It’s a phrase Jews know well.
It gets shouted in protests, muttered online, whispered in schoolyards, sprayed on walls, and sometimes delivered with a polite smile that tries to disguise the hostility behind it.
“Go back to where you came from.”
Often the destination suggested is Poland. Or Russia. Or somewhere else in Eastern Europe.
The irony is almost painful.
Because those places were rarely where Jews came from.
They were simply where Jews ended up.
Temporary Homes, Not Origins
Yes, many Jewish families lived for generations in places like Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Germany, Russia, Morocco, Yemen, Iraq, Spain, Ethiopia and countless others.
Some communities flourished there for centuries. They built schools, synagogues, businesses, music, poetry, scholarship and culture.
But even in the most vibrant Jewish communities of the diaspora, something very important never changed.
We never forgot where home actually was.
Three times a day in our prayers we faced Jerusalem.
At the end of the Passover Seder, we said:
“Next year in Jerusalem.”
At weddings, we broke a glass and remembered Jerusalem.
In daily blessings, in mourning rituals, in songs, in poetry, in our calendar, in our language.
Jerusalem was always the centre of the map.
Not Warsaw. Not Kiev. Not Krakow. Not St. Petersburg. And certainly not Berlin.
No Jewish child in Poland ever ended a prayer saying:
“Next year in Krakow.”
Because we always knew that wasn’t the story.
Diaspora Was Never the Dream
Jews didn’t scatter across the world because we were enthusiastic travellers looking for better weather.
We were pushed. Exiled. Expelled. Conquered. Forced to convert. From the destruction of Judea by the Romans, to expulsions from England, Spain and Portugal, to pogroms in Eastern Europe, to the Holocaust.
Jewish history is not the story of adventurous migration. It is the story of survival in exile.
And through all of it, something remarkable endured. Memory. Identity. A direction in prayer. A quiet promise repeated across generations.
Next year in Jerusalem.
The Myth of the “White Jew”
Another strange accusation often follows the first.
That Jews are simply “white Europeans.”
That Judaism is just a European religion.
That Jews are somehow outsiders to the Middle East.
This misunderstanding is both historically and biologically wrong.
Jews may sometimes appear white-passing after centuries of living in Europe, but Jewish identity is not rooted in Europe.
It is rooted in the Middle East.
The majority of Israeli Jews today are Mizrahi or Sephardi, whose families lived for centuries across the Middle East and North Africa in places like Iraq, Morocco, Yemen, Iran, Syria and Egypt. Many speak Arabic as easily as Hebrew. To an outsider, they often look indistinguishable from their Arab neighbours.
Israel is also home to one of the largest Ethiopian Jewish communities in the world.
Others come from India, Central Asia, the Caucasus and beyond.
Even among Ashkenazi Jews, DNA studies consistently show clear Middle Eastern ancestry mixed with later European history.
When Jews take a genetic test, the results rarely come back as “40% Polish” or “30% German.” Instead, they return something much more specific:
Ashkenazi Jewish. Or Sephardi Jewish.
That’s because Jewish DNA forms a distinct genetic lineage, tied to a shared ancestral origin.
Just like Japanese, Chinese, or Indian heritage reflects deep historical roots tied to a particular place.
For Jews, that place is the Land of Israel.
Heritage Doesn’t Disappear
No one questions an Indian person living in Britain about whether their heritage is “real.”
No one tells a Chinese family in Canada that their history no longer counts.
A friend of mine was born in Scotland to Indian parents. She has a strong Edinburgh accent. It doesn’t make her less Indian.
Another friend is half South Korean and half Ukrainian but grew up in Dubai. Both of her cultures remain part of who she is.
That’s how identity works everywhere in the world.
Except, strangely, when it comes to Jews.
The One People Told They Don’t Belong
For Jews, the accusation is oddly reversed.
Instead of being seen as a people with a deep ancestral homeland, we are often told the opposite.
That we are foreigners everywhere. In Europe we were outsiders. In the Middle East we were colonisers. In England, America and even Israel we are told to “go back to Poland.” And in Poland, we are told to “Go back to where we came from!”
Even if our families came from Iraq, Morocco, Yemen or Ethiopia.
Even if our ancestors lived in Jerusalem long before many modern nations even existed.
The Thread That Never Broke
Despite exile, persecution and dispersion across continents, the Jewish people carried something extraordinary through time. A memory of place. Not an abstract idea. A real place.
Jerusalem. The mountains of Judea. The land where our language was born. The land where our prophets walked. The land our prayers never stopped facing.
So Where Did We Come From?
If someone insists on asking the question, the answer is actually very simple.
We came from Israel.
Some of us passed through Poland. Some through Spain. Some through Yemen, Iraq, Ethiopia, Morocco or Russia.
But those were chapters in the journey. Not the beginning of the story.
The Quiet Truth
So when someone says: “Go back to where you came from.”
Many Jews simply smile. Because in many ways, we already did.
And after two thousand years of exile, wandering and survival, we finally found our way home again.
Jerusalem was never forgotten. Not by our grandparents. Not by their grandparents. Not by anyone who whispered the same words for centuries:
Next year in Jerusalem. ✡️
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