Every day’s news seems to bring more stories of Jews being assaulted in this country or that one, including our own United States. Shay Yaish, a high-tech Israeli entrepreneur, decided that globetrotting Jewish travelers should have at least some idea of what awaits them (and maybe learn a little about their own countries). To that end, he created a website called “Safe For Jews,” which is something I never thought I’d have to see in my lifetime. But here we are…
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Yaish explains what prompted him to create the site and what goals he has for it:
I’m Shay Yaish, a solo founder who is proud to be part of creating Safe For Jews. It all started when I was searching for a safe place to travel as an Israeli Jew. Faced with rising global antisemitism and scattered, hard-to-find information, I realized countless Jewish and Israeli travelers must be asking the same question: where in the world can I feel safe and welcomed? From that personal need grew a mission-driven platform that gathers reliable news, government travel advisories, and real-world community insights to provide clear safety scores for destinations worldwide. Today, SafeForJews.org helps Jews everywhere travel with confidence—knowing not just where to go, but where they will feel respected, secure, and at home.
As one might guess from Yaish’s background, the site does not rely on travelers’ impressions. Instead, it collects data:
Daily Data Collection: The platform collects information daily from 60,000+ news sources worldwide
Event Detection & Classification: We use AI in order to determine each news report and classify how dangerous it is
Israeli Government Status: Integration with Israeli Emergency National Center (מל״ל) status for each country
Advanced Search: Performs in-depth Google searches for each location to find additional information
Smart Analysis & Summary: AI system summarizes all data and determines severity level for each country and city
The global map that comes with the site is depressing, to say the least. The map color-codes the world’s nations, going from forest green (safe) to red (dangerous). Lime green is “caution,” while orange is “warning.”
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You won’t be surprised, given the Democrat takeover of various cities and the openly antisemitic mayor of NYC, that he gives the U.S. a lime-green tinge. Canada, with its leftist government and aggressive Muslim population is orange. Most of the world is either orange, red, or lime green.
Indeed, there are very few pockets of the world where Jews can feel safe, and some are rather unexpected. Most of Latin America is a danger zone for Jews, with Colombia being a serious problem, but Bolivia and Paraguay are good. And of course, El Salvador has become safe for everyone! The Caribbean, even though economic problems plague several islands, is pretty darn good, as is Cuba—the communists there have always been more concerned about America. The Pacific Islands are pretty darn good, too.
Traveling across the globe, all of North Africa and the Muslim Middle East either flash orange warning signs or are, quite simply, dangerous. What’s unexpected is that central and Eastern European countries that were once quite hostile to Jews are relatively free of antisemitic attacks: Croatia, Kosovo, Slovakia, Albania, Estonia, Latvia, and Belarus, along with a small handful of others, get a pass.
Of course, it might be that Jews avoid these places. Roughly 8085% of Belarus’s Jewish population was slaughtered in the Holocaust. I certainly wouldn’t go there.
Meanwhile, Western Europe, which not that long ago promised “Never Again,” has reneged on that promise. Helped by importing tens of millions of Muslims, large swaths of it are dangerous for Jews, with Spain, the UK, Germany, and Italy as the standouts. Portugal is a green beacon for Jews on the far western end of continental Europe.
There are around 195 countries in the world, and the map seems to have tracked most of them. Out of those 195, there are only 25 nations that are actually safe for Jewish travel—places in which people who look Jewish, have Jewish names, or carry Israeli passports can be reasonably assured that they will not be attacked, whether verbally or physically.
If you’re Jewish and planning a trip, you might want to check out Safe For Jews. And if you’re not Jewish, but think it’s a bad idea to spend your money in countries with rising antisemitism, you might want to check it out, too. After all, as Andrew Klavan says, antisemitism is the devil’s flagpole. It’s the banner under which evil walks, and where antisemitism grows, everyone suffers.
Now if only I could figure out how not to spend my money here at home, given that the U.S. has that fast-rising antisemitism problem. I’m just grateful I live in a region of the U.S. that is very welcoming to Jews—as are all red states.
Image created using AI, with a respectful nod to the Safe For Jews website.