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Jews Across the World Are Repeating the Mistakes of the 1930s
A shop damaged in Magdeburg, Germany, during Kristallnacht. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
In August 1933, only months after Hitler rose to power, a chilling article appeared in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Dr. Max Naumann, a proud German patriot and the founder of the Verband nationaldeutscher Juden — the Association of National German Jews — declared his unwavering loyalty to the Nazi government. Even as Jewish livelihoods were being dismantled and the beginnings of the Holocaust were in place, this group of proper, fancy German Jews insisted that Jews had nothing to fear if they behaved correctly, shed their national identity, rejected Zionism, and embedded themselves wholly within German society.
But history was about to deliver its verdict.
This is the story of a worldview that has reappeared across Jewish history again and again: the belief that if Jews abandon their nationalism, and appease their oppressors, they will be spared. They condemned the very concept of Jewish self-defense.
The existence in Germany of Betar, a Zionist movement founded in 1923, presented an ideological threat to this worldview.
Betar youths sang Hebrew songs, carried themselves with discipline, and insisted the Jewish people were a nation with a destiny. In the eyes of people like Naumann, Betar represented a dangerous idea: that Jews could survive only by standing as a proud, independent people — not by pleading for acceptance. History proved Betar right.
At first glance, one could treat Naumann as a figure locked in the past, but his story remains painfully relevant today. Across the Diaspora, Jewish communities are living through a renewed wave of open antisemitism not seen in generations. And how does a certain segment of world Jewry respond?
With fear. With appeasement. With approximately 33 percent of New York City’s Jews voting for Zohran Mamdani. They repeat the same delusions Naumann preached: that appeasement will earn respect, that silence will earn safety, that bowing one’s head will spare us.
We know where that path leads.
One of the most important lessons of the Holocaust — and indeed of all Jewish history — is that Jews need to fight back. This truth remains unchanged today. And just like in 1933, the Jews most desperate to blend in, the ones who insist “We’re not like those other Jews,” will end up being persecuted and targeted by those they try to appease.
This is the moment when we must remember the Zionist leader who founded Betar, Ze’ev Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky believed that every Jewish person must stand tall, walk with pride, and never bow their head. Jabotinsky taught that Jewish dignity must never be surrendered, and that Jewish self-defense and a Jewish state is the only real guarantee of Jewish safety.
In the 1930s, Jabotinsky warned that Europe was becoming unsafe for Jews. Most of world Jewry dismissed his most dire warnings of death as hysteria.
Today, not a single one of the mainstream Jewish leaders of the Diaspora is talking about aliyah, the process of Jews immigrating to Israel.
Across the Diaspora, Jewish communities cling to institutions that no longer protect them, governments that no longer defend them, and illusions that no longer serve them. They dedicate themselves to endless dialogues with activists who openly seek their destruction. They send letters, petitions, pleas, and polite condemnations, all while their enemies march in the streets and terrorize their children on campus.
This is a Naumann mindset reborn. And just like in 1933, it is a deadly delusion.
World Jewry has failed to learn the most basic lessons of Jewish history. The lesson that no society, not even the most enlightened, guarantees Jewish safety. The lesson that Jewish security cannot depend on the goodwill of others.
And the only difference between then and now is the Jewish State.
At a time when New York, London, Toronto, Paris, Melbourne, and Johannesburg are becoming unsafe for Jews, Israel is thriving. Our cities — Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Raanana, Herzliya, Haifa — are full of innovation, culture, Jewish life, and Jewish safety. Hebrew is spoken without fear. Soldiers protect us. Our national institutions — flawed as they may be — defend us. The Diaspora is in deep trouble, in part because many Jewish leaders abroad, like Naumann in his time, are enemies of the Jewish people.
Ronn Torossian is an Israeli-American Jewish communal leader and entrepreneur who lives in Israel.
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UK PM Starmer Says There Could Be New Powers to Ban Pro-Palestinian Marches
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives a media statement at Downing Street in London, Britain, April 30, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jack Taylor/File photo
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government could ban pro-Palestinian marches in some circumstances because of the “cumulative effect” the demonstrations had on the Jewish community after two Jewish men were stabbed in London on Wednesday.
Starmer told the BBC that he would always defend freedom of expression and peaceful protest, but chants like “Globalize the Intifada” during demonstrations were “completely off limits” and those voicing them should be prosecuted.
Pro-Palestinian marches have become a regular feature in London since the October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Critics say the demonstrations have generated hostility and become a focus for antisemitism.
Protesters have argued they are exercising their democratic right to spotlight ongoing human rights and political issues related to the situation in Gaza.
Starmer said he was not denying there were “very strong legitimate views about the Middle East, about Gaza,” but many people in the Jewish community had told him they were concerned about the repeat nature of the marches.
Asked if the tougher response should focus on chants and banners, or whether the protests should be stopped altogether, Starmer said: “I think certainly the first, and I think there are instances for the latter.”
“I think it’s time to look across the board at protests and the cumulative effect,” he said, adding that the government needed to look at what further powers it could take.
Britain raised its terrorism threat level to “severe” on Thursday amid mounting security concerns that foreign states were helping fuel violence, including against the Jewish community.
“We are seeing an elevated threat to Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions in the UK,” the head of counter-terrorism policing, Laurence Taylor, said in a statement, adding that police were also working “against an unpredictable global situation that has consequences closer to home, including physical threats by state-linked actors.”
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War Likely to Resume After Trump’s Rejection of Latest Proposal, Says IRGC General
Iranians carry a model of a missile during a celebration following an IRGC attack on Israel, in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – A senior Iranian military figure said that fighting with the US was “likely” to resume after President Donald Trump stated he was dissatisfied with Tehran’s latest proposal, regime media reported on Saturday.
The comments of General Mohammad Jafar Asadi, one of the top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, were relayed by the Fars news agency, considered as a mouthpiece of the the powerful paramilitary body.
“Evidence has shown that the Americans do not not adhere to any commitments,” Asadi was quoted as saying.
He further added that Washington’s decision-making was “primarily media-driven aimed first at preventing a drop in oil prices and second at extricating themselves from the mess they have created.”
Iranian armed forces are ready “for any new adventures or foolishness from the Americans,” he said, going to assert that the Iran war would prove for the US a tragedy comparable with what was for Israel the October 7 massacre.
“Just as our martyred Leader said that the Zionist regime will never be the same as before the Al‑Aqsa Storm operation [the name chosen by Hamas leadership for the October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel], the United States will also never return to what it was before its attack on Iran,” he said. “The world has understood the true nature of America, and no matter how much malice it shows now, it is no longer the America that many once feared.”
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Trump Says US Navy Acting ‘Like Pirates’ to Carry Out Naval Blockade of Iranian Ports
A view of Iranian-flagged cargo ship M/V Touska as the US Navy Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer USS Spruance conducts its interception in a location given as the north Arabian Sea, in this screen capture from a video released April 19, 2026. Photo: CENTCOM/Handout via REUTERS
President Donald Trump said on Friday the US Navy was acting “like pirates” in carrying out Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports during the US and Israel’s war against Iran.
Trump made the comments while describing the seizure by US forces of a ship a few days ago.
“We took over the ship, we took over the cargo, we took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” Trump said in remarks on Friday evening. “We’re like pirates. We’re sort of like pirates but we are not playing games.”
Some of Tehran’s vessels have been seized by the US after leaving Iranian ports, along with sanctioned container ships and Iranian tankers in Asian waters.
Iran has blocked nearly all ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz apart from its own since the start of the war. Trump has imposed a separate blockade of Iranian ports.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host US bases. US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions.
The war has raised oil prices and led to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about 20 percent of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
Trump, who has offered shifting timelines and goals for the war that remains unpopular in the US, has faced widespread condemnation over his comments on the conflict, including when he threatened to destroy Iran’s entire civilization last month.
Many US experts said last month that American strikes on Iran may amount to war crimes after Trump threatened to target civilian infrastructure.