception at a country club in Nashua, New Hampshire. killing one person and wounding an undisclosed number of others.
The bottom line is that I have felt for some time that the downfall of Western civilization, especially the U.S.A., is, in the language of geometry, a necessary but not sufficient condition for the coming of Moshiach, in the expectation that it would take such a cataclysmic event to persuade American Jews to make aliyah en masse.
But don’t just take my word for it. Rabbi Josh Wander of the Geula Movement, writing at The Jewish Edition, cites the Gemara (Sanhedrin 97b) that if Israel refuses to repent, Hashem will place over us “a king as harsh as Haman” to compel our teshuvah (he incidentally notes the similarity between “Mamdani” and “Hamandani”). Wander goes on to note that “the Midrash (Pesikta Rabbati 36) describes in vivid detail a time when Persia [now known as Iran] will rise against Arabia, Arabia will turn to Edom (the West) for counsel, and Persia will ultimately bring destruction to the world,” and extends the Purim analogy to characterize President Trump as a latter-day King Achashveirosh, “easily swayed, weak in character, manipulated by advisors…who neither understands nor truly cares for the Jewish people.” He concludes that Diaspora Jews need to return to Israel willingly or be driven out.
There is one practical issue to consider – namely, housing. I’ve read the ad in The Jewish Press about homes for sale in Ramat Beit Shemesh with prices starting at $649,000 (about 2 million NIS, I believe) and another one about an exploratory trip concerning aliyah for families with children under 18. From these and other sources, I believe it’s reasonable to infer that Israel’s main priorities for evacuating American Jews would be families with young children, Torah scholars of course, and those fortunate enough to be able to pay 2-3 million NIS for a well-situated apartment, while the rest of us would have to settle for a small three-room flat in Beersheva, or possibly even being left behind like Dora Bloch in the rescue at Entebbe.
Of course, we could sit back and await Divine assistance, but the way things normally work is that we’re expected to make the initial effort, called hishtadlus, and once we’ve done all we can, G-d does the rest. While we’re waiting, remember dairyman Tevye’s philosophy as expressed in the song “When Messiah Comes” from Fiddler on the Roof: “So be patient and devout, and gather up your things and get thee out.”