Some things are forever—like European anti-Semitism, and, it seems, Israel’s ongoing war

Israel from the Inside with Daniel Gordis · Jul 12, 2026 · 2m

It was only a five-minute drive, at the very most, from the Oslo train station to our hotel, and we could have walked it. But we’d been traveling all day and our suitcases weren’t small, so we decided to hop in a cab.

“Where are you from?” the driver asked.

“New York,” I answered. This, after all, is Europe, and I wasn’t in the mood. In Bergen and in Flåm, I had said “Israel” when people asked. My wife and I had agreed that we weren’t going to do that, but somehow, hiding where we live felt cowardly, so I found myself saying “Israel” and not “New York” in those places (my “coming out of the…