Being Proudly Jewish In Exile Is Stupid And Dangerous. It Is Also Un-Jewish.

Jews should stop trying to force their exilic hosts to accept them and get ready to move back home to Israel

Many countries and other jurisdictions throughout history have expressed the desire to be Jew-free. In fact, this was the rule. Countries that welcomed Jews were the rare exception. For a few decades after the Jewish genocide known as the Holocaust, this trend, at least in the West, has been almost entirely reversed. Now, we are returning to the historical baseline.

Infused with rabidly anti-Semitic Muslim migrants and feeling the initial stages of the allergic response to that elite-enforced infusion in the form of rising white nationalism with its prerequisite Jew hatred, countries from Sweden to Germany, from England to America are becoming dangerous to Jews. Of course, Jews don’t really have horns, so while all are in danger, those who externalize their nationality by wearing religious markers such as kippot (yarmulkes) or Star of David pendants put themselves at an increased level of risk.

The German official in charge of battling anti-Semitism came under fire recently when he suggested that Jews should avoid wearing such identifying markers in public because the German state could not guarantee their safety. Many exilic Jews ventured out, not on the streets, mind you, but online and from the safety of their own living rooms expressed the vacuous opinion that Jews should proudly wear their identity markers no matter what.

There could be no dumber and both historically and halachically false advice. Existence in exile is, in and of itself, a humiliation and especially so when a free and independent Jewish homeland exists in which all Jews are welcome. The only place where Jews can be “proud” is there, in Israel. the fact that about half of our nation, including me, chooses convenience over pride in our identity is beside the point.

Historically, Jews, when made to feel unwelcome in place A simply relocated to place B. This is how Jews left the murderous Western Europe during the crusades and settled in the wilder and slightly more welcoming Eastern Europe. When that became a death trap, many Jews chose to relocate once again, this time to Palestine and to America or Canada. Those who didn’t were mostly exterminated by the Nazis and their willing accomplices among the nations of Eastern Europe.

From the perspective of Jewish law, one’s life is sacred and only a few things such as forced conversion are worth giving it up for. Walking the streets of Muslim Malmo, Sweden, wearing a kippah is not proud, it’s stupid and sinful. If wearing a kippah is an integral part of your identity, do as the Jews have always done: move.

The idea that we as Jews are going to change our exilic hosts is arrogant, misguided, and dangerous. When you are crashing on your cousin’s sofa, you best not overstay your welcome, let alone start rearranging their furniture, lest you find yourself out on the street.

Jewish keyboard warriors who from behind their desks in secure neighborhoods encourage other Jews to risk their lives and their wellbeing for the sake of the fool’s errand that is proud Jewish existence in exile had better cease and desist before they have blood on their hands.