To be honest, I have to acknowledge a certain prejudice: I find it quite perplexing that there are Jews in Europe at all, that there are Jews living there willingly just 70 years after the Holocaust. So I have to write carefully about the Jews of Europe, knowing that I find them difficult to understand.
I do understand that from a certain European viewpoint, Jewish and non-Jewish, the call for European Jews to abandon their culture, their homelands, their neighbors and their communities and to flee is Israeli chutzpah. It is also a devastating call for surrender. What I wrote a month ago about Israel and the Jews of France remains true today for the Jews of Denmark: “A government that never misses an opportunity to lecture the Western world about the pitfalls of surrendering to terrorism is proposing exactly that — surrender — to the Jews of France.”
The murder of a synagogue guard in Copenhagen, the vandalizing of Jewish graves in France and the ugly comments made by a very senior former French Minister — a Foreign Minister — all these have reheated the debate (that never truly had a chance to cool down) about the future of Europe’s Jews.
Following these events, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said — not for the first time, but his formulation of this message seems to be getting a little bit bolder after every new incident — that “Jews have been murdered again on European soil only because they were Jews. … I would like to tell all European Jews and all Jews wherever they are: Israel is the home of every Jew.”
Of course, Netanyahu is factually wrong. Israel is not the home of every Jew — Denmark is the home of some Jews, and so is France. But when Jews in Europe feel uncomfortable with Netanyahu’s calls for aliyah, it is not because of any factual errors — it is because of the way such calls frame their choices and their loyalties. Those who want to stay in Europe have no desire to be seen by their neighbors as temporary dwellers. They have no desire to be looked at suspiciously — as if their loyalty is split between two countries. Simply put: Israel’s attempt at rescuing them is endangering them even further. So some of them are disappointed by Israel’s conduct, and some are even angry.
“Terror is not a reason to move to Israel,” Jair Melchior, Denmark’s chief rabbi, told the Associated Press, adding he was “disappointed” by Netanyahu’s comment. Of course, he is entitled to feel disappointed. But, like Netanyahu, Melchior is also factually wrong: Terror is a reason to move to Israel and always has been a reason. In fact, Israel was established for this exact reason — to be a safe haven for Jews from European terror. Surely, it’s not a place in which there is no terror — Israel cannot claim with a straight face to be a terror-free zone for Jews. But it can easily claim to be the only place in which Jews don’t have to rely on the protection of the likes of former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas.
Melchior’s comment caught my eye because it is representative of a relatively new misconception about Israel’s true nature. Jews who no longer feel threatened (because they live in the United States), or do not want to let threats be a definitive fact in their lives (because they live in Europe), or don’t want to feel that they are forced to live in a Jewish shelter (because they live in Israel) prefer to look at Israel as a land of choice. Not a safe haven in the brutal sense that ignited Israel’s establishment, but rather one optional Jewish haven out of many.
Israel — to follow such a perception — is one of many fine alternatives in a marketplace of Jewish existences. It is more comfortable for Diaspora Jews to feel that way — because this perception diminishes the centrality of Israel as a player in the Jewish world. And it is more comfortable for Israeli Jews to feel that way, too — because it turns Israel from a gloomy fortress of Jews to a shiny beacon for Jews.
Yet what we’ve seen in Europe in recent months crashes this rosy perception. It is a stark reminder that Israel is still the only place in which Jews have some control over their future, and is a stark reminder that the question of the safety of Jews — the naked, brutal question of the physical safety of Jews — is still a highly significant one.
So, of course, one could still argue that for the Jews of Denmark it would be a wiser choice to rely on the protection of the Danish government, and for the Jews of France and Belgium to rely on the protection of their own respective governments. And, one could still reject Israel’s calls for aliyah while claiming that Israel is not exactly safe for Jews — not necessarily safer than other places.
These are tactical questions of threat assessment. Netanyahu believes that in the long term Israel is the safer place; other Jews might have a different view. But these tactical questions should not distract us from the ugly truth that was recently brought to the fore in Europe.
Yes, it would be great for Jews to want to come to Israel not because of terror, but rather because it is a great place to live. And it would be great for Jews to have as many havens as they possibly can. And it would be great to have an Israel that only needs to be a beacon and doesn’t need to be a fortress for Jews. But, sadly, we are not there yet.
