Much has been written on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. Most of it is focused on Israel—as it should be in their moment of national trauma and resilience. I’m not able to offer any original insights on the land of Zion, but, as a Jewish American and an immigrant, I have some thoughts on the Jewish future stateside.

Jews first settled the territory of the contemporary American Southwest, crossing the Rio Grande from what is now Mexico, during colonial times. In 1654, a handful of Sephardic refugees fled the Portuguese Inquisition from Brazil to New Amsterdam, founding one of the most numerous and singular Jewish communities in the world. Shortly after Haym Salomon helped  finance the American Revolution, his friend George Washington addressed the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island:

For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.

When my own family arrived in the United States on the eve the breakdown of the USSR, we were secure in the knowledge that Jews did very well for themselves in America. Escaping the Soviet Union, we were what the American Jewish poetess Emma Lazarus described as “your poor, your huddled masses” and we were definitely “yearning to breathe free.”

Of course, it was an honor and a privilege to enter the United States, but that line, “yearning to breathe free,”repeated ad nauseam and mindlessly in relation to all immigrants without discernment, has become a sad cliché. What ought to be seen as a qualifier for immigrants has instead been taken for granted to mean that all the poor and huddled masses are naturally predisposed to liberty. That’s just not true. With slavery being the historical norm across cultures, the lower classes are too often willing to surrender their natural rights to a sovereign. The failure of our (admittedly half-hearted) attempt to bring democracy to the Muslim world should be seen as a testament to that.

Not only didn’t constitutional government take in Muslim nations, but Western nations that host large and growing Muslim populations are increasingly unstable. In this respect the Old Continent is several decades ahead of us. The gigantic anti-Israel demonstrations spilling onto the streets of the once proud capitals of Europe betoken turmoil.

The Islamist goals are more ambitious: according to a 2019 French poll, nearly half of foreign-born Muslims want to see that country adopt sharia law. Close to a third of the British Muslims today want the Islamic law prevail in England by 2044. On Oct. 12, thousands of Muslim men marched in support of the Caliphate in Hamburg, Germany.

How can Western political order be swept away by Islamization?

Several methods come to mind. A young man celebrating Oct. 7 in New York proclaimed that Gazans have a right to violence and that the U.S. government is controlled by Israel. He explained that the way to counter the sinister Zionists is to exploit the democratic institutions of this nation: that is, to run for office. The man’s resentment is palpable, and it is mirrored in the terrorist activity of some recent arrivals—Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi of Oklahoma, for instance, an Afghan man admitted on a special visa after the fall of the U.S.-backed government. He has been arrested for allegedly plotting a terrorist attack. Terror threats change political dynamics—but so does the work of shady deep state actors like Kamala Harris’s BFF and native of Jordan, Hala Hijazi, or her other pal, the imam Mohammad Ali Elahi.

In the year since the launch of the global Intifada there has been a three-fold increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States. It’s true that there are some elements of home-grown anti-Semitism in America. Soon after I landed in California, New York suffered the Crown Heights Riots. The 1991 incident resulted in two deaths—one to a Jew and another to a man mistaken for a Jew. The riot’s leader, Al Sharpton, quickly cozied up to power, most notably to former president Barack Obama. Obama was also friendly with the notoriously anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan.

Yet there is no denying that contemporary Jew-hate is flourishing most in our immigrant communities. The newcomers are strategically positioned in American cities, where they become diversity darlings, and their clout is ascendant.

Take, for instance, Oakland’s controversial Jerusalem Coffee House. The joint serves an $8 Iced In Tea Fada—get it? Get it? Blowing up children at pizzerias is so funny. And for just $10 you can get an orange juice Sweet Sinwar, named after the man who ordered the slaughter on last year’s Simchat Torah.

Designed as a place to advance fringe ideas, the Jerusalem Coffee House’s Yelp reviews include one woman’s complaints of being ejected for bringing up Israeli cuisine and another one calling on patrons to “**** zios”—or kill Jews. Cultural programming includes events like the screening of presidential debate titled White on White Violence: Collapse of The Great Settler State, advertised with a flyer showing Donald Trump with swastikas in place of eyes and Joe Biden with stars of David.

The venue’s owner Abdulrahim “Raheem” Harara, a San Francisco-raised Gazan, built his nest egg working in the local tech sector. In a photo posted by a patron on Yelp, Harara is seen displaying the one-finger ISIS salute.

The coffee shop is a mundane example of America importing ancient hatreds from the Middle East for no good reason. Most notorious among these sorts of examples are those of the “Squad” congresswomen like Rashida Tlaib and the Somalian Muslim Ilhan Omar.

Omar’s case is particularly egregious. Despite the fact that Omar’s father was a Soviet-trained military commander—and one rumored to be complicit in mass killing—she and her family were admitted as refugees from far-away Kenya. Now representing a heavily Somalian congressional district in Minnesota, Omar is certain to keep her congressional seat for a long time. She takes anti-Israel stances whenever possible and in 2019 her unhinged remarks triggered a House vote condemning “antisemitism and Islamophobia.” Notably, a generation ago, American politicians felt empowered to condemn anti-Semitism on its own, without the need to throw Islamophobia into the mix.

Despite being recent arrivals to our shores, the Omars have already formed a prominent anti-Semitic political dynasty. Ilhan’s daughter Isra Hirsi played a leading part in last year’s anti-Israel disturbances on elite campuses. On the first year anniversary of Oct. 7, the congresswoman’s daughter posted on her Instagram “resistance is glorious, we will be victorious.”

Last year, Hirsi was briefly suspended from Barnard College for the unauthorized seizure of Columbia University property—a sadly common occurrence on North American campuses. This Yom Kippur shots were fired at Bais Chaya Mushka, a Jewish girls school in Toronto, Canada. This was the second such incident at the elementary school this year. Over the last few years, Canada has experienced both unprecedented levels of immigration and a particularly vicious wave of anti-Zionist demonstrations. America still trails our northern cousin in both anti-Semitism and Islamization but we are not faring much better.

The swift demographic shift brought about by immigration is already keenly felt in partisan politics. Kamala Harris has not only surrounded herself with antizionist advisors but, in an effort to court the Muslim vote, she very publicly snubbed the popular swing state Jewish governor, Josh Shapiro, for vice president—a move that may yet cost her the election. Commenting on her treatment of Shapiro, the former Obama strategist Van Jones remarked that anti-Semitism is now “marbled” in the Democratic Party.

We need to renegotiate our idea of liberty and the willingness to receive the dispossessed without discarding centuries of American traditions. Because our recent history shows that not all people want to be free, we need to focus on safeguarding the rights of Americans. When the mobs march through historic Jewish centers chanting threats like “Zionists out of Boston,” I understand what is implied. Washington’s promise to Jews of a government “which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance” is beginning to look dated.

None of it needed to happen. What exactly is the point of bringing in large immigrant communities that require tracking by the FBI due to a prevalence of terrorist activity? We shouldn’t have to grow the security apparatus of the country as we import new residents just to keep our children safe.

Liberty is rare and precious; not every culture creates the mentality of “yearning to be free.” And that’s just fine if those who don’t want liberty stay where they are. But it’s not what our founders designed for us here and we shouldn’t be required to import it.