OPINION:
Hanukkah is less than a week away, and President Trump’s decision to halt migration from Third World countries and deport foreigners deemed security risks from our soil is the greatest gift he could have given Jewish Americans.
The magnitude of the immigration catastrophe unleashed by the “diversity is our strength” Democratic Party has turned what were once patriotic communities into unrecognizable epicenters of anti-American and antisemitic radicalism.
As the Biden administration insisted on dumping millions of migrants into America, attacks against Jewish Americans began to surge. A direct link runs between liberal leaders importing millions of unvetted foreigners into the United States and the explosion of anti-Jewish hate crimes across U.S. cities and campuses.
It’s a statistical reality that may discomfit the liberal sensibilities of “mainstream” Jewish groups.
Although recent figures note a falloff in America’s immigrant population since Mr. Trump assumed office, the facts remain that, along with the U.S. foreign-born population reaching a historic high of nearly 16% because of the feckless Biden-era immigration measures, antisemitic incidents intensified across Jewish communities in the United States.
The steady flow of immigrants, designed to chip away at the Christian character of our nation, has also tracked with increasing hostility targeting Jewish students on campus.
Although it’s true that the pro-terrorist campus mobs involved young American-born liberals, it is also true that many of the antisemitic groups, such as the terrorist-aligned Students for Justice in Palestine, started under the stewardship of young foreign-born ideologues. New York’s Mahmoud Khalil and Nerdeen Kiswani are among the most notable examples.
It should come as no surprise that, as international student enrollment dipped 17% this year, American universities are also experiencing a decline in antisemitic upheaval. The deporting of jihadi sympathizers, including Hezbollah admirer and former Brown University professor Rasha Alawieh, has similarly contributed to a quieter campus climate.
Tightening immigration restrictions should be a central tenet of Jewish organizations. Yet some of America’s most storied Jewish institutions have spent decades operating as proxies of the Democratic Party rather than the defenders of Jewish interests.
As the latest incidents in Minnesota and the District of Columbia reveal, many foreigners hailing from Muslim-majority nations pack their anti-American and antisemitic prejudices with them from their home countries.
Despite flagship establishments such as the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee showcasing a commitment to combating antisemitism and protecting Jewish students as core objectives, the topic of restricting immigration remains an untouchable space. Mainstream Jewish leaders generally adhere to a faulty, outdated framework that ignores how shifting demographics caused by unvetted Third World Muslim migration threaten the future place of Jews in America.
Calling for increased scrutiny of foreigners entering the United States runs contrary to the multicultural madness seeping into liberal cultural and religious circles.
For their part, many non-Orthodox leaders devoted years to transforming their sanctuaries into social justice activist havens.
By backing suicidal immigration policies and issuing public denouncements regarding Trump-era directives aimed at deporting foreign nationals who are draining America of its Judeo-Christian inheritance, Jewish organizations are upholding an agenda that imperils the lives of the very people they are tasked to protect.
Rather than adapt to new realities and promote a permanent pause in migration from Third World countries, leading Jewish institutions are projecting a steady timidity that diminishes Jewish safety and ultimately helps hand elections to Israel-hating Islamists.
A Patriot Poll released in late October underscores how incoming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani owes much of his electoral success to the 62% of foreign-born residents who supported the democratic socialist’s candidacy.
Less than two weeks before the most consequential election for Jewish Americans in New York City’s history, nearly 1,000 area rabbis signed an open letter decrying Mr. Mamdani. It would have been far wiser for them to have leveraged their positions at the pulpit and lobby in support of strengthening immigration enforcement.
The majority of Americans approve of Mr. Trump’s Third World migration moratorium.
It’s now time for Jewish Americans to reinvent their narrative and recognize that any serious posture against antisemitism must first be met with advocating for meaningful immigration restrictions. The two policies are inextricably tied.
The same moral and strategic logic that was applied during World War II — when Jews were petitioning for loosening immigration quotas while struggling to escape Europe — cannot be used today.
The mass migration of millions of foreigners has not served America or American Jewry very well.
Any attempt by Jewish leaders to convince their communities otherwise is not only unwise but also downright dangerous.
• Irit Tratt is a writer and former co-chair of the Trump47 National Women’s Leadership Coalition.
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