The many Israelis, mostly young and educated, who stood in the long line to schedule an appointment at the Portuguese embassy tell the national mood more than any other metric.
The Israelis lining up outside the mall in Glilot were taking advantage of the law allowing descendants of Sephardi Jews to register as Portuguese citizens. Reflecting on this image, Nir Kipnis writes in Walla: “Not the Chief of Staff, not the Defense Minister, not a state-led or government-led commission of inquiry, not Netanyahu’s testimony in his trial, and not even the battle over the draft-dodging law. The picture of the week arrived just moments before it ended: the insane queue to set an appointment at the Portuguese Embassy, for the purpose of naturalization and issuing a passport.” One picture. Seeing it, I was troubled but not shocked. Why? Because you can talk about Israel’s relatively strong economic situation, you can publish flattering data (and there is some!) about the Israeli economy. You can talk about rising antisemitism around the world (true!), you can even wave the supposedly high reserve duty turnout (the army massages the numbers to hide “grey” non-attendance), the world happiness index in which Israel ranks high—many indicators that supposedly show how good it is to be a free people in our land. But sometimes one picture is worth far more than a thousand words. There is a disillusioned generation here, willing to look for its future outside the country in which it grew up—the country that took it to Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies, that sent it on the March of the Living to Auschwitz, whose army it served in, whose national anthem, “Hatikva,” once made its heart tremble with genuine emotion. Will you say not everyone? Of course—but please look not only at the length of the line that stretched across Glilot, but also at the faces: young, educated, middle class, singles, newlyweds, parents of small children. That is: the thinning of Israel’s bone density is no longer in the pinky toe of the left foot, but in the center of the spine. Many once asked me why I invested thousands of shekels (and the same for each of my three children) in obtaining a Portuguese passport. My answers varied: a great fondness for Portugal in general and Lisbon in particular; the desire to shorten the airport queue when entering Europe; the possibility of study and work for my children; or simply ticking the box that says “all of the above.” To all these, I must admit—slightly embarrassed—you can add the Jewish instinct that says, “Good to have it at home.” Even for those without a concrete plan to emigrate. That’s how it is: you can make Jews stop wandering, but you cannot uproot the wandering Jew—an instinct two thousand years old—from our hearts. This time, it’s different: young Israelis, most of them from the middle class and even the upper-middle class (it’s very hard to complete the process without legal assistance, especially if you don’t speak the language), are not just looking to shorten the wait at the airport on a weekend trip to Rome or Prague—they are exploring the possibility of living elsewhere. Some will discover there’s no place like home and give up. Others will spend a few years abroad and realize the neighbor’s grass is less green up close. Some will emigrate: people who had the potential to succeed in Israel, pay taxes, be law-abiding citizens, the kind who contribute to the community. They are not doing it because of Hamas, Hezbollah, or missiles from Yemen to Iran. They are doing it because they fear that this place is closing in on them from within. Who is to blame? They are doing it because of the weakening of democracy, because of the war the Israeli government has declared on everything that was “Israeli” in their eyes, because of the assault on the judicial system, because of the humiliation of the hostages’ families, because of the embrace of far right wing troll Mordechai David, because criminals have taken over the largest political party in Israel. For some, it was seeing the hundreds of thousands at the Haredi rally in Jerusalem (the greatest own-goal in history) and realizing there is a huge—and growing—public living at their expense, and in the future will expect their children to support them as well. It was not Israel’s enemies that brought them to stand for hours in line or save up for a flight to Portugal to sort out their affairs. No commission of inquiry is needed to identify the culprits. No need to summon witnesses or play games in court to stall testimony due to a rolling, flipping schedule. Those who led thousands of Israelis to line up for a future elsewhere are the Justice Minister who lost his way, the National Security Minister who turned the police into a thought-police, the Finance Minister who dreams of transfers and endless settlement expansion, and a Prime Minister who will use any trick to evade the rule of law. Look again at the photos from the line at the mall in Glilot: the State of Israel has begun to bleed from its main artery. ⸻ The fact that 82,800 Israelis left the country in 2023 isn’t just a statistic, it reflects a growing sense of uncertainty, frustration, and disconnection that too many people are feeling. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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