Israeli demonstrators are seen through Israel's national flag during a protest against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to overhaul the judicial system, in Caesarea, Israel, March 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty) Israeli demonstrators are seen through Israel's national flag during a protest against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to overhaul the judicial system, in Caesarea, Israel, March 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty) “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” – John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I Israel has always been a nation that knew how to live inside a question. Not the question of whether we should exist – that was the world’s question, hurled at us for generations. Ours was harder: how to exist. How to be both ancient and modern, both sovereign and self-aware, both proud and just. How to build power without worshiping it. How to root a Jewish state in moral memory while navigating the brutal demands of survival. Vibrant surrealist interiors hide inside $1.3 million suburban Indianapolis home Ad Vibrant surrealist interiors hide inside $1.3 million suburban Indianapolis home Homes.com Learn more call to action icon We never answered that question. We lived it. We argued it. We passed it down like a treasured family heirloom, a sacred tension that defined our politics, our faith, our art, our resilience. We defended a homeland that sometimes defied us. A country where unity is always urgent but rarely achieved. Where the same streets that echo with prayers on Shabbat tremble with protests on Saturday night. Where faith can be both a source of strength and a tool of coercion. Where Arabs and Jews live side by side in quiet coexistence – until they don’t. We used to know how to live in that contradiction: how to mourn and fight at once, how to sing “Hatikvah” with gratitude while wondering how hope survives so much fear. How to shelter both refugees and responsibility. We understood that complexity wasn’t weakness, it was character. The strength to hold two truths at once: that we were both a miracle and a reality, a refuge for the broken and a foundation for the builders, a home for both the healed and the still-hurting. Employees Urgently Needed - Part & Full Time Jobs Near You Ad Employees Urgently Needed - Part & Full Time Jobs Near You everyjobforme.com Learn more call to action icon But that strength is slipping away. In this moment of anguish and war, something deeper than security is at stake. We are not only losing lives, we are losing our paradox. October 7 didn’t just break through the border – it broke through our belief that the past was safely behind us. The murders, the rapes, the kidnappings – they weren’t metaphors. They were atrocities. It was a return to the most primal nightmare: hunted again, burned again, abandoned again. The pain was raw. The fear was real. The response, inevitable. But in the months that followed, the moral clarity that once anchored our self-defense began to drift. Certainty replaced conscience. Power no longer asked questions of itself. Grief was weaponized into policy. We told ourselves that nuance was a luxury we could no longer afford, that internal conflict must wait, that justice is for peacetime. Hotel Reviews and Photos - Incredibly Low Prices Ad Hotel Reviews and Photos - Incredibly Low Prices tripadvisor.com Learn more call to action icon We stopped listening to the quiet voices beneath the piercing sirens. The unheard screams from beyond the border, beneath the rubble. We stopped asking whether survival alone is enough. To raise these questions is not betrayal. It is fidelity to who we are and who we still claim to be. But increasingly, we treat such questions as threats. Critics are cast as traitors. Restraint is scorned as weakness. And justice, the very word, feels increasingly distant in our public life. But this is not what it means to be strong. Our tradition never taught us to mistake power for righteousness. The Torah calls not for blind allegiance, but for moral accounting. Our prophets did not flatter kings, they held up mirrors. We are the people of Abraham arguing with God, of rabbis disputing law across centuries, of generations who survived by doubting, refining, challenging. Our greatness has never been in our certainty – it has always been in our struggle. We are the people of the question mark, yet we are losing our voice to exclamation points. That struggle must continue. Because Israel is not a myth or a martyr. It is a state, miraculous and flawed. A place where Jewish life breathes, sings, argues – and, when at its best, refuses to grow numb. We must remain tethered. By memory: of ancestors who fled burning Europe and lived to see a Jewish flag rise in Jerusalem. By responsibility: because this story, this fragile, fractured, ferocious story, is not someone else’s to write. And by love: not blind, but blazing. Not uncritical, but unshakable. Because even in its imperfection, Israel is still the beating heart of our people; still the place where our history lives out loud; still where, despite everything, a stubborn hope endures. But hope must be tended – not with slogans, not with silence, but with truth. We must remember how to live in contradiction. For paradox is not weakness – it is the essence of who we are, the wisdom of survival, and the compass for redemption. We will not return to paradise. But we can return to complexity. And in that, perhaps, rediscover who we really are.
-
-
-
-
AntisemitismCanada In 2026, Tulsa And Panama Are Courting Canadian Jews As Antisemitism Redefines The Cost Of Staying As antisemitism reaches unprecedented levels across Canada, Jewish families and professionals are quietly reassessing their futures, and some are being actively courted elsewhere. Ron East By: Ron East December 31, 2025 SHARE A growing number of Canadian Jews are exploring relocation options A growing number of Canadian Jews are exploring relocation options as antisemitism intensifies and confidence in public protection erodes. (Image: Illustration.) TORONTO — For generations, Canada sold itself as a country where Jews could thrive without constantly looking over their shoulders. That assumption no longer holds for a growing number of Canadian Jews, particularly in the aftermath of October 7 and the months that followed. What has changed is not only the number of antisemitic incidents. It is the atmosphere. Public hostility has been normalized. Jewish schools, synagogues, and community centres operate under permanent security protocols. Anti-Jewish intimidation is increasingly framed as political expression. Enforcement is inconsistent. Accountability is rare. When Jewish life requires constant risk assessment, mobility stops being a luxury. It becomes a rational act of self-preservation. That reality helps explain why, in 2026, two very different destinations, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Panama, are appearing with growing frequency in serious conversations among Canadian Jews who have the means and flexibility to move. This is not a panic migration. It is a strategic recalculation. Canada’s new warning lights Jewish Canadians represent a small fraction of the population, yet account for a vastly disproportionate share of reported hate crimes. This is not a perception problem. It is a documented pattern. More troubling than the statistics themselves is the message many Jews hear in response: concern, sympathy, and context, but little deterrence. Protests that spill into harassment are tolerated. Jewish institutions are targeted repeatedly. Antisemitism disguised as antizionism is parsed endlessly rather than confronted directly. The result is a slow erosion of confidence in the state’s willingness or ability to enforce equal protection. When a community moves from assuming it belongs to hoping nothing happens today, the social contract has already been fractured. It is within this context that Tulsa and Panama are not merely attracting attention but actively courting. Lech Le’Tulsa and intentional Jewish welcome Tulsa is not presenting itself as a refuge city. It is presenting itself as a place that wants Jewish life to grow. In 2026, that effort has taken concrete form through Lech Le’Tulsa, a Jewish-focused relocation initiative designed to attract Jewish families, professionals, and entrepreneurs to the Tulsa area. The program combines relocation assistance with intentional community building and access to Jewish infrastructure. The name is deliberate. Lech Lecha, the biblical call to go forth and build a future, is not branding by accident. It speaks directly to a Jewish historical instinct that understands movement not as retreat, but as agency. Lech Le’Tulsa offers what many Canadian Jews increasingly feel is missing at home: A clear signal that Jewish presence is welcomed, not merely accommodated Immediate access to synagogues, schools, and Jewish communal life A civic environment where Jewish identity is not treated as a liability The financial incentives matter, but the social architecture matters more. Tulsa is offering a landing ramp. It is saying, we are prepared for you to arrive. That clarity stands in stark contrast to the ambiguity Canadian Jews experience when their safety concerns are acknowledged but endlessly deferred. Panama and the appeal of optionality Panama represents a different but equally rational response to insecurity. For Canadian Jews with international mobility, Panama offers residency pathways tied to investment, business activity, or long-term economic contribution. It also offers something increasingly valuable: optionality. Panama has an established Jewish community, a comparatively lower cost of living, and an immigration framework that openly courts skilled and capital-carrying residents. For some, it is a permanent relocation. For others, it is a second base, a contingency plan, or a future passport pathway. What matters is not the destination itself, but the logic behind the choice. When Jews seek second options, they are not rejecting diaspora life. They are applying historical lessons. Jewish continuity has always depended on redundancy, resilience, and the ability to move before crisis becomes catastrophe. The Zionist lens Canadians prefer to ignore Zionism does not deny the legitimacy of diaspora life. It insists that Jews must never be dependent on the goodwill of others for safety or equality. That lesson was written in blood long before the modern State of Israel existed. Israel institutionalized it at a national level. Individual Jews apply it on a personal level. When Canadian Jews explore Tulsa or Panama, they are not abandoning Canada in anger. They are responding rationally to warning signs. They are building leverage. They are ensuring their children have options. This is what Zionist consciousness looks like outside Israel. It is quiet, pragmatic, and unsentimental. An indictment Canada should take seriously Tulsa and Panama are not superior societies. They are intentional ones. Tulsa is saying, we want contributors, and we are prepared to integrate them. Panama is saying, we want residents and investment, and we have clear legal pathways. Canada, too often, is saying something else entirely: we are sorry you feel unsafe, but the politics are complicated. A serious country does not treat antisemitism as a public relations challenge. It treats it as a threat to civic order. That requires enforcement, deterrence, and moral clarity, including the willingness to name antisemitism even when it hides behind fashionable political language. Until that happens, Canada should not be surprised when Jews quietly explore exit ramps. The bottom line In 2026, the fact that Tulsa and Panama can plausibly court Canadian Jews is not an oddity. It is a warning. When antisemitism reaches levels that fundamentally alter how Jews calculate their futures, movement becomes strategy. History teaches Jews to act before apologies arrive too late. Canada still has time to reverse this trajectory. But time matters. And Jews, having learned this lesson repeatedly, are no longer inclined to wait.
-
-
-
-
-
-
No comments:
Post a Comment