The most recent podcast (as I write this) by Donniel Harman and Yossi Klein-Halevi is titled ‘Israel: Winning the Iran War, Losing the American Jews?’ and it can be found at the following link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7j8WhCABq89LeGiuE8888h?si=beee7842fbd3491e.

I am a committed listener to ‘For Heaven’s Sake’, one of the Shalom Hartman Institute (SHI) weekly podcasts. Donniel and Yossi are familiar and cherished voices as well as deep and empathic thinkers.

Although I am a Latin-American Jew (I live in Uruguay) and their audience is mostly American Zionist, liberal Jews, I always find bits and pieces that allow me to contribute in enriching our Jewish conversation in this part of the world.

However, the dilemma put forward in this podcast seemed to me nonsensical. To think of the option of either winning a war or losing the support of the largest Jewish community outside Israel seems to me too far-fetched, even absurd.

To claim that, as Israelis have their existential threat (Iran & proxis), Americans have theirs (meaning Trump), as many liberal Americans seem to claim, borders the outrageous. As I listened to this particularly long podcast, I just could not believe that all this had to be explicitly explained.

American Jews are American. Indeed. If this is a turning point, then there is no doubt about it. It can be justified: the USA has been good for Jews. Until recently, it was the best place for a Jew to live. Safer and smoother than Israel for sure. Not to mention the rest of the world.

At this point, however, I wonder whether my small Jewish community in Uruguay is not safer than the larger Jewish community in the USA. This past week we commemorated the 10th anniversary of the murder of a Jew in a smaller city in Uruguay: a hate crime. Antisemitism is high and alive. After the war in Gaza public opinion is unequivocally against Israel. Moreover, against Jews. However, with the exception of smaller incidents, we have not had any recent fatal event.

Americans have just had Detroit and not long ago elected Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of NYC. Is Trump really ‘the existential threat’? Can you compare a ballistic missile to an authoritarian politician? Trump’s term in office will end; it has an expiration date. After all, Americans export Democracy, don’t they? So, this too shall pass…

However, Iran has no expiration date unless someone takes care of it. The regime has been growing and getting stronger for almost half a century. It was on the verge of an atomic bomb. It is determined to obliterate Israel. Hamas and #Oct7th, Hezbollah and the Houthis are all living proof of this determination. This is a real, physical existential threat!

Historically, America has been a land of refuge for many millions of people. Including Jews. What ‘existential meant at some point in history for these peoples no longer applies in America. May be in the UK neither, or in Germany, although the public feeling there is more hostile.

France, however, has a dwindling Jewish population; Argentina, with two hundred thousand Jews, has seen waves of Aliya at the worst of economic times. So has Uruguay, numbering around fifteen hundred Jews today after sixty years of emigration; we used to number forty thousand in the sixties.

So, for Israelis and many Jews around the world Iran is an existential threat: it threatens not only the idea of Zionism in its virtuosity but at its base: a safe haven for persecuted Jews. Trump in America or a leftist government in Uruguay are not existential threats; not by a long shot. Not yet and probably not for the next generations.

Israel is threatened in many fronts. It is having a hard time coping with all of them but so far, it is successful. It has no other choice. Whoever will run the country in the future will face the same challenges Netanyahu’s government faces now. For Israel, this war is not about oil prices, but about the value of life.

While I understand the need to deal with this issue of ‘the two roads diverging’ for American Jews, be aware of ‘the road not taken’. Sometimes there is no way back.

Eighty years ago, the Holocaust showed us crystal-clear what the fate of Jews without power is. Now that we have not only power but also the strongest ally in the world, do not hesitate. As Americans as you may feel (and proudly so), the choice is only one: winning the Iran war. If that entails losing the American Jews, something is very wrong with us Jews.

May be, after all, that is the reason the podcast had to deal with the issue. In this corner of South-America, the issue is not even an issue: Israel is our existential guarantee.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)