I have a magnet on my fridge that says, “Life is all about how you handle Plan B.” I got it as a gift about 16 years ago from another mom. We were both in the trenches of parenting toddlers, and not a single day went as planned. We learned to embrace the joy of the pivot.
With antisemitism on the rise in the United States, our democracy eroding, and the simple instability of living here, or in many places, as a Jew, I have started thinking on a grander scale about what my Plan B might be. Plan A, to be clear, means my first choice is to live the rest of my life in the United States, to grow old surrounded by family and friends, and enjoy a prosperous, peaceful, and healthy second part of my life. But like many other American Jews, I’m trying to figure out whether I need a Plan B, when I may need it, and what it may look like.
I have been asking myself WWJD?
I’m not talking about Jesus. I am not the intended audience. I’m talking about my great-grandfather Julius. What would Julius do? Because of Julius, my family exists.
In 1924, he boarded a boat with my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my great-aunt and left Germany. It was only a few months after the Beer Hall Putsch. In 1930, after gaining American citizenship, he and my grandmother returned to Munich, the city where they were born, but he was unable to convince his family to leave. I just learned after extensive research that everyone else, over 40 people, was either killed or deported because of the Nazis.
I wonder again: how did Julius know it was time to leave?
How did he make the gut-wrenching choice to leave behind the country, language, and family he had known, to go to a new country that could easily, or most likely, not be hospitable or safe? My grandmother spoke about her mother sitting in a room, crying. Was it because she was lonely in a new country where she wasn’t fluent or socially adept? Or was it because she knew what was happening to her family back in Germany?
The family story had been that everyone got out, survived, and emigrated to South America. That, as we now say, was false news. It was simply something to help the rest of us who survived feel less guilty. But the truth makes me think again of my great-grandfather and his choices. How did he know?
Now, we are stable economically and socially in a country where my family has lived for over 100 years. We have social and business ties here, but I wonder, like other Jews, is this only temporary? As my friends and I discuss a Plan B, we run through a list of realistic options. The price of a golden visa, a residency-by-investment program, is quite high. While we may joke about moving to Canada, that is not very realistic either. We would need either specialized skills or family sponsorship. Thankfully, Israel is always an option, a safe place to land. However, am I ready to move to a country that is in turmoil, and possibly on the verge of a civil war? While I remain staunchly supportive of Israel’s right to exist, I oppose its current government, as I oppose my own.
I am also considering reclaiming German citizenship by descent. I’m not alone. Since Germany now permits dual-citizenship claims for descendants of citizens who were victims of the Nazis, many of us are pursuing this path. It requires extensive paperwork and proof of persecution, and the current wait time is nearly two years. Plus, they killed my family once. Do I want to give them a second chance to finish the job?
I don’t know which is the right Plan B or C.
Will I be leaving one type of danger and upheaval for another? Antisemitism knows no geographical or national boundaries.
I don’t like any of my options. I like my little corner of Ohio. But when I chose to get married, when I chose my house, when I made daily choices about my activities as a mom, I had an idea in my head about how things would go, and they are always so very different from how they do. I’ve learned to step back and appreciate the pivot and the necessity of Plan B.
How would Julius look at this? How are my other Jewish friends, my family, and members of my community feeling about this moment in the USA and the world? And I know my feeling is not new. Jews have often been seen as either the wandering Jew or a burden to their host country.
So, then I also think: if I needed to pack my bags and fit everything I own, what would I choose to bring? What would be emotionally important, but what would set me up to build a new life in a new place? I imagine my grandfather and many of my ancestors went through these same mental gymnastics that my community and I are doing now, trying to work out a realistic Plan B.
My friend, Melissa Hunter, and I are cohosts of The Kibbitz podcast, where we talk about motherhood, friendship, Jewish values, and other issues on Jewish women’s minds. Join us in the conversation. You can listen by clicking right here.