End Times

The only constant is change, and change arrives in cycles.

Every winter, the north wind kills the garden before spring rains breathe life back into it. Civilizations appear to move the same way. Societies rise, decay, collapse, and renew themselves roughly every eighty years. The Bible itself speaks repeatedly of generational cycles lasting “four score” years.

We are approaching the end of a cycle, evidenced by four signs that appear again and again before major societal transformations: war, technological disruption, educated youth unable to find meaningful work, and rising hostility toward visible minorities, particularly Jews.

Today, all four signs are present simultaneously.

War spreads across Ukraine and the Middle East while tensions build around Taiwan. Artificial intelligence is beginning to reorder entire industries. New graduates compete for jobs once considered beneath their training. And across Europe and America, antisemitism is rising at levels unseen in decades.

The tone of the public discourse surrounding Israel this past week is reason for concern. Days before the release of a major report documenting the atrocities of October 7, Nicholas Kristoff of The New York Times published a piece sharply criticizing Israel’s conduct during the war. History teaches us that during periods of instability, societies often search for symbolic villains to bear the burden of collective anxiety.

The Jews have long understood this reality, often serving as the canary in the coal mine of Western civilization. When societies become economically strained, politically fragmented, and spiritually exhausted, hostility toward Jews has often been history’s early warning sign, spreading outward to consume others soon after.

That pattern, as Bill Maher explains, should concern all of us. 

The Jews have survived Babylon, Rome, pogroms, inquisitions, and gas chambers because memory became a form of resistance. The question now is whether the West still remembers enough of its own history to avoid walking willingly back into the fire.

— Sina.