‘We will not be afraid, and we will not hide’
Jewish leaders confront rise in anti-Semitism
A rabbi in Riverside, California, begins services with an announcement about where the exits are – in case people need to run for their lives.
In Glen Rock, New Jersey, a rabbi is unsure what to write on signs at the temple entrance. At first, the message read, “Entering a secure space,” but that wasn’t exactly what she wanted to convey to people arriving to worship.
A synagogue in San Francisco allocates money toward airport-style metal detectors and security guards.
Saturday’s deadly shooting at the Chabad synagogue of Poway near San Diego killed one woman and injured three people when a gunman opened fire during a Passover service.
The attack came six months after a mass shooting at the Tree of Life
synagogue in Pittsburgh in which a man who said he wanted all Jews to die killed 11 people and injured seven. It was the deadliest act of anti-Semitic violence in U.S. history.
In 2018, there were 1,879 recorded attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions, according to the Anti-Defamation League. That was the third-highest year on record since the 1970s, when the ADL started tracking anti-Semitic attacks.
Despite the threat of violence, Jewish leaders say their community is determined to go on practicing their faith.
“We will not be afraid, and we will not hide. We will continue to be part of the American fabric,” said Rabbi Jonathan Singer at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. “Temple Emanu-El will be loud and proud about being Jewish and celebrating God’s holy creation in every human being.”
Many right-wing extremists believe that what they consider to be the “pure” white race is under siege and feel compelled to react in violence, said George Selim, senior vice president for the ADL.
“These murderers and terrorists lift one another up as heroes and prominent figures, and it’s really insidious and very dangerous,” Selim said.
Threat of violence
Ten years ago, Temple Beth El in Riverside in Southern California was the target of a neo-Nazi group that marched around the synagogue. “They carried swastika flags. We have several Holocaust survivors in our temples, and that brought back terrible memories for them,” said Rabbi Suzanne Singer (no relation to Jonathan Singer).
The harassment began after students from the University of California-Riverside held a rally in support of undocumented immigrants and one of them carried an Israeli flag.
“The neo-Nazis thought they were from our synagogue, so they started targeting us,” Singer said.
Eventually, the ringleader, Jeffrey Hall, was shot by his 10-year-old son, who said he had been abused for years by his father, and the group fell apart. But the uneasiness remains. “We’re now locking our doors once
the service starts on Friday night, which we never did before. We’re also being trained on how to deal with a live shooter. We’ve come to the point where not to do so would be irresponsible,” Singer said.
In Illinois, a masked man smashed windows at Chicago’s Loop Synagogue and pasted swastikas to its front entrance about a year and a half ago.
“It was very shattering to us,” said Lee Zoldan, president of the synagogue.
She said her congregation mourns each new anti-Semitic incident around the nation while questioning what it can do to protect itself.
“We scour the news to see what the attackers did, what we could do to prevent such an attack. We’re applying for Homeland Security grants,” she said.
Before services, one of the first announcements is about where the exits are in case of an attack. “People become still for that. You have their undivided attention,” Zoldan said.
‘Senseless acts’ of prejudice
Anti-Semitic incidents for 2018 were 48% higher than the total for 2016 and 99% higher than in 2015, according to the ADL. Its audit includes tallies of assaults, vandalism and harassment.
The increases coincided with annual jumps in reported hate crimes nationwide from 2014 to 2017, according to the FBI. In 2017, hate crimes peaked at 7,175 incidents.
Other Western nations have seen a rise in anti-Semitic violence. In France, there was a 74% increase in anti-Semitic incidents, from 311 to 541, including the torture and murder of an 85-yearold Holocaust survivor named Mireille Knoll, said Catherine Chatterley, editorin-chief of the journal Antisemitism Studies and a history professor at the University of Manitoba in Canada.
Germany reported a 10-year record high of 1,646 anti-Semitic acts in 2018, in which 43 people were wounded. In the United Kingdom, 1,652 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in 2018, 123 of which were classified as violent, a 16% increase from 2017, Chatterley said.
In Canada, there were 2,041 anti-Semitic incidents, including 11 violent acts, 221 acts of vandalism and 1,809 acts of harassment, adding up to a third consecutive year in which record numbers were reached, Chatterley said.
The hostile climate brings people together while forcing them to prepare in ways they hoped they would never need to. Saturday, about 100 people held a vigil at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh to honor the shooting victims in California. Among them was Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who survived the mass shooting in October.
“We know first-hand the fear, anguish and healing process such an atrocity causes,” the synagogue said in a statement about the San Diego attack. “These senseless acts of violence and prejudice must end. Enough is enough.”
Adam Hertzman, a spokesman for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, said the California attack brought back painful memories for the Jewish community. Since the Tree of Life shooting, the federation has helped synagogues boost their security with security cameras, alarms, portable panic buttons and active-shooter training, Hertzman said.
“There’s a level of fear that hasn’t been there before,” Hertzman said. “But I also see a level of attention to security and a level of togetherness that we didn’t see before either.”
Lies and hatred
The roots of anti-Semitism are deep, old and pernicious. In the early days of the Christian faith, Jews were collectively held responsible for the death of Jesus. During the Middle Ages in Europe, Jews were accused of killing Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals. Such lies were used to inflame hatred and violence against Jewish communities for centuries and are still repeated today.
During violent confrontations in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, neoNazis chanted, “Jews will not replace us,” and a white supremacist drove a car into a crowd of anti-racist demonstrators, killing activist Heather Heyer.
The 19-year-old man accused of the Poway shooting allegedly embraced contemporary conspiracy theories about refugees and immigrants replacing the Christian European majority, which some white supremacists call “The Great Replacement.”
Sharon Douglas, CEO of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect in New York, said hate crimes are driven by economic competition and fear of the other.
“Some of our most vulnerable citizens feel empowered to turn to violence in defense of the us versus them” mentality, Douglas said.
Keegan Hankes, a senior research analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the internet has played a major role in allowing anti-Semitic rhetoric to spread widely. The center counted at least 1,000 hate groups nationwide in 2018, the largest number recorded, Hankes said.
Chatterley says social media and the internet have inspired some to take it further than talk.
“These systems of communication allow racists and anti-Semites to support one another and share ideas, which apparently help inspire them to commit violent acts as well,” she said.
‘American values’
Zoldan noted that Holocaust Remembrance Day is May 1.
“One of the things we say about the Holocaust is ‘Never again,’ ” she said. “But one of the things we’re feeling now is that instead of ‘Never again,’ it’s becoming ‘Yet again.’ ”
Rabbi Jonathan Singer said he would rather spend the synagogue’s money on children’s programs and worship instead of its growing security budget.
“I want to stop hearing people say they’re sorry about what happened and start having people say this is antithetical to American values,” he said. “We have to go on the offensive about what we as a nation stand for.”