In an opinion piece for Euronews, Israeli strategist Avital Sahar argues that Jewish life in Europe is under constant threat - accusing governments of effectively failing to protect their communities amid rising antisemitism.
Yesterday morning, my nine-year-old daughter asked me if I knew they have terror drills at her (Jewish) school. She explained, calmly, the way children describe how they spent their day, how they hid under their desks in absolute silence. Studying behind barricades, bulletproof doors and windows - the permanent architecture of Jewish life in the West. With armed guards - German police and Jewish/Israeli private security.
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Some days ago, a Jewish school in Amsterdam was bombed. Now go send your child to school after this. This is not hysteria. This is just an ordinary day. Which other group of children in the West runs terror drills as a norm? Not lockdown drills, terror drills.
The distinction matters. A lockdown drill is against a generic threat. A terror drill is premised on a specific enemy who want to kill these children because of who they are. Barricading Jewish institutions is such a norm that it became invisible.
Jews have a parallel architecture of daily life
My Christian friends don't really see it. How European Jews have a parallel architecture of daily life. A set of calculations, adjustments, and risk assessments. Not out of paranoia, but out of reality.
The taxi, the street
Jewish life in The West - 2026: One evening in Berlin, a taxi driver heard us speaking Hebrew and, without a word, turned on his screen and filled the back seat with a Hezbollah video broadcast. A message, delivered in silence.
In January 2026, a rabbi walking in Queens was beaten on Holocaust Remembrance Day. In February 2026, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl in Paris was beaten by boys who heard she was Jewish.
In March 2026, two Israelis were beaten outside a restaurant in San Jose by men shouting, "Don't mess with Iran." Almost all of my Jewish friends in Europe changed their names in their Uber or delivery apps.
Now, change your name in Uber to a Jewish name and order a ride at night.
The doctor
In February 2025, two nurses at a Sydney hospital appeared in a video boasting that they had already "sent Israelis to hell" from their ward. A Dutch nurse is under criminal investigation for threatening to administer lethal injections to Israeli patients.
In 2025, a Belgian doctor entered "Jewish (Israeli)" as a medical diagnosis in the file of a nine-year-old girl. When you go to the dentist you are afraid of pain, when Jews go to the dentist they fear never to wake up from general anesthesia.
The restaurant, the shop, the plane
In July 2025, three Israeli musicians were told to leave a pizzeria in Vienna's Jewish quarter after speaking in Hebrew. That same month, fifty-two French Jewish children were removed from a flight in Valencia after singing in Hebrew.
In January 2026, a collective in Barcelona published an interactive map of 152 Jewish-owned schools, businesses, and organisations in Catalonia, labeled "the Zionist economy". Now go on a date or start a business in this reality.
The home
A Jewish family in a Paris suburb discovered that their housemaid had spent weeks poisoning their wine, juice, whiskey, pasta, and cosmetics. When arrested, the caregiver told police: They have money and power. I should never have had to work for a Jew.
Now enjoy your morning coffee.
The synagogue, the school, the community center
A few weeks ago,we took our daughter to see a children's play in Hebrew, we registered online and only at the day of the event received an email with the address, where we were welcomed by an undercover guard.
In October 2025, a driver rammed a crowd outside a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur and began stabbing - two killed.
In December 2025, fifteen people were murdered at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia.
In March 2026 alone: a synagogue bombed in Belgium, one torched in Rotterdam, a Jewish school bombed in Amsterdam, three synagogues shot at in Toronto, a car rammed into a Michigan synagogue with 140 children inside.
The average Jewish institution in Europe has more barricades, and armed security than most government offices. Last week the Belgian army was deployed in Antwerp to protect Jewish schools and synagogues. Let that last sentence sink in.
As a European Jew, you live your life knowing you are a target
All these incidents are not exceptional. They are a fraction of what was documented in the past eighteen months, in every sphere of daily life. As a European Jew, you live your life knowing you are a target.
At home, at your coffee shop, community center, place of worship. You think twice where to eat or take a taxi from. Which doctor will treat you, where will your child go to school.
When you board an El-Al plane, always at the most distant gate, surrounded by machine guns, planes guarded by an armoured personnel carrier, and hope you will not become part of the statistic.
Not protection but managed abandonment
The calculation has been made - across chancelleries in the West - that genuine confrontation with antisemites carries a political cost too high to pay. So, the cost is transferred onto Jewish communities: where schools look like military outposts. No one really sees it as odd anymore.
It is. A continent that has spent eighty years building monuments to Jewish victims cannot make it safe for a living Jewish child to speak Hebrew in a cab.
Criticising Jewish and Israeli self-defence is more fashionable. J'accuse. Not of malice alone, but of cowardice.
Of the deliberate choice to manage Jewish fear rather than confront Islamist or Left- and Right-wing antisemites. Of constructing magnificent memorials to the Jews you failed in the past, while failing, this week, now, tomorrow - Jews who are alive today.
What can Europe do tomorrow morning?
What can Europe do tomorrow morning? The immediate step should be major legislative changes. Anyone of any country or religion, that immigrated to Europe, only to use its legal system as a trojan horse and promote racism, violence and terror, or in Germany's case for example, act against the German constitution should be deported to his country of origine with zero bureaucracy and in lightning speed. Immigrating to Europe is a privilege and not a right.
Second, Jewish lives are more important than the The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rights of extremist organisations. A massive EU wide operation to pinpoint investigate dismantle and punish antisemitic organisations.
Again with zero bureaucracy and expedited procedures. Because radicals are using our legal system as a weapon against us.
A political backbone is needed
Massive educational overhaul, zero tolerance to antisemitism. Zero donations from autocratic countries or organizations. From kindergarten to university.
And most important, instead of sending armed police, military and intelligence to "protect" Jewish neighborhoods, send them to antisemites and radicals where they live. Anything less is a self-lie that will rather put a "Stolperstein" memory stone for my dead daughter then actively preventing her murder by attacking the source.
Yes, this may be unpleasant, it will demand a political backbone, and an honest answer to the questions: Who are the attackers? Where are they from? Why is there a huge increase in anti-Jewish attacks in the past decade?
Until you can answer that, spare me with your "protection" and your posthumous statements, you can lie to yourself but at least stop lying to us. That is your indictment. My daughter is the evidence. She will be kept safe. With, or despite you. Never again is a lie.
Avital Sahar is an Israeli Strategic Advisor living in Berlin. He has worked with Israeli and European officials on issues of national security and resilience.