Just a couple of weeks ago, those words were heard in New Haven, CT, voiced by a man who was apparently angered by the presence of a few Jewish men on the street.
Accusing the Jewish men of being “baby killers,” he then used a rolled-up newspaper to dislodge the kippah (skullcap) from the head of at least one man.
Once again, the message is being sent that Jews need to return to the place from where they came. But where is that place? Remaining unidentified, for the most part, the one thing that is clear to antisemites is that it’s not in Western countries.
For some Jew haters, that place, to which they should return, is Poland. The antisemitic slogan, “Go Back to Poland,” has been heard at a number of pro-Palestinian protests, both in Europe and the US, affirming the complete ignorance of those who utter the slur.
If they were, at all, interested in the actual history, they would discover that although a handful of Jewish merchants arrived in Poland during the 10th century, the vast majority came between the 13th and 14th centuries, while attempting to flee the plagues and violence of Western Europe.
British psychology professor Rusi Jaspal was one such person who opined on the statement that Jews should go back to their origins. His conclusion was that “the description of Israelis, as Ashkenazi Jews from Europe,” despite most Israelis being of non-European origin, is meant to cast Israel as a racist occupation rooted in European colonialist policy.”
Although Jews were warmly welcomed to Poland by then-king Casimir the Great (1333–1370), who guaranteed their safety, that began to dramatically change once the Protestant Reformation got underway. By the 1600s, uprisings took place, with Cossacks mercilessly targeting Jews.
By the late 1700s, the lives of Polish Jews became embittered as they suffered much discrimination and were forced to endure many restrictions as well as resettlement.
Of course, everyone knows what happened in the 20th century as Poland huddled its Jewish population into one small area, notoriously known as the Warsaw Ghetto.
A whopping 3 million Polish Jews were killed in the Holocaust, representing 90% of their prewar community. So clearly, the case for Poland, being the place where Jews belong, doesn’t hold water.
Given the fact that the 2,000-year dispersion of the Jewish people resulted in literally being scattered throughout the four corners of the earth, including the Far East, it’s difficult to argue that Jews belong in any of these places, since almost every single one of them, at one point or another, turned against them, culminating in their forced conversion, exile, or death.
Historical, biblical home for the Jewish people
Nonetheless, the obvious home of the Jewish people, from a biblical and historical perspective, is one that antisemites are loath to admit, because by doing so, they disqualify the so-called Palestinians from claiming that land as theirs.
But it’s hard to rewrite history, attempting to manipulate the geography to suit a modern-day narrative, claiming that Jews stole ancient Arab land, because the biblical recordings categorically deny that highly-modified version.
Although Ishmael was born prior to the arrival of Isaac, the first Jewish son, he was not the heir to Abraham’s promised land. In Genesis 16:12, we see that God’s angel tells Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, that his descendants would live to the east of his brothers. That land encompasses Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula, as well as parts of Iraq and Syria.
Conversely, the land promised by God to Abraham was intended to be the home of his descendants of promise, starting with Isaac and Jacob, his son. Anything that departs from that divine geographic parceling of land deviates from the plan of the Almighty, who decided where the Jewish people belong.
Sadly, there are those who, thousands of years later, believe that they can disregard God’s bequeathed homeland to the Jewish people by rewriting the deed, relegating them to the hostile shores of Poland, as if that’s their rightful heritage.
But no matter how hard you try, fantasy cannot become reality just by willing it to be so. Because we no longer live in a time when the Jewish people are dependent upon the whims of their host countries – one day guaranteeing their security and the next, telling them that they must depart at once!
Making good on his promise, God returned us, as a people, to the land he swore would be ours, never again to be uprooted. Amos 9:15
Hateful slogans cannot change that, nor disingenuous versions of a distorted history. The story of the Jewish people is one which has a clear beginning and a certain end, much to the regret of our enemies.
Ironically, the Connecticut man who shouted, “Go back to where you belong,” should realize that the realization of his words is the ultimate fulfillment of the Jewish prophets, all of whom foretold the return of our people to their God-given land. In essence, this Jew hater is reinforcing the divine call of Shuva – return to the land.
Would he not be horrified to discover that his contempt for Jews is part of the plan to bring them to their rightful home? And that is the paradox of all those who share his disdain for the chosen people.
While they think that they are righteous champions of the disenfranchised, whose land was stolen, they are actually positioning themselves as the opponents of Almighty God, whose intended destiny for his people can never be overruled.
That means that their tireless efforts to deny history, the scriptures, and even the modern-day majority of nations, all of whom agreed that the Jewish homeland should be in Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel), will be nothing more than an exercise in futility, because no one can change what God ordained.
Rather than continuing the fight, they would be well-advised to make peace with what began in 1948, when the restoration of Jewish people to their land became a reality. Now, 78 years later, the country still flourishes, despite every attempt to bring it to an end.
The fact that no one has been able to extinguish the dream already testifies to the divine presence who is also telling his people, “Go back to where you belong.”
The writer is a former Jerusalem elementary and middle school principal. She is the author of Mistake-Proof Parenting, available on Amazon, based on the time-tested wisdom found in the Book of Proverbs.