There is a narrative out there, blissfully believed by brainless boobs, that Jews lived a delightful life in Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century. Jewish communities! Jewish schools! Jewish artists! Jewish literature! Look at the richness of Jewish culture that emerged from the diaspora!

Sigh.

While we can go on naming numerous examples of Jewish prowess that arose from the diaspora, we'll start with one: the poem "In the City of Slaughter" by Hayim Nahman Bialik. In its lucid, harrowing, horrifying tones it tells of the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903.

Get up and walk through the city of the massacre,
And with your hand touch and lock your eyes
On the cooled brain and clots of blood
Dried on tree trunks, rocks, and fences; it is they.

That's how it begins. It does not get better from there.

Do we really need to explain that the Jewish prowess in the diaspora was all in spite of that diaspora? That Jews were constantly persecuted and did not have the same rights as the goyim? That the artistic achievement of Bialik and countless others was in response to this oppression? And let's not forget the pogroms.

We can never forget the pogroms.