In Bal Harbour, an upscale village in Miami-Dade County, one of Florida’s Jewish enclaves, on a block that boasts dozens of kosher restaurants, a Jewish family was attacked. Garbage was hurled at them, bottles were thrown at them. Their attackers called out “kill the Jews.” They were saved from physical harm only when a bystander, witnessing the attack, pulled his weapon and scared off the antisemitic assailants.
This Jewish family was spared physical harm, but the emotional pain, the psychological pain, is undeniable. And that pain – and the accompanying fear of being the next victim, is felt by Jews across the US.
The Upper West Side of Manhattan has been home to generations of Jewish families. Life on the UWS, as it is now referred to, was so comfortable that my brother-in-law called it a “sheina galus,” a wonderful Jewish Diaspora experience. But not today.
Today, Jewish men are questioning whether they should walk the street wearing their kippot, or is the kippah on their head akin to a target on their back. The just ended conflict between Israel and Gaza emboldened Jew-haters. And in the days before Shavuot, pro-Palestinian gangs marauded the neighborhood.
Parading through the streets in slow moving cars and bikes, waving the Palestinian flag, they shouted “death to the Jews,” “Hitler was right,” “Israel is racist and murdering Palestinian children.” Doormen secured the entrances to their buildings fearing what might come next, what damage might be done to their tenants and to their property.
Never would I have imagined that behavior of this sort – behavior displayed in pre-war Europe and recently revived in present day Europe, would take hold on Manhattan’s West Side. On the West Side, where bus stops advertise kosher wine. Where large synagogues and smaller shtiebels and kosher restaurants and pizza joints are commonplace. Where non-kosher coffee shops have special menus with asterisks designating cakes that are pre-cut and have kosher certification. The West Side, where even sidewalk panhandlers respect Shabbat and Jewish holidays and greet passersby with a “Shabbat Shalom” rather than the proverbial “brother can you spare a dime.”
Pro-Palestinian Jew hatred is permeating the New York City school system, too. Amanda Beuno, principal of Middle School #136 in Brooklyn, NY sent an email to teachers. She called on teachers to act. To act in defense of Palestinians.
Her email was titled: “Day of Action in Solidarity with The Palestinian Uprising & General Strike.” Beuno wrote: “The time is now to take a stand for those impacted by state sanctioned violence and crimes against humanity...” and she continued on, issuing a call to “impose sanctions on Isreal.” Note the misspelling. That mistake, in and of itself, is very telling.
Those who believe that Israel is responsible for this rise of antisemitism are wrong. The people spewing this hate speech and carrying out these hateful actions did not wake-up one recent morning and decide I hate Jews and I hate Israel. That should be clear. This antisemitism was not created several weeks ago.
The recent events, however, played into their hatred. The recent events were perfect tools to motivate Jew haters to act.
Hating Jews is not new. And Jews in the Diaspora are linked to Israel whether they like it or not. Any police precinct in any major city will confirm that when tension rise in the Middle East, threats against Jews increase.
Jew haters need to motivate their followers. And galvanizing them around Israel’s war with Hamas is a perfect vehicle.
Twenty years ago I thought that antisemitism, or Jew hatred as I prefer to call it, was winding down. At the time it was unacceptable in cultured circles in American life to hate Jews. But American life has changed. Today inter-sectionalization has morphed the Black Lives Matter movement and the Palestinian cause into the same entity. And so, naturally but erroneously, Jews are a part of white privilege. In other words, the thinking goes, “Jews are the oppressors.”
And that is a total misunderstanding of Jewish history. The Jew is the victim par excellence in world history. The Jew gave the world the concept of the scapegoat and became the world’s scapegoat.
In Europe before World War II, and even after, a Jew of Poland or Germany or Hungary or Romania was not called a Pole or a German or a Hungarian or a Romanian. Jews were not worthy of those titles. Instead, they were called simply “Jew,” some form of “Jid.” And it was not a nice word.
Jews were not privileged. Jews needed to be emancipated. They were freed everywhere in Europe. The emancipation of Jews first began in 1791, in France, under Napoleon. Emancipation quickly enveloped the west. The only country in the world that never needed to free Jews was the US where emancipation was a founding principle of the country.
Well meaning public voices are calling for unity to fight this Jew hatred. Unity will not solve this rise of Jew hatred. Condemnation will solve it.
Jew hatred must be condemned in churches and in mosques. Community leaders and religious leaders and political leaders need to speak out and to name names.
No one should be permitted to hide their hatred, certainly not their hatred of Jews.