Such is the outcry of a people freed from bondage yet nostalgic for the false security of enslavement. And this lament parallels the predicament of my leftist Jewish friends now cast out of the intellectual Eden they once so confidently inhabited.
For decades, many of them enjoyed prestige as scribes of progressive orthodoxy, the magicians of academic critique, and the priests of deconstruction. Celebrated on campuses, invited to every conference, and entrusted with the sacred duty of dismantling Western hegemonies, they were assured of their seat at the high table as long as they performed the correct incantations. But when a new ritual emerged—one that demanded not merely distance from Israel but an outright anointing of its eradication—some could not stoop that low. Even if as little as a tremor of dissent finally escapes their mouth, in an instant, they become heretics.
Now they wander, staring back at the institutions that once crowned them as moral authorities. How could the revolution—their revolution—so abruptly eject them? Didn’t they denounce empire, condemn white privilege, unmask patriarchy, and dissect every vestige of colonial discourse? Yet here they stand, outside the gates, while their old colleagues gather around a golden calf adorned with the iconography of Hamas. Those same halls they once graced with their scholarship now echo with a new chant: a reverence for the “resistance,” no matter how murderous.
Some, shaken, still hope to be invited back—if only they can craft the right argument, demonstrate impeccable moral credentials, or clarify some grave misunderstanding. Perhaps a door might reopen. But the reality is harsher: there is no passage back to that Egypt. The new gods accept no half-measures. And so these exiles must decide: endure the wilderness or grovel at the threshold of a feast that has already declared them devils.
Exile is never pleasant, yet for many, it is hardly unfamiliar. Indeed, from the perspective of lived history, exile can serve as a crucible—intolerably painful but not without the spark of revelation. The real question is whether these intellectual refugees will continue pining for readmission or whether they will learn to walk forward under the desert sun, forging a fresh sense of purpose not contingent on the applause of unappeasable critics. The desert is vast, and Egypt does not take back its outcast magicians.
