My father, of blessed memory, had a saying: “If everyone jumps from the roof, it does not mean that you should.” I have carried those words my entire life. This Passover, they feel more urgent than ever.

When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, only 20% of Jews followed him. He did not wait for the rest. He did not dilute his message to build a bigger tent. He did not run a popularity contest. He carried a clear, uncompromising truth and trusted that those who were ready would follow. The other 80% chose to stay, and were absorbed into Egyptian society.

That lesson has never been more relevant than it is today.

The Pharaoh Who Would Not Listen

The Passover story is not just a story about Egyptian cruelty. It is actually a story about institutional failure in the face of clear warning. The Israelites did not attack Pharaoh. They confronted him peacefully, again and again, before each of the ten plagues. Each time, the warning was given. Each time, Pharaoh refused to listen. The suffering of the Egyptian people was not inevitable, it was a direct consequence of their leader’s stubbornness and refusal to accept the truth.

The parallel to today is uncomfortable but unavoidable. The Palestinian Arab leadership has been offered peaceful coexistence nine times — in 1937, 1939, 1947, 1967, 1978, 2000, 2008, and 2020. Each time, the offer was rejected. Each time, war followed. Each time, Jews defended themselves and survived. Like Pharaoh, the Arab leadership has repeatedly refused to accept a reality they do not want — that Jews have the right to sovereignty, safety, and a home. Perhaps the tenth time will be different.

Survival Through Strength, Not Dilution

Jewish history is a record of survival against overwhelming odds, and the pattern is consistent. Jews did not survive by diluting their identity. They survived by strengthening it.

The Hellenistic Jews tried to assimilate into the dominant culture, watering down Jewish tradition to gain acceptance. It was the Maccabees, vastly outnumbered, who fought back and won, not through compromise but through conviction. Bar Kokhva held off the Roman Empire for years with a fraction of their forces. When Rome finally crushed the rebellion, it required the full mobilization of the empire’s military might. The Jewish people were exiled, dispersed, and scattered for two thousand years, and still they did not disappear. They survived the Crusades, the Arab Caliphates, the Inquisitions, the pogroms, and the Holocaust, not by becoming less Jewish, but by remaining irreducibly themselves.

In the Soviet Union, where I grew up, the pressure to assimilate was total. Jews changed their surnames, abandoned their traditions, and suppressed their identities to survive professionally and socially. My family refused. We kept kosher. We kept our name. My father’s uncle, a writer on Jewish life, was murdered during Stalin’s purges. My family faced discrimination and limited opportunity for refusing to surrender our identity to the Communist Party. When we finally left the Soviet Union, the feeling of freedom was unlike anything I had ever known. My father said it simply: being a Jew is a duty and a responsibility.

Jewish survival has never been a popularity contest.

The Third Era of Jew-Hatred

The Jew-hatred I witness today in Canada and across the Western world surpasses anything I experienced in the Soviet Union. That is not hyperbole, it is an observation that scares me deeply. As Dr. Naya Lekht points out that what we are seeing now is antizionism: the third era of Jew-hatred, following antijudaism and antisemitism, repackaged in the moral language of our time to make hatred feel virtuous and resistance feel shameful.

In 2023, Iran and its proxies attacked Israel. Jews around the world found themselves fighting two simultaneous battles: Israel fighting a conventional war on multiple fronts, and Jewish communities worldwide fighting a narrative war against antizionist ideology that has captured universities, intimidated institutions, and normalized hostility to Jewish identity in the public square.

The current antizionism does not merely resemble Soviet antizionism, it has evolved beyond it. It now resembles the Nazi antisemitism of the 1930s in its normalization, its reach, and its moral inversion. Jew-hatred has become so normalized in the Western world that it is, I fear, only a matter of time before major violence erupts.

Queen Esther, Moses, and the Undiluted Message

In the Purim story, Haman observed that Jews were fragmented and dispersed, making it easy to destroy. Queen Esther’s response was not to negotiate or soften the message. She united the Jewish community around a single urgent, shared goal: survival. That unity, built not on compromise but on consensus around a clear truth,  saved the Jewish people.

This is exactly why Stop Antizionism launched the Global Declaration that Antizionism is Jew-Hatred, which matters so profoundly today. Like Queen Esther’s call to unity, it brings together the Jewish community and its allies around a clear, shared consensus: antizionism is not political criticism. It is the new face of an ancient hatred. Naming it clearly is not aggression. It is the first step to defeating it.

Moses did not worry about having only 20% with him. He cared that his message was direct and sound — no compromises, no dilution to attract more followers. Those who were ready followed him to freedom. Those who were not made their own choice.

The Jewish survival has always depended on the uncompromising few.

The Fight We Cannot Afford to Lose

Stop Antizionism does not dilute its message to build a wider tent. It builds a moral tent — one with Jewish values uncompromised, as Moses and Queen Esther intended. Through education, curriculum development, professional training, and community organizing, it equips the next generation with the framework, language, and courage to confront the third era of Jew-hatred.

The World Symposium Against Antizionism is the next step in that work — a global, coordinated declaration that what is happening is not politics, not debate, not legitimate dissent. It is Jew-hatred. And it will be confronted with clarity, with courage, and with an undiluted message.

Jews have survived for two millennia in exile, scattered across every continent, facing enemies with vastly superior numbers and resources. They did not survive by becoming smaller, quieter, or less Jewish. They survived because their message was never diluted.

Together, as a community united in one voice, we will confront antizionism, not to build a bigger tent, but a moral one. Our voices will not be silent. History has given us both the warning and the blueprint. The question is whether we have the courage to follow the 20%.

Moral clarity, courage, and Jewish values do not need a majority vote.

For those wishing to explore the framework discussed in this article further, the Global Declaration that Antizionism is Jew-Hatred can be found at stopaz.org/declaration

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)