There are ghettos, and there are ghettos. Indeed, there always have been. Throughout the Middle Ages, some ghettos were legally mandated, segregated spaces for Jews in Christian societies. Others were imposed by policies of de facto separation and oppression. What they all shared was an official policy of marginalization, the maintenance of Jewish otherness and inferiority.

The ghetto is officially absent today, and, indeed, illegal in most countries, especially the United States. In practice, though, it is alive again. It is, in some ways, physical, but it is just as often a ghetto of the mind. A ghetto in the mind of the Jew that enforces almost the same marginalization and inferiority, even as the Jew is physically permitted to roam free in the larger society.

This ghetto of the mind is amorphous and abstract, but it is what the ghetto always was: an arena of persecution.

The stark reality of this precipitous backslide in modern-day liberal democracies is obvious with eyes to see: As the massacre at Bondi Beach recently proved, Jews can no longer practice their religion in public—and increasingly, in private—for fear of mass slaughter. The siege of the Park East Synagogue in November, with the approval of New York’s mayor-elect, effectively abrogated Jews’ freedom of assembly, even in their own sacred spaces.

On campus and in the streets, Jewish freedom of speech is effectively gone, suppressed by spiritual and physical violence. In cultural spaces, Jewish participation is increasingly marginalized. In politics, Jews are being disempowered and demonized on both the left and the right.

In many places worldwide, Jews must conceal symbols of their identity, avoid certain streets and neighborhoods, maintain constant vigilance on public transportation, and constantly anticipate and steel themselves for the worst kinds of abuse, which can come from any quarter.

This de facto policy of persecution, aided and abetted by the collaboration or indifference of the authorities, is brick by brick constructing the walls of the ghetto of the mind.

Worse still, Jews are assimilating and adapting to this new reality. They are accepting a life of walls and limits. Continuous spiritual and physical abuse enervates and alienates them. They now know there are places they cannot go and from which they are, it seems, forever barred. Existence itself is being truncated.

In other words, something that journalist and Zionist Theodor Herzl described with great eloquence is taking shape once again:

“We have sincerely tried everywhere to merge with the national communities in which we live, seeking only to preserve the faith of our fathers. It is not permitted us. In vain are we loyal patriots, sometimes super-loyal; in vain do we make the same sacrifices of life and property as our fellow citizens; in vain do we strive to enhance the fame of our native lands in the arts and sciences, or her wealth by trade and commerce. In our native lands where we have lived for centuries we are still decried as aliens, often by men whose ancestors had not yet come at a time when Jewish sighs had long been heard in the country.”

Perhaps worst of all, this ghetto of the mind does what the ancient ghettos did and were intended to do: by concentrating and isolating the Jews, it creates an easy and perpetual target. Everyone knows where the Jews are and knows that they cannot leave. The Jews are easy to find and, thus, easy to harass, assault and kill.

We should not look away from what this means, because the ghetto is always prologue. Once concentrated and marginalized, far worse can easily be done to the Jews. Indeed, it becomes inevitable. As Herzl put it, “If we were left in peace. … But I think we shall not be left in peace.”

Some Jews will accept their new, inferior status and do their best to make their way in a hostile society. Many others, however, will not stand for it, and for them, aliyah is the only option. Great Diaspora societies, constructed by hapless refugees in the United States and painfully rebuilt from the ashes of the Holocaust in Europe, will come to an end. A second Spanish Expulsion will take place.

This will be a boon to Israel, but at the same time, a historical trauma unknown to the Jewish people for almost a century. It will hand Hitler a partial posthumous victory, bearing out the words of his last testament: “Centuries will pass away, but out of the ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred against those finally responsible, whom we have to thank for everything, international Jewry and its helpers, will grow.”

If this heinous crime is to be avoided, it lies with the Jews to resist. They must, at long last, embrace the principle and practice of active self-defense. They must rise up and defend themselves by themselves, if necessary, by force.

This requires, above all, new national organizations in the United States, Europe and throughout the Diaspora. They must undertake self-defense and weapons training; civil disobedience; intelligence gathering; education in Jewish history, culture and self-respect; and radical activism within the bounds of the law and Jewish morality.

Only thus can freedom and first-class citizenship be reclaimed, Jewish life in the Diaspora secured, and the ghetto of the mind torn down. A ghetto of the mind that, much faster than anyone anticipated, is becoming a ghetto of the body as well.

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