“Why Am I Alive?”: A Holocaust Survivor’s Son Sees America Turning

Jerry Chazan is 76. He’s lived his whole life in the United States quietly Jewish, deeply American, and entirely aware of how statistically unlikely it is that he even exists.

His father survived the Holocaust in Lithuania. His mother, survived in hiding in Poland - her entire family intact. Chazan estimates the odds of that survival at “zero-point-three.” For most of his life, he’s carried a private weight: “I have no right to be alive,” he says. “Why me?”

Now, more than ever, he’s asking that question again.

“This Is 1937”

The events of October 7th shook Chazan to his core. But it wasn’t just grief or rage he felt. it was déjà vu.

“I got physically sick. All the stories I’ve heard, all the research I’ve done - this is 1937 Germany again. That’s where we are.”

For him, it’s not just a metaphor. It’s a chilling comparison. He sees eerie echoes of pre-Kristallnacht Germany, a time when Jews were still allowed to be in public life, but the walls were closing in fast.

His anxiety isn’t abstract. It’s visceral. What will happen to his grandchildren? His three children in the U.S.? His extended family in Israel?

“I’m not worried for myself. I’m worried for them. What’s going to happen to my fellow Jews?”

The Exclusion Close to Home

Chazan lives in rural Pennsylvania, near Scranton. To outsiders, it’s quiet - but to him, it’s familiar in the worst way.

“Most Jews around here don’t have issues, unless you stick your nose out where it doesn’t belong. Then you get chopped off.”

From the Ivory Tower to the Street

For Chazan, what’s happening at elite universities is more than political radicalism — it’s the return of something more dangerous.

“It started in the universities in Germany too,” he says. “The students were the most Nazi of all.”

Through years of independent research, Chazan has traced what he calls a deliberate effort to reshape U.S. academia — and with it, public opinion.

Chazan believes this foreign money created a “monopoly on knowledge.” Jewish philanthropy, he says, competes with tech and business. Arab states, by contrast, invested where they could control the narrative.

Students “Primed” to March

Chazan believes the campus protests after October 7 were not spontaneous.

He lists tens of thousands of international students in the U.S. from Muslim-majority countries: Iran. Egypt. Indonesia. Syria. Qatar. Saudi Arabia. He believes many were selected and trained — not necessarily to commit violence, but to respond in concert.

“They were primed. When October 7 happened, the command went out — and they marched. That’s how coordinated it was.”

His most disturbing claim is about the day before 9/11. Chazan says he was told that on September 10, 2001, 330 Saudi students at the University of Scranton, a top regional college , “picked up and left overnight. Never came back.”

A Vanishing Jewish Past - and a Fragile Present

Chazan sees the loss of Jewish life in places like Scranton as both a tragedy and a warning.

Today, he sees a small resurgence: about 400 Orthodox families have moved in from Brooklyn, and a new Hebrew day school has opened.

But he’s not optimistic.

“We’ve seen miracles. The rebirth of Israel. The impossible survival of October 7th. But I still wake up asking: why was I born? What am I supposed to do with all this?”

A Final Warning

Chazan believes the Jewish community is missing the point.

“This isn’t about a wave of hate. It’s about something organized. Funded. Ideological. Theological.”

He believes Jews now face the same kind of test they failed before: A slow tightening of cultural, social, and political pressure, not with swastikas, but with protests, permits, academic boycotts, and social shaming.

“I ask myself every day, why am I still here? Maybe it’s to speak up. Maybe it’s just to remind people that we’ve seen this before.”

“And if we’re not careful, we’ll see it again.”