America - the hurricane is coming

America - the hurricane is coming.

I recently returned from a trip to , and it reminded me how dangerous a sense of security can be.

Until the final stage of , the Jews of Hungary largely believed they were safe. Hungary had been their home for centuries. By 1941 there were about 825,000 Jews connected to Hungary, and many felt that despite discrimination their place in Hungarian society would ultimately protect them.

But history unfolded very differently — and with astonishing speed.

On March 19, 1944, occupied Hungary in what was called . Within weeks, the deportation machinery of the Holocaust was organized under the direction of with the cooperation of Hungarian authorities.

By April 1944, Jews across the countryside were forced into ghettos and collection camps.

Then the deportations began.

Between May 15 and July 9, 1944 — just 56 days — approximately 437,000 Hungarian Jews were deported. About 147 trains carried them, almost all to .

That is an average of roughly 7,800 people deported every day.

Most were murdered shortly after arrival.

Under international pressure, Hungary’s regent halted the deportations in July 1944. By that point, however, most Jewish communities outside the capital had already been destroyed.

Around 200,000 Jews remained in , many believing the capital might offer safety.

But the danger had not passed.

On October 15, 1944, Germany backed a fascist coup that brought the to power. In the months that followed, Jews in Budapest were forced into ghettos, thousands were shot along the Danube, and tens of thousands were driven on death marches toward Austria.

By the end of , about 565,000 Hungarian Jews had been murdered.

The destruction of Hungarian Jewry — one of Europe’s oldest Jewish communities — happened in just a few months.

And history is not only about the past.

Today many Jewish communities in the United States feel growing pressure. In places like New York and California, political climates are shifting. Mayors, governors, universities, and public institutions increasingly create environments where Jews feel uncomfortable, sometimes openly unwelcome.

Many people believe the solution is simply to move.

Some think that if life becomes difficult in New York or California they will find haven in Florida. Even Jews from Canada are moving thinkinh that relocating will solve the problem.

It is a natural instinct. When pressure rises, people look for a safer place within the same system.

But history teaches a sobering lesson.

In Hungary many believed that if things became serious they could move to Budapest — the capital, the center of power, the place where they assumed they would be safer.

Yet when the storm came, it moved faster than anyone expected.

Within less than two months of the German occupation, most Hungarian Jewry had already been deported.

The illusion before the hurricane can feel very convincing.

But when a hurricane forms, moving from one neighborhood to another inside the same storm does not stop the storm.

The hurricane still comes.