The End of Jewish Life in the Diaspora? A Shabbat Lunch with Two University Students from the UK

A few weeks ago, Dr. Dan Schueftan, Director of the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa, appeared on the Commentary Magazine podcast and said something that shook me. He said:

I realize that that's not an easy thing for other people to accept, and it's very difficult for me to accept, but I've seen Jewish life outside of Israel always, like something that is temporary. Again, not the life of Jews. I don't think that Jews are, you know, massively as a collective in danger. But Jewish life in Europe is over. Jewish life throughout the world, it's over. And in the United States, there is another generation.

I wondered: What did he mean? What's the difference between Jewish life, and the life of the Jews? And why does he think that Jewish life globally is over?

This past Shabbat, we hosted two lovely young women from the United Kingdom who have been participating in an internship program over the summer. They brought them to Yad Binyamin for their final Shabbat. The girls' description of the Jewish life in two universities in the United Kingdom didn't surprise me, but was nonetheless upsetting.

The smaller of the two - who's about half my size - described how she's a security volunteer in various shuls over Shabbat across London. What are her qualifications for this position? Well, she said, I took a two-day course in Krav Maga, so if anyone attacked, I would have to krav maga them." When I asked her if they gave her anything to protect herself she thought for a minute and said, "They do give us a big, heavy torch." This young woman is a junior in college. I marvel at her willingness to volunteer, but mourn the necessity. She told us that she could not believe how in Israel you can just walk into shul, without showing an ID - something that's not possible anywhere in Europe today.

Her friend, who is the head of the Jewish Student Union at another UK university, explained that Jewish groups no longer advertise the location of Jewish events. They just write "Location TBD." And if you know where it is, you know. When two non-Jewish students came into a party without registering them first, she took action - asking them to leave. She couldn't risk that they were simply curious, and wanted to join a Jewish party.

This is the norm for Jewish life in the Diaspora today. If you want to enter a Jewish shul or museum or often even a restaurant, you must pass through a magnometer. If you need access to a Jewish school, the gates are - rightly so - that much higher! During our visit to Rome, the security in the Jewish ghetto was provided mostly by the Italian government. And now many are calling on the United Kingdom to follow suit. Even in the United States, you can't enter a shul for mincha without a combination.

This is not to suggest that we're "safer" in Israel. We've got our own problems with safety and security. But the major difference is that in Israel, Jewish life is thriving. We of course have our security - but it's at the border, or in the form of the citizenry in every shul. We're not ignorant of the dangers of course - but it's not an impediment to Jewish public life. 

Listening to their stories, I came to understand what Dr. Schueftan meant. Judaism can persevere under the most dire of circumstances. It has - and will continue to do so. But how many Jews on the periphery won't come near a Jewish institution, seeing the amount of security necessary to enter? If Jews cannot live Jewish lives without the need to have security at every event, then public Jewish life is indeed over.