Edward Topol | A Jew ought to live in Israel

It was still three years till the division of Poland. In 1936 Vladimir Jabotinsky twice visited Poland and, foreseeing the coming of the Catastrophy, tried to convince the Jews to abandon their homes and flee to Palestine to build a country of their own. He compared the coming peril with the inevitable eruption of a volcano. He famously said: “We (Zionists) want to save you from the advancing lava stream. Can any of you deny that the lava is real?”

Photo copyright: Dennis Jarvis. CC BY-SA 2.0

All Jewish publications in Poland not only choose to ignore his warning, they insulted him, as it was so much more comfortable for Polish Jews to stay in their schtetls, hoping for the best, daydreaming and conjure in old abide “A thousand years of Jewish life in Poland gives them the same rights to this land as Polacks”.

Hitler made the worst Jabotinsky premonitions real. Out of 3.3 million Polish Jews, Germans and Polacks executed and burned 2.8 million, and every one of them was robbed of his possessions.

I’m not Jabotinsky, but nevertheless, when working on my novel Youth of Jabotinsky, I, in my mind, lived his life, his thoughts, his articles in Odessa News, his reflections on the Kishinev pogrom. Besides, I have lived a long and, may I say “lucky” life: I was a columnist at a main regional newspaper Baku Worker in my 20s, by the age of 35 I, in Moscow, became a successful screenwriter for theaters and cinema. By my 45th year, in the USA and Canada, I authored such bestsellers as Red Square, Red Snow, Submarine U-137, and others. And by my 60th birthday, back in Moscow – became popular as a writer and screenwriter.

Now, in my 80s, I live in Israel, as after all my wandering around our planet, I came to one important conclusion: A Jew ought to live in Israel.

Truth be told, Russia today does not have state-incited anti-Semitism. You may blame Putin all you want, but you can’t deny a simple fact: next day after January 7^th 2006, when a young hoodlum attacked Moscow’s synagogue, even last black-shirt gang just disappeared from Moscow, along with their swastika-embroidered shirts and anti-Semitic publications.

Of course, the “folk” anti-Semitism didn’t go away, it is still smoldering inside the common folks, just like the peat is smoldering within the peat bogs. As soon as Putin is gone, it will erupt from inside out, just like lava erupts from the awakened volcano. Whoever inherits Putin’s throne, he will have no choice but to lay the blame on somebody, for all the misery of “deep Russia”. Oldie but goodie “Beat the Jew, save mother-Russia” is a proven solution. That why the time for emigration is running out, while Putin still holds the reins of power.

It is better to live in Israel, than to wait for pogroms.

And now I’m addressing American and European Jews, who might still remember me from my novels Red Square, Red Snow, Submarine U-137, The Jewish Lover, etc. published in the USA and Europe at the end of the XX century.

I don’t want to be an Oracle, stoned for his negative prophecy. That’s why I don’t write the novel Tomorrow in America. Nevertheless, observing what’s happening in the USA today, I must say:

It is better to live standing in Israel, than on your knees before black America.

Oh, I love America!

I loved it from the first day I arrived at JFK, May 8^th 1979. Back then, under Jimmy Carter, the country was in deep depression. New York City was officially bankrupt, inflation was officially 13%, joblessness was 14%, the subway was closed, and even Broadway was up to the second floors window sills covered by black garbage bags. I was 40 back then, arrived with 8 dollars to my pockets, my vocabulary consisted of 30 English words, and a typewriter, from which Soviet custom officers, noticing my film posters, pulled out all the letters. Later, when Ronald Reagan was lifting America up from her knees, I survived on $25 a week, which I was making in Russian-American newspaper for my “Children Stories”.

Then came 1984, when I, jobless, with no English and unknown to anyone in the USA, authored a world bestseller Red Square, and later, in 1986, I was standing by the Barnes & Nobles showcase at Fifth Ave, which was covered by my novel Submarine U-137, while across the street, author Scribner’s showcase was covered by my novel Red Snow.

“Fall down – push up”, that was our motto in Russia.

We are Jews. We were falling down and pushing up throughout all the countries of Persia, Spain, Germany, Poland, USA and Russia. Would you be afraid of “falling down and pushing up” in Israel? I know from my own experience, how hard it is to leave behind all your possessions. When I was leaving Russia, I left behind the Russian women I loved, movie studios with my screenplays already in production, and theaters which had my plays in production or in rehearsal. Three years ago I repatriated from the USA to Israel, and I also left behind everything – house, country home in the mountains, bank accounts… But from everything I left, I want to have in Israel only my son. I want him, while he’s still young, to join Israeli army on his way to become a real Israeli. Because America which we remember from the Ronald Reagan era is gone. And that’s why –

It is better to live standing, shouldering M-16 in Israel, than on your knees before black America.

I still believe in miracles, and cross my fingers for Donald Trump to stay in the White House for four more years. But! Next day after his inauguration, the USA will be submerged in wholesale riots of BLM, in one more attempt of the “Great October Revolution”. Besides, after four more years even Trump won’t be able to clean out the rust and cancer of the Clinton-Obama drones, clogging the arteries of the Government system, from the Marxist-Leninist plants in the education system, from the fake, but ambitious media, from the cowardly “Hollywood chickens”, etc., etc. And what to expect, if and when the Obama-Biden gang moves into the White House on 21^st of January 2021? Tsunami of Islamic invasion and triumph of “social justice”, with BLM and Antifa remorselessly plundering America.

Hurry up, Jews!

I have to forewarn you – Israel is not “heaven on Earth”, nor is it halva “Rachat locum”. Taking into account two thousand years of Diaspora, we, the Jews, had got to get accustomed not only to the local tongs, but also their psychology. How else would we be able to survive in Persia without Persian treachery? In Spain without Spanish cruelty? In Germany without German obedience and discipline? In France without French stinginess? In Poland without Polish swagger, and in Russia without their outhouses toilets, where you must sit in the “eagle position” and talk about “the spiritual greatness”.

Finally, we brought all these habits to Israel, and we are practicing them all on each other. As our poet Igor Guberman noticed “From dusk to dawn, brother cheat brother”. You will bring your aplomb of your higher education and your bank accounts. But even in that case you may experience kind of shock, like boarding the bus where all the seats are taken…

Don’t even get me started talking about the Israeli government. Israelis couldn’t find a proper word to define it, not in Hebrew, nor in Yiddish. They simply borrowed Russian “balagan” (farce). So what?

It is better to live standing in your own “balagan”, than kneeling in someone else’s.

Nevertheless, you will bring here your own brains, the brains of your future Brins, Spielbergs, Bernsteins, Wieners, Webbers, Zukerbergs, and possibly, Einsteins. Imagine what country we can build, if you, seven million of American and European Jews, manage to get here before the coming pogroms? With your children to boot! Vladimir Jabotinsky once famously said: “What is the purpose of every nation’s existence? The purpose of every nation is to contribute to the culture of humankind… Sooner or later, the population of the Holy Land will reach several millions. After which, we will be facing a new task – maybe the most important of all – transforming this land into a country, leading all the civilized world, making an example for the rest of the world.”

And that’s why I call all the Jews, scattered across the world, with the words of the American preacher, who visited Poland in 1937, a short time before the “eruption” of Nazism. He said: “When there’s not enough material resources for everyone, the weakest ones got booted. In this case, the weakest ones are Jews. It is not just anti-Semitism; it is also a cruel law of economics. This is about survival.”

Lava of the anti-Semitic “Vulcan” is hanging over the heads of all Jews who live outside Israel. “My friends, can you deny the existence of lava?” And the answer to this question has not changed since the time of Moses: Jews ought to live in Israel.

Those are the words of Moses, spoken in 14^th century B.C. Those are the words of Theodor Herzl, who spoke in 1897 at the 1^st Zionist congress in Basel. Those are the words of Jabotinsky and Weitzman, addressing European Jews in 1936, and that’s my words, who “fell down and pushed up” in Poltava, Baku, Moscow, New York, Toronto, Miami and Princeton.

Jews ought to live in Israel, and Israel alone!

Edward Topol – USA and Israel citizen, author of novels, published in 18 countries, and author of scripts of 16 Russian motion pictures and TV-serials. His documentary film Trumpeter from Russia received Golden Remy Award of International Film Festival WorldFest Houston in 2011, and his film script Moscow Double received Platinum Remi Award of the same Film Festival.

He lived in Israel.

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