How Jews Escaped Their Dismal Fate

Throughout history Jews have suffered mass murder on a regular basis. It began with the expulsion from Judea (which the Romans renamed Syria Palestina) after the Bar Kokhba rebellion in the year 135. Crusaders killed thousands in the Rhineland massacres of 1096. During the Black Death of 1346-53, Jews were blamed for the plague and murdered. Many more were tortured to death and burned during the Spanish Inquisition. In 1648-49, Bogdan Chmielnicki and his Cossacks slaughtered tens of thousands of Jews in Ukraine. The same thing occurred during the Russian pogroms. In Kishinev, 49 Jews were savagely annihilated in 1903, and more were killed in 1905. Arab riots in Hebron and other places in 1929 resulted in 133 Jews killed. Two millennia of murders reached the unthinkable with the Nazi Einsatzgruppen and extermination camps.

These massacres all had one thing in common. After they took place, the same thing happened, again and again: nothing. That is, after being expelled from their land, Judea, two millennia ago, no matter the location or era, Jews were prisoners of an inescapable sinister circle: Enter a society, live and thrive there for some time, and soon enough be robbed, attacked, murdered or expelled. And then, each time, nothing happens.

It was as if this circle was a metaphysical fact. Get ready to be destroyed. Prepare to be beaten. Accept your destiny as “a people that shall dwell alone” (Numbers 23 : 9 ). But keep your faith, for the Lord will redeem you in the messianic era. In the meantime, your fate is a force of nature, a curse, a Hokusai painting: the unstoppable wave. Every living entity tries to survive—to sustain itself and avoid death at all costs. Jews lived, but the possibility, the probability, of violent death was always there, hanging over their heads.

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This same fear, this feeling of inevitable catastrophe, is what most Jews felt on Oct. 7. That applied especially to those in southern Israel, who were victims of the modern-day Einsatzgruppen—Hamas Islamists. The circle was lurking again. But no. Because something changed on May 14, 1948. On that day, the circle was broken.

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-jews-escaped-their-dismal-fate-zionism-israel-war-gaza-oct-7-persecution-479544f2?st=ibquhg1c6pgd6r0&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Messrs. Futerman and Block are the co-authors of “The Classical Liberal Case for Israel.”