Feel unsafe in New York? Start looking for a home in Israel - editorial

Two scenes in the past week – one on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, one in Tel Aviv – send a single message to Diaspora Jews: it may be time to think seriously about owning a home in Israel.

New York’s incoming mayor, Zohran Mamdani, responded with a carefully balanced statement. His press secretary, Dora Pekec, said he “has discouraged” the language used outside Park East and “believes every New Yorker should be free to enter a house of worship without intimidation,” yet added that “these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.” To many Jews, it sounded like a mayor-elect unwilling to say clearly that targeting a synagogue with threats is antisemitic.

The broader American backdrop is no less troubling. In its latest annual audit, the Anti-Defamation League logged more than 9,300 antisemitic incidents in 2024, a record high, and for the first time, most were explicitly tied to hostility to Israel or Zionism. “In 2024, hatred toward Israel was a driving force behind antisemitism across the US,” said Oren Segal, who leads the ADL’s efforts to combat extremism and terrorism.

Now shift the lens to Israel. Here, the asset that for years seemed untouchable, an apartment in shekels, is finally wobbling. As Shlomo Maoz wrote in this paper, “Israel’s housing market is freezing: Tel Aviv apartment prices are down 8.4% due to high interest rates and emigration,” with investors “losing millions and fleeing to the stock market.” According to Central Bureau of Statistics data cited by Ynet, more than 80,000 new apartments remain unsold nationwide, representing roughly 28 months of supply at current sales rates. In other words, there is inventory, and sellers are under pressure.

For years, many Diaspora Jews looked at Israeli real estate and concluded they had missed the train, as prices rose relentlessly and even middle-class Israelis despaired of buying in the country’s economic center. Today, prices are not collapsing everywhere, but they are correcting in key segments; developers are offering incentives, and banks are reassessing risk.

This is where the two stories intersect. The same week that a masked man outside Park East shouted, “We need to make them scared,” a different conversation was happening in the synagogue lobby: How soon can we move? If the last few years have taught anything, it is that Jewish permanence in the Diaspora, even in seemingly secure cities like New York, cannot be taken for granted.

Buying a home in Israel will not solve antisemitism in Brooklyn or on American campuses. Israel itself is hardly risk-free; it remains under constant threat from Iran and its proxies, its politics are volatile, and anyone buying here must think in decades, not quarters. There are legal, tax, and practical hurdles, especially for nonresidents, and prospective buyers should take professional advice.

Diaspora Jews today stand at a crossroads: on one side is the hope that the current wave of anti-Zionist fury will ebb and that synagogues will once again be places of unremarkable safety; on the other is a sober reading of the data, from ADL’s statistics to the chants on Manhattan sidewalks, and a recognition that history rarely rewards Jewish complacency.