Have we become the ‘ordinary Germans’ now?
How can American Jews stand by while thousands of innocent people are illegally arrested, imprisoned and tortured?
Federal agents wearing masks patrol the halls of immigration court in New York. Photo by Getty Images
Contributing Columnist Jay Michaelson July 9, 2025
I have a newfound understanding of the “ordinary Germans.”
Growing up in Jewish day school on very-Jewish Long Island, I was taught, and believed, that most ordinary Germans in the 1930s were complicit in the creeping antisemitism of the Nazi Party. They were, as one popular book later put it, “Hitler’s willing executioners,” even before Kristallnacht in 1938, before the first Jewish ghettos were established in 1939, and the Final Solution proposed in 1941.
Now, I see that we are just like them.
When I look out my window, I see a leafy suburb of New York City. My daughter is at Jewish day camp. Life is pretty good. I can forget that more than 56,000 immigrants are currently in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention — and that 30,000 of them have no criminal convictions whatsoever. I can ignore the fact that thousands of them are here entirely legally — some even arrested when they show up for their required court hearings — while others have only minor infractions like traffic tickets or, in one case, a fishing summons. I can forget about the fact that, once in the system, these innocent people are often tortured, starved and even deported without due process.
Instead, I can think about what restaurant to eat at tonight (my suburb has fantastic restaurants), or argue with my friends about Zohran Mamdani, or talk about spirituality at the synagogue I attend. Just like the ordinary Germans must have done in their time.
I don’t think America in the 2030s will be like Germany in the 1940s. Though we have our Alligator Alcatraz, I doubt there will one day be an American Auschwitz. But America in 2026 may look a lot like Germany in 1936, especially after ICE gets its $70 billion budget increase, larger than the entire military budget of Israel. We are already seeing the summary imprisonment of thousands of undesirables by a militarized, masked secret police force, not to mention attacks on the institutions of civil society (education, media, law, science) and defiance of judicial orders. Where do we think this goes from here?
And yet, most of us are just going about our business.
Authoritarian nationalism doesn’t have to end in a holocaust, after all. It can creep along, bit by bit, normalizing each new offense against civil society, until you turn around and realize that the only reason you’re not in danger is the color of your skin, or your political opinions, or just pure dumb luck.
“But they’re here illegally,” some might say. And indeed, some migrants are, because our immigration system is so hopelessly broken and underfunded that it is almost impossible to comply with — thanks in no small part to Donald Trump, who torpedoed the bipartisan immigration reform package last year. But many who are not here illegally still get caught in the dragnet. For example, Here’s Fabian Schmidt, a completely legal green-card holder from Germany, describing the treatment he received during his unlawful detention by ICE. I dare you to watch it:
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And here’s what Kilmar Albrego Garcia has said happened to him in the CECOT concentration/prison camp in El Salvador: physical and psychological torture, including being forced to kneel for nine hours straight and beaten if he fell down from exhaustion.
But even those migrants who are here unlawfully should not be treated like animals, paraded in front of cameras for our amusement, dehumanized (“illegals” is not a term that should be used to describe human beings), lied about, imprisoned in appalling conditions, tortured, or mocked. What kind of country are we living in, when the suffering of others becomes fodder for jokes on Fox News?
Most days, I can’t believe any of this is happening. And I can’t believe that American Jews are mostly silent about it. Or even worse, participating in it. Here’s Laura Loomer, for example, threatening the lives of every Latino in America:
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Oh, I know, she was just trolling — ha, ha, ha. Alligator lives matter — brilliant. 65 million people to feed them. Really owning the libs there, Laura.
Except that Loomer has Trump’s ear, and sometimes jokes become reality, like the nonexistent “white genocide” in South Africa leading to an actual airlift of Afrikaaners, or lies about vaccines leading to banning COVID-19 vaccines for most adults, or idiocies about the “Gulf of America” leading to actual attacks on journalists. Hilarious.
And then there’s Stephen Miller, who has relentlessly lied, malingered, and thrown temper tantrums about immigrants since he was a bratty high school student in California. He has lied about riots in Los Angeles. He has lied about immigrant crime rates (immigrants commit crimes at half the rate of citizens). He has lied about an immigrant “invasion” (illegal immigration actually declined during the Biden presidency). He has even lied about the constitutional order itself.
Even if these lies weren’t leading to deportations, torture, false imprisonment, and death, we in the Jewish community should be gravely concerned about them. Because as Mon Mothma said in Andor, once we lose our connection to the truth, anything can happen to anyone. And in our world, “anyone” means Jews.
What in God’s name has happened to the Jewish community, that we can sit idly by and watch a minority population being targeted in this way: dehumanized, lied about, harassed, arrested, and shipped off to “facilities” around the country? Do we not see the obvious similarities? Is it simply because it’s happening to Latinos and Asians? Can you imagine if this was happening to the Jewish community?
I understand that Jewish communal leaders need to work with the White House and can’t take stands on every political issue. I understand that our own situation is precarious, especially with white supremacists being put in positions of power by the Trump administration, and Jan. 6 terrorists reportedly now working for ICE. But shouldn’t this cause us to raise our voices more, not less?
In this grotesque moment of authoritarian cruelty, I’m ashamed of the acquiescence of my community. More than ashamed — I’m disgusted by it. Unbelievably, we are the ordinary Germans now.
