There is a fascinating principle in Chazal. The Gemara in Shabbat 32a teaches: מגלגלין זכות על ידי זכאי וחובה על ידי חייב — “Merit is brought about through one who is meritorious, and liability through one who is culpable.” Hashem runs history through human beings, yet two people can contribute to the same historical outcome and receive completely opposite judgments from Heaven. The difference may not be what happened, but why they wanted it to happen.
Imagine two rulers telling their Jews: “Go home. Return to the Land of Israel.” Both might cause thousands of Jews to make Aliyah and thereby participate in the prophetic ingathering of the exiles. Yet one might be remembered as a friend of the Jewish people and the other as an enemy. We have seen this before.
Pharaoh ultimately sent the Jewish people out of Egypt: “Rise up, go out from among my people” (Shemot 12:31). Judged purely by the result, one could absurdly call Pharaoh a facilitator of Jewish redemption. But he enslaved the Jews, murdered their children and resisted their freedom until Hashem broke Egypt. He wanted relief from catastrophe, not Jewish redemption, and shortly afterward pursued them to the sea. Pharaoh became an instrument of redemption, but that did not make him a redeemer.
Now consider Cyrus the Great. Ezra records Cyrus permitting the Jews to return to Jerusalem, rebuild the Beit HaMikdash and recover vessels taken from the First Temple. Yeshayahu even calls him לִמְשִׁיחוֹ לְכוֹרֶשׁ — “His anointed, Cyrus” (Yeshayahu 45:1), an extraordinary description of a gentile king selected for a historic role. Pharaoh effectively says, “Get these Jews out of my country.” Cyrus says, “Let these Jews go home and rebuild.” The movement is similar. The intention is opposite. One seeks Jewish disappearance; the other facilitates Jewish restoration.
That distinction should speak directly to today’s leaders. President Donald Trump of the United States, President Javier Milei of Argentina, President José Raúl Mulino of Panama, and other leaders who have demonstrated friendship toward Israel and the Jewish people have the potential to become modern-day Cyruses. They can encourage their Jewish citizens to fulfill their historic destiny and return to Eretz Yisrael while saying: We value you, appreciate what you contributed to our country, recognize your ancestral homeland, and support those who choose to return there.
And suddenly, this is no longer theoretical. As this article was being completed, Trump indicated support for a Christian-backed proposal urging his administration to establish an expedited legal pathway for Canadian Jews concerned about rising antisemitism. More than 2,000 Canadian Jews have reportedly expressed interest in relocating, with Oklahoma emerging as one possible destination. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney himself has acknowledged the severity of the problem, noting that Jews constitute roughly one percent of Canada’s population while suffering more than two-thirds of the country’s religion-motivated hate crimes.
The Christian leaders behind the initiative deserve credit for seeing Jewish suffering and wanting to help. America has historically provided refuge to persecuted Jews, and offering endangered Jews safety is an act of friendship. But in 2026, this proposal raises a question that could hardly be more relevant: Why should the answer to an unsafe Galut be another Galut?
If Trump truly wants to play the role of a modern Cyrus, there is an even greater opportunity. America could work with Israel to help Canadian Jews who wish to leave not merely find somewhere safer, but come home. Help families relocate. Help professionals transfer careers. Help businesses establish Israeli operations. Help communities make Aliyah while maintaining economic and personal relationships with North America. Cyrus did not respond to Jewish exile by offering the Jews a nicer neighborhood in Persia. He opened the road to Jerusalem.
Imagine an American president telling the Jewish people: “America has been blessed by your presence. We will always protect Jews who need refuge. But after two thousand years, the Jewish people have returned to their ancestral homeland. If you choose to go home, we will help you, and our friendship will follow you to Israel.” Imagine Milei saying it in Argentina, Mulino in Panama, and other friendly leaders doing the same. That is not Pharaoh driving Jews out. It is Cyrus opening the road toward Jerusalem.
History provides examples of the opposite process. In 1263, the Ramban — Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman — participated in the famous Disputation of Barcelona. After defending Judaism and subsequently facing Church pressure, he ultimately left the country and arrived in Eretz Yisrael in 1267. He found Jerusalem devastated, with Jewish communal life barely surviving, and helped rebuild it. Those who sought to silence him pushed him out of Spain but, in doing so, helped send him to Jerusalem. They thought they were removing a troublesome Jew; Hashem was planting a Jewish leader in Eretz Yisrael. They intended rejection; Hashem produced return.
Then came the expulsions. England expelled its Jews in 1290. France did so repeatedly. Portugal ordered an expulsion in 1496 and subjected many Jews to forced conversion. Most famously, Ferdinand and Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree in 1492, uprooting centuries of Jewish civilization in Spain and scattering Jews throughout North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, Italy and elsewhere.
Among them was Don Yitzchak Abarbanel — statesman, financier, Torah scholar and biblical commentator. He had helped finance the Spanish monarchy during its campaign against Granada and attempted to persuade Ferdinand and Isabella to rescind their decree. When he failed, he left with his people. Spain had benefited from Abarbanel’s brilliance and then expelled him. Spain did not eliminate Abarbanel’s talent. It exported it.
The year 1492 contains an extraordinary additional irony. That same year Christopher Columbus sailed westward under Ferdinand and Isabella’s flag. Columbus’s ancestry has been debated for generations, but a 2024 DNA investigation concluded that he was of Sephardic Jewish descent. The Alhambra Decree was signed on March 31; Columbus sailed on August 3. At precisely the moment Spain was forcing its Jews out, a man identified by modern genetic researchers as having Jewish ancestry was sailing toward a world that would eventually become home to millions of Jewish descendants. Spain was closing one door while, across the Atlantic, another was beginning to open.
Although later accounts connecting Abarbanel directly to Columbus are disputed, the important role of Luis de Santángel, a royal official from a converso family, in securing support and financing for Columbus is much better documented. Even as Spain sought to eradicate open Jewish life, people of Jewish ancestry were helping launch the voyage that would transform the world beyond Europe.
Jewish merchants, physicians, scholars, craftsmen and financiers did not disappear when expelled. They went elsewhere, and elsewhere benefited. A famous tradition attributes to Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II a mocking observation about Ferdinand: what kind of wise king impoverishes his own kingdom while enriching mine? Whatever the precise wording, the principle is obvious. When a country throws out productive people, it does not destroy their productivity. It transfers it somewhere else.
The twentieth century provided perhaps the most dramatic example. Nazi Germany sought to purge itself of its Jews and drove out people whose minds would strengthen the countries fighting against it. Albert Einstein, already world famous when Hitler came to power, settled permanently in the United States, becoming perhaps the most recognizable symbol of the intellectual capital Germany had driven away. He was hardly alone. Jewish and other refugee scientists, physicians, scholars, engineers and artists enriched universities, laboratories and cultural institutions throughout the free world. Hitler believed he was cleansing Germany of an unwanted population. In reality, he was transferring extraordinary human capital to its competitors.
The Soviet experience offers another version of the same irony. Soviet Jews endured decades of religious repression, discrimination and severe restrictions on emigration. Yet when the gates finally opened, enormous numbers left for Israel and the West. Jews from the former Soviet Union brought Israel scientists, physicians, engineers, mathematicians, musicians and other highly educated professionals who became an important part of Israel’s development. A regime that tried to suppress Jewish identity ultimately helped provide the Jewish state with some of its most valuable human capital.
Indeed, the antisemitism, pogroms and persecution of Europe helped drive generations of extraordinary Jews toward Eretz Yisrael. The pioneers, thinkers, soldiers, scientists and statesmen who built modern Israel did not emerge in a vacuum. Many were refugees from European hostility or came from societies that had made clear that Jews would never be entirely secure among them. They thought they were getting rid of Jews. Hashem was gathering the human seeds from which the Jewish state would grow.
Again and again, nations imagined that pushing Jews out solved a Jewish problem. Spain expelled Abarbanel. Nazi Germany drove out Jewish intellectuals. Soviet repression eventually sent an extraordinary wave of educated Jews toward Israel. Instead of destroying Jewish talent, these societies exported it. When a country drives away its Jews, it does not destroy their blessing. It sends that blessing somewhere else.
The Americas eventually became the greatest refuge of all. The United States in particular gave Jews extraordinary freedom, and Jews responded by contributing enormously to medicine, science, technology, finance, law, academia, philanthropy and countless other fields. America did not become powerful simply because it welcomed Jews, just as Spain did not decline simply because it expelled them. But from a Torah perspective, the pattern recalls Hashem’s promise to Avraham: וַאֲבָרֲכָה מְבָרְכֶיךָ וּמְקַלֶּלְךָ אָאֹר — “I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse” (Bereishit 12:3). America blessed its Jews, and Jews helped bless America in return.
There is a powerful parallel from the Holocaust. Among the Righteous Among the Nations were non-Jews who risked everything to hide and protect Jewish children. The purity of that rescue became especially clear after the war, when those who understood that the children had been entrusted to them were prepared, whenever possible, to return them to surviving parents, relatives or the Jewish community. Tragically, there were also cases in which sheltered Jewish children were not willingly returned, sometimes because they had been baptized or their rescuers had come to regard them as their own. There is a profound difference between protecting someone who has taken refuge in your home and deciding that because you protected him, he now belongs to you.
Perhaps the same principle applies to nations that hosted Jews during our long exile. Countries that opened their doors to persecuted Jews deserve genuine gratitude. But hospitality does not erase identity, and refuge does not transfer ownership. The Jewish people never ceased being the people of Eretz Yisrael because another country sheltered them for generations or even centuries. The ultimate test of a host’s friendship comes when the guest is finally able to go home. A refuge becomes something very different when the refugee is no longer permitted to leave.
A nation that truly loves its Jewish citizens can be proud of having sheltered them, grateful for everything they contributed, and equally proud to help them return to their ancestral homeland. Just as the noblest rescuers understood that saving a Jewish child did not give them the right to keep that child from his family, a nation can understand that giving refuge to Jews does not make exile their permanent home. It can say: “We were honored to shelter you. We were blessed by your presence. And now that you can go home, we will help you get there.”
That may be the ultimate distinction. A captor says, “You cannot leave.” A persecutor says, “You must leave.” A true friend says, “If your destiny calls you home, I will bless you on your way.”
For centuries, Jews fleeing one exile searched for another. Spain to the Ottoman Empire, Portugal to Amsterdam, Eastern Europe to America. One Galut replaced another. Today there is another destination: Eretz Yisrael. Nations can therefore make their Jews feel unwanted and create another hostile brain drain, or lovingly assist them in returning home.
The physical result may look identical. Jewish doctors, entrepreneurs, scientists, investors, rabbis and families board airplanes and leave. But one departure says, “We don’t want you.” The other says, “We appreciate you, and we support your return home.” Jews who make Aliyah with gratitude can maintain businesses, investments and professional relationships with the countries they left. An American scientist in Jerusalem can collaborate with American laboratories; an Argentine entrepreneur in Tel Aviv with Buenos Aires; an oleh from Panama can strengthen Panama-Israel ties. Instead of a brain drain, Aliyah can become a brain bridge. A wise nation does not try to hold on to the Jewish blessing by holding on to its Jews. It sends them home with its blessing — and keeps the relationship.
That is the opportunity available to Trump, Milei, Mulino and other friends of Israel. They can say: “You helped build our country. We are grateful. If you choose to return to the land of your ancestors, we will help you build your country, and together we will strengthen both.” That would be a new model of Aliyah: not expulsion or rejection, but return accompanied by friendship and partnership. Not Pharaoh, Ferdinand and Isabella, or Haman, but Cyrus.
But what about leaders whose words, policies or political movements make Jews increasingly uncomfortable remaining in the diaspora? If their actions ultimately cause Jewish families to make Aliyah, another piece of Kibbutz Galuyot — the ingathering of the exiles — still falls into place. Yet Divine Providence should never be confused with human virtue.
We need not claim to know the inner motivations of contemporary politicians such as London Mayor Sadiq Khan or New York politician Zohran Mamdani. If any leader drives Jews away through hostility, the fact that Hashem turns that hostility toward Aliyah does not transform it into righteousness. Yeshayahu calls Assyria “the rod of My anger” (Yeshayahu 10:5). Hashem can use wickedness within His plan without declaring wickedness righteous.
Sometimes the hostile leader becomes part of the Divine alarm clock. לֶב מֶלֶךְ בְּיַד ה׳ — “The heart of a king is in the hand of Hashem” (Mishlei 21:1). Chazal make an astonishing statement in Megillah 14a: Achashverosh’s transfer of his ring to Haman accomplished more than forty-eight prophets and seven prophetesses. What the prophets could not accomplish through words, Haman accomplished through fear.
Haman receives no merit. He wanted genocide, not repentance. Haman intended genocide; Hashem extracted teshuvah. Sanhedrin 97b teaches that if Israel does not repent, Hashem can raise against them a ruler whose decrees are as harsh as Haman’s, causing them to return. Sometimes Hashem sends a prophet. Sometimes He sends a Cyrus. And sometimes, when the gentle invitations are ignored, history produces a Haman — or, perhaps in our generation, a “Hamandani.”
That is not to declare any contemporary politician literally Haman. But Chazal require us to recognize that hostile political developments can become a Divine wake-up call. A politician may believe he is pushing Jews away; Hashem may use that pressure to push Jews home.
And here lies the tragedy. Sometimes Hashem sends the wake-up call, and we hit the snooze button. Antisemitism rises. Jewish institutions require increasing security. Jewish students encounter hostility. Finally, a Jewish family concludes that its future no longer lies where it has lived for generations. So they sell their house, pack their belongings, and courageously move to Florida. Or Oklahoma.
We laugh, but it is painfully symbolic. Hashem shakes the foundations of Galut, and we search Zillow for a warmer Galut. We understand that something is changing but miss where history is pointing. Instead of asking whether Hashem is calling His children home, we search for a more comfortable cabin on the same sinking ship.
For most of exile, Jews fleeing persecution often had nowhere else to go. Our generation is different. Today there is a sovereign Jewish state in the Land to which our prophets promised we would return. Jerusalem is rebuilt. Hebrew is spoken in its streets. Jews arrive from around the world. Kibbutz Galuyot — the ingathering of the exiles — is no longer merely printed in a siddur. It is happening at Ben-Gurion Airport. When pressure in the diaspora increases, perhaps our first question should no longer be, “Where else in the diaspora should I move?” but “What is Hashem trying to tell me?”
A hostile politician might accomplish in five years what decades of Aliyah organizations failed to accomplish. That does not make antisemitism good. We do not thank Pharaoh for Yetziat Mitzrayim; we thank Hashem. But a leader can choose another role. He can choose Cyrus. He can tell the Jews: Your homeland is Israel. Jerusalem is your ancient capital. We appreciate what you contributed here, and we bless you if you choose to return there.
The airplane may be the same. The destination may be the same. The Aliyah may be the same. But Heaven’s judgment may be entirely different. One ruler loses his Jews because they are fleeing him; another helps send them home with his blessing. One creates a brain drain through hatred; the other creates a brain bridge through friendship.
Perhaps that is the choice confronting both the nations and the Jews today. The nations must decide whether they will be Pharaoh or Cyrus. And the Jews must decide whether we are finally ready to leave Egypt when the door opens.
Hashem runs history, but human beings choose which role they will play within it. The nations may participate in the return of the Jewish people to Zion whether they intend to or not. Their leaders can participate as Cyrus, Pharaoh, Ferdinand and Isabella, or Haman. They can curse the Jewish people and drive away their blessing, or bless them on their journey home and perhaps share in that blessing themselves. Hashem’s promise still echoes across history: וַאֲבָרֲכָה מְבָרְכֶיךָ — “I will bless those who bless you.”
And the question for us is even more urgent. How many messengers do we need? How many warnings? How many times must Hashem shake the foundations of Galut before we recognize where Jewish history is heading? The prophets already told us. The Torah already told us. We have prayed for it three times a day for generations. Now, before our eyes, it is actually happening. We should not need another Haman to convince us to come home. We certainly should not wait for a “Hamandani.” And when the Divine alarm clock finally wakes us up, the answer is not Florida. And it is not Oklahoma. The answer is Eretz Yisrael.
