The antisemites came for Israelis.
They relentlessly attacked the lone democracy in the Middle East and the realization of a 3,500-year-old vision, with the aim of its destruction. No sovereignty allowed for nearly seven million Jews!
They attacked Israelis at home and abroad through rockets and missiles, tunnels, kidnappings, plane hijackings, bus bombings, incendiary balloons, and embassy assaults. Meanwhile, their supporters and enablers added on 24/7 demonization, delegitimization, flotillas, BDS campaigns, and legal maneuvers.
But, hey, I wasn’t Israeli, so it didn’t really touch me.
For decades, they repressed millions of Soviet Jews.
They identified those Jews by internal Soviet passports that declared a person’s nationality based on the nationality of the parents — and, since the days of Stalin, Jews were officially deemed a nationality. No escape from that. Through scapegoating and vilification, they made life impossibly difficult for Jews when it came to education, jobs, street life, and more. And they sought to ensure that Jews had no access to accurate information about Judaism, Jewish history and tradition, Hebrew language, or Israel — in other words, cultural genocide.
But, hey, I wasn’t a Soviet Jew, so it didn’t really touch me.
They made life tough for Ethiopian Jews.
Frequently the targets of persecution and discrimination, Ethiopian Jews, one of the world’s most ancient communities, lived in constant fear of their non-Jewish neighbors, to the point that thousands died while seeking to escape on foot to neighboring Sudan — and eventually found refuge in Israel at the center of their millennia-long prayers.
But, hey, I wasn’t an Ethiopian Jew, so it didn’t really touch me.
They emptied most Arab countries of their Jewish communities.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews, who had lived for centuries in what are today Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, all fled hatred, deadly mobs, and unending persecution. Only small communities remained in Morocco and Tunisia. And the Jewish populations in neighboring Iran and Turkey declined dramatically, while in Afghanistan the Jews are no more.
But, hey, I wasn’t a Mizrahi or Sephardic Jew, so it didn’t really touch me.
Beginning just over 20 years ago, the antisemites re-emerged with a vengeance in Europe.
Jews were targeted and killed in Paris, Toulouse, Brussels, Burgas, and Copenhagen. Synagogues and cemeteries were assaulted and desecrated. Jews became, once again, the targets of outlandish conspiracy theories. Anti-Israel protesters went into the streets of European cities waving the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah, genocidal terrorist groups. Some public schools became impossible for Jewish children to attend. A number of Jews, especially in France, had to change neighborhoods because of threats. Thousands of Jews made aliyah.
But, hey, I wasn’t a European Jew, so it didn’t really touch me.
From Matzav.com, here.