I spent the past almost three weeks in Israel. I was there for the Israeli elections. I was there for the US midterm elections. One of the best things about being there at this time is it meant I didn’t get any election commercials from the US and since I don’t watch TV in Israel, I didn’t get any Israeli ones either. Of course the text messages about the American election kept coming but they are easy to unsubscribe and block.

As I watched the results of both elections and thought deeply about what these elections mean for the future, I found myself struggling with a number of thoughts. Both elections were about change. Both elections appear to have succeeded with change (we have to wait and see if Eisenkat can form a coalition of 61). Yet both elections were troubling. In Israel, despite some horrific policies related to the Haredi, judicial reform, and Smotrich and Ben Gvir’s open attempt and desire to remove all Arabs from the West Bank, the current government got the most votes of any single party. I’m not sure how Israel can hope to defeat Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran while also giving the people the opportunity to heal without change. I spent a lot of time with Israelis who care about winning first and only. Everything else comes after winning and that’s why they support the current government. I spent a lot of time with Israelis who think there is no way to win on this current path and that the country will be lost without change, which is why they voted for the change parties. Their divide is a great as ours in the United States and because of their system, I’m not sure if this election will give the change they want or will simply result in another election.

Here in America, we have long been viewed as the main home for diaspora Jews. Freedom of religion, established in the United States Constitution, created incredible opportunities for Jews to live and worship freely. Growing up, I was publicly Jewish and it never really caused me a problem. My public school closed for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. During Passover the lunch room was filled with people eating matzoh. Everybody, Jewish and not Jewish, would hang out at the Jewish Community Center (JCC). A great example of this is when my older son and I were on a recruiting visit with a childhood friend who is an African-American Evangelical Christian. He spent a good deal of time during the visit telling my son stories of growing up at the JCC. This election and many of the candidates, some of whom won and some of whom didn’t, scare me about the future for Jews in the United States.

It is frightening to see how much has changed in the past decade or so. I wrote an op-ed in the Seattle Times in June 2016 with our JCRC chair about the rise of antisemitism. I saw it happening in 2015 and increasing in 2016. What has happened in the past decade is frightening. Just a few years ago we had the Goyim Defense League in Orlando. They came to our Jewish community campus along with a Chabad to protest. Their signs and chants were vile. They were incredibly extreme and not mainstream at all, so many people wrote them off as extremists. They would throw newspaper-style bags on people’s lawns with vile antisemitic content. That stopped with the Florida legislature, using existing littering laws, made littering with hate speech into a felony. They disappeared not long after that.

Fast forward a few years and we get political ads from a super PAC supporting an antisemitic Senate candidate that could be Goebbels’s propaganda from the 1930s. It was so offensive that it was only run online and shared through social media. It was clear that Cenk Uygur did not think any legitimate media outlet would run it. While many did condemn the ad, the candidate it supported refused.

I have been worried for a long time that the United States was not going to be safe for Jews in the future. I had always wondered why the Jews didn’t leave Germany early enough and what made them stay when the danger was fairly clear. I no longer wonder about that. I feel like I am living it. While I have already asked somebody if they would hide my family if the time comes, we remain in the United States with no plans to leave. I wonder if my ancestors will wonder why I wrote all this but didn’t leave in time. I wonder if we will change our minds and leave in time. I wonder if there is a chance that this wave of antisemitism will be confronted for the bigotry and racism that is or if history will look back on us like they look at Nazi Germany.

I grew up hearing stories about Kristallnacht and I found it shocking that ordinary people would take to the streets and destroy the Jewish businesses and homes. The ‘Night of Broken Glass’ became something that highlighted evil and hate in ordinary people. I learned many years later that my great-uncle Ralph was 8 years old and actually there during Kristallnacht, upstairs in his home with his grandmother, while they took to the streets and destroyed the first floor of every home and business on his street. I was grateful that I lived in America where we were governed by the rule of law that kept me safe as a Jew. Living in America meant that I would never face what my Uncle Ralph faced. My children and grandchildren wouldn’t face what he faced.

This year, on Kristallnacht, there is a bike ride planned in Philadelphia designed to get all the Jewish-owned businesses to leave Philadelphia. They are branded as Zionist businesses because their owners are Jewish. The organizers planned it on Krystallnacht. Incredible, intentional symbolism. While the Pennsylvania Attorney General has condemned the ride, there is no reported additional police presence to protect the businesses or people who come to support them. I am concerned that violence may break out. I am concerned it may end up looking like Krytallnacht in 1938 but in Philadelphia in 2026.

It continues to get worse. The son of a friend of mine is obsessed with Israel. Not in a good way. The problems of the world are because of Israel. I see what he posts. I have engaged with him about it many times. Whenever I present facts or invite him to speak to one of my Palestinian friends who live in Ramallah or Hebron, he goes silent and disappears from the conversation. He is representative of a new generation that has no knowledge, wants to gain no knowledge, and enjoys spewing hatred and bigotry without even understanding what they are doing is hateful. He posted this today, putting the responsibility for the blue wave in the election on Israel and the Jews. Not on Republican policies. Not on rising costs of food. Not even on the Iran war which has caused gas prices to rise. The blame is entirely on Israel and the Jews.

Vice President JD Vance said basically the same thing. He blamed the Republicans losing the election on the Iran war (that Bibi tricked Trump into joining) and the US relationship with Israel (and with the Jews). It has now gone from far-right people like Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson and far-left people like Cenk Uygur and Hassan Piker to the mainstream. A number of US Senators and Representatives.

The Vice President of the United States. What will it take before we wake up and find the United States wants us back in camps? When we had a politician running for the Texas House of Representatives in the summer of 2026, Maureen Galindo openly stated that she would “turn Karnes ICE Detention Center into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking. (It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles which will probably be most of the Zionists),” the media and many others condemned her. She still won 40% of the vote. Because she lost, America thought she was a one-off, a radical who didn’t represent the masses. That 40% showed us something else but we wouldn’t listen. Melat Kiros (Colorado, 1st Congressional District) declined to label a June 2025 firebombing attack against a march for Gaza hostages in Boulder—which resulted in a death—as antisemitic. Can you imagine an attack against any other group where they wouldn’t say it was a hate crime? Darializa Avila Chevalier (New York, 13th Congressional District) organized the 2024 Columbia University campus encampments and participated in the anti-Israel Times Square demonstration on October 8, 2023. One day after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust occurred, she was already blaming Israel for being attacked and having civilians murdered and taken hostage. Now that she has been elected, she no longer wants to eliminate the military aid to Israel but wants to actively work to eliminate Israel entirely. Chris Rabb (Pennsylvania, 3rd Congressional District) campaigned alongside Jew-hating streamer Hasan Piker and accused Israel of “genocide,” despite Israel providing food, water, electricity, and even polio vaccinations to Gazan children. The genocide libel is being pushed by elected officials even though the facts prove them wrong. Before the Holocaust, there were 18 million Jews. Today, 80 years later, there are only 12 million Jews. That’s a genocide. Before October 7, 2023, there were approximately 2.2 million Gazans. Today, November 6, 2026, there are approximately 2.2 million Gazans. That is NOT a genocide. Of course there is Zohran Mamdani (New York City Mayor / former assemblymember) supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, refuses to condemn the slogan “Globalize the Intifada,” accuses Israel of genocide, and declines to affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. It’s difficult to believe any Jews supported him with his clear beliefs but they did in great numbers. It is difficult to believe anybody with clear racist beliefs would win the Mayor of NY, but he did. Because his racism was against Jews. We remain the only group that is still ok to hate. Additionally, there is Mohamed El-Sayed (Michigan Senator) who after an attempt to murder hundreds of Jewish children at a Temple Israel in Detroit, could only say, “Hurt people hurt people.” Somehow I don’t think he’d give that same response had the attack been in a church, mosque, Hindu temple, or other community. He openly campaigns with known Jew haters Hassan Piker and Tucker Carlson.

We didn’t learn from the Arab countries and Iran (post-1948) or Germany (1938–1945). We didn’t learn in Poland. We didn’t learn in Portugal (1496–1497), Spain (1492), France (1306 and 1394), or England (1290). We didn’t learn with the Romans (41–53 and 70 CE – 135) or the Greeks. Not from the Babylonians (586 BCE) or the Assyrians (722 BCE). As Jews, we never learn. We repeat the same mistakes over and over again. There is a Wikipedia page that details our regular explusions throughout history. Why would America be any different? What makes us think we are so safe here?

I landed at JFK this morning at 4:10 am, and as I walked off the plane to go through passport control and customs, for the first time in my life, I did not feel at home. I was born here. I grew up here. I have lived my entire life here. Yet I’m not sure that this is my home or will be my home for much longer. I am afraid that I will be like my ancestors who didn’t leave Germany in time rather than my Great-Grandfather who did. America is a comfortable life. My wife and children are here. My mother is here. My brother and sister and their families are here. My wife’s parents, sisters, and their families are here. My cousins and their families are here. My new great-niece is here. My life is here. Will I be allowed to stay? We will all be forced out? Or, like Maureen Galindo stated, will we be put in detention camps? America has a history of doing this to the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. Will this time be the Jews?

As I sit on the plane from JFK to Orlando, I am realizing just how uncertain the Jewish future in America is. The next few years will show us whether we have a future here or not. I hope that we do. If not, I hope we can get out before it is too late. Our history says we won’t. Maybe this time we will.