There are moments in history when a people must stop arguing with reality.
Tisha B’Av, July 24, on Amsterdam Avenue on New York’s Upper West Side was one of them. The knife Raul Morales plunged into the back of Moshe Grunhaus, for no reason other than he was a Jew leaving a synagogue, was one of these moments.
Morales’s kitchen knife punctured more than Grunhaus’s back; it punctured the delusion of American exceptionalism that gave American Jewry a free pass to avoid the lachrymose fate of every diaspora community in the last 2,000 years. The stabbing, as Commentary editor John Podhoretz noted, hard by Barney Greengrass’s iconic deli appetizing store (“The Sturgeon King”) was smack dab in the middle of an upscale heavily Jewish neighborhood in broad daylight.
For months—and indeed, years—American Jews have argued over statistics, debated headlines, and reassured themselves that every new outrage is merely another isolated incident. We have become adept at contextualizing what we see: distinguishing between political rhetoric, online extremism and real-world violence, and often concluding—sometimes correctly, sometimes prematurely—that the broader picture remains stable.
At some point, however, even careful contextualization can become a form of avoidance.
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias tells of a once-mighty king whose empire appeared destined to last forever. “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” he proclaimed. Yet when the traveler arrives, there is nothing left but broken stone, half-buried beneath the sand.
The poem is not merely about a king, but about the arrogance of believing that history has ended.
No Diaspora ever seemed safer
For nearly a century, American Jews believed they had finally escaped the oldest law of Jewish history—that Jewish life in exile, however brilliant, however prosperous, however secure it appears, ultimately depends upon forces beyond Jewish control.
No Diaspora ever seemed safer.
No Diaspora ever appeared more successful.
No Diaspora ever seemed more permanent.
And perhaps none inspired greater confidence than America.
We built magnificent synagogues.
We built schools, universities, hospitals, charities, museums and cultural institutions.
We entered every profession.
We helped shape American law, medicine, finance, science, literature, entertainment and public life.
The American Jewish story became one of the greatest success stories in Jewish history. But even success stories can have sad endings.
And change rarely announces itself in a single dramatic rupture. More often, it accumulates in small, measurable shifts that only later appear obvious in retrospect.
A synagogue increases security not as an exception, but as a standing norm.
Jewish institutions in major cities report rising security costs, often supported by federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding, which itself has expanded in response to documented threats. (American Jewry now spends almost $1 billion annually on security!)
Parents debate whether visible Jewish symbols—kippahs, Stars of David, Hebrew-language identifiers—should be worn openly in certain public spaces.
On some university campuses, Jewish students have reported feeling socially isolated or pressured in environments where anti-Israel activism sometimes spills into rhetoric that makes them feel collectively implicated. Civil-liberties organizations and campus administrators have increasingly had to draw lines between protected political speech and harassment or intimidation.
In parts of Europe, similar patterns preceded more severe breakdowns in Jewish public confidence. The comparison is not exact, but it is instructive: in France, for example, the early 2000s saw a series of antisemitic attacks that led to heightened emigration concerns among French Jews, even as the state formally reaffirmed protections.
The collapse of assumptions
None of these developments, taken individually, defines an era. Together, they raise a question that responsible observers cannot ignore: What happens when a community begins to adjust its behavior—not because of law, but because of perceived social risk?
History rarely repeats itself exactly. But it rhymes often enough that Jews, of all people, should listen carefully.
Ernest Hemingway famously wrote that bankruptcy happens “gradually, then suddenly.”
So, too, can the collapse of assumptions.
For generations, American Jews assumed that antisemitism occupied only the political fringe. That assumption was not baseless: for much of the postwar period, antisemitic expression was widely stigmatized in mainstream American life, and Jewish integration into civic, professional, and cultural institutions reached unprecedented levels.
But in recent years, surveys by organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League have documented a rise in reported antisemitic incidents in the United States, including harassment, vandalism and murder of Jews. At the same time, public discourse around Israel has become more polarized, particularly in digital spaces and on some campuses.
Here, precision matters.
Criticism of Israeli government policy is not antisemitism. It is a legitimate and often necessary feature of democratic debate, both within Israel and globally. But when a sitting vice president accuses Israel in a podcast of surreptitiously pushing America into war for nefarious reasons, a Rubicon has been crossed.
And when criticism crosses into holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the Israeli state or when Jewish identity itself is treated as inherently suspect because of perceived political associations, the line into antisemitism is crossed. That distinction is not semantic; it is essential. And it is precisely in moments of political heat that such distinctions are most easily blurred.
This is not a counsel of despair. Nor is it a prediction that America is destined to become what Europe became in its darkest chapters.
The United States remains a nation with strong constitutional protections, a deep tradition of pluralism and millions of citizens who actively reject prejudice in all its forms. Jewish life in America remains vibrant, influential and deeply embedded in the country’s civic fabric.
Still, as Jews have learned over 2,000 years, it is dangerous to mistake present comfort for permanent security. There comes a point when a community must stop asking whether every warning sign, taken alone, is sufficient to justify concern. The concern already exists.
The real question is what responsible leadership requires in response.
History is always moving
For decades, the central question confronting American Jewish organizations was: How do we stop antisemitism? That struggle must continue, through education, coalition-building, legal advocacy and public engagement.
But another question has become equally urgent: How do we prepare if increasing numbers of American Jews conclude that their future lies elsewhere?
The answer begins with a simple recognition.
Israel was not created merely as another Jewish community. It was created as the one place on earth where the Jewish people would always possess sovereignty over their own destiny.
Perhaps we are witnessing the beginning of another great migration in Jewish history. Perhaps not. No one can know.
But responsible leaders prepare for possibilities before they become necessities. And that preparation should begin now.
Israel should be asking how to welcome larger numbers of American olim with efficiency, dignity and vision.
Can licensing barriers be reduced? Can housing become more attainable in a country struggling with affordability constraints? Can Hebrew education expand in ways that support integration without erasing cultural identity? Can professional sectors better recognize and absorb American-trained talent? Can philanthropists, Jewish organizations and the Israeli government coordinate more effectively to ensure that aliyah is not only ideologically supported, but practically feasible?
These are not questions of ideology but of national strategy.
The State of Israel has spent generations gathering exiles from Yemen, Ethiopia, Morocco, the former Soviet Union, France, Argentina, Ukraine and dozens of other countries—each wave shaped by its own mix of persecution, opportunity and historical contingency.
If the next significant wave comes from North America, Israel should be ready—not because departure is inevitable, but because preparedness is responsible statecraft.
History has a center of gravity. For centuries, it rested in Babylon. Then Spain. Then Eastern Europe.
Then, for a remarkable chapter, America became the greatest Diaspora Jewish civilization the world had ever known.
But history moves; it always has.
Whether one views that movement through geopolitics, demography or religious-historical interpretation, one fact is beyond dispute: Israel today is home to the world’s largest Jewish population, and its centrality in Jewish life continues to grow.
Shelley’s Ozymandias reminds us that even the most extraordinary human achievements are not immune to time.
The question is not whether American Jewry has accomplished extraordinary things. It has. The question is whether extraordinary accomplishments exempt any Diaspora from historical change. They do not.
Our responsibility, therefore, is not to surrender to fear. Nor is it to dismiss legitimate anxiety as hysteria or to treat every concern as existential collapse.
Our responsibility is to think clearly and to strengthen Jewish life wherever Jews choose to live. To confront antisemitism wherever it appears, while preserving the crucial distinction between political disagreement and prejudice. And to ensure that every Jew who concludes that his or her future belongs in the Jewish homeland can make that journey without unnecessary obstacles.
If this is indeed the twilight of the golden age of American Jewry, then let history remember that we did not spend the sunset arguing over whether the sun was setting. We spent it preparing for the dawn.
