When freedom shields the radical, not the righteous.

By: Ezra Nadav

There is a dangerous irony unfolding in the heart of liberal democracies: the very freedoms designed to protect the vulnerable are now shielding those who terrorise them.

In the name of justice, progress, and liberation, a new wave of radicalism has taken hold, loud, moralistic, and increasingly hostile to dissent. But when that radicalism turns its fury toward Jews, when synagogues require armed guards, when Jewish students are hounded off campuses, and when Holocaust survivors’ descendants are told they are the oppressors, something has gone terribly wrong.

The United States, Canada, and Australia once stood as safe havens for Jews fleeing persecution. They were democratic sanctuaries in the ashes of Auschwitz, places where “Never Again” was not just a phrase but a promise. Today, that promise is crumbling. Progressive spaces that champion equity for all too often make a glaring exception for Jews, especially when the conversation turns to Israel.

This isn’t just hypocrisy. It’s the weaponisation of liberty, where the freedom to protest has morphed into permission to intimidate, and where so-called “justice” becomes a justification for hate. It is a sobering reality that in 2025, Jews are fleeing, not from dictatorships, but from city streets and university halls in democratic nations that have lost the will to protect them.

Freedom without moral clarity is not freedom at all. It is a hollow shell, easily filled with rage, bigotry, and the most ancient of hatreds.

Shalom Aleichem

© 2025 On Second Thought | Ezra Nadav
All rights reserved – Ezra Nadav