(2-3 Minute Read)
Sarai Kerido / Israel Sushi Blog
I have been mulling over what happened at Congregation Beth Israel last Shabbat (Saturday, 1-15-22) in my mind for the past couple of days. Watching the events unfold I wanted to say so many things but honestly, I was just too sad to.
Another attack on Jews.
Another denial that Jewish lives are being threatened.
Another reason to worry for the Jewish people in the diaspora.
Simply stated, I am angry — really angry. I’m also getting really tired of seeing people go out of their way to post on social media about the Holocaust, Hitler, the Nazis, etc., in an attempt to tie it to their political agenda. But these same people are then completely silent as Jews are being openly attacked in America. We look back in immense gratitude on the countless non-Jews who helped the Jewish people escape from the Nazis. But I ask myself sometimes…
Would there be as many helpers to the Jews of today as there were then?
The sad reality is that I honestly don’t know. I look around and I see people stand up to support every cause imaginable and every single minority….except the Jews. In the past year, antisemitism in the USA has risen over 115%! In the last eight months alone, Jews have been run over and dragged by cars, assaulted, stabbed, shot, and held hostage at gunpoint. Radical antisemites have marched in the streets of New York and beyond calling to “globalize the intifada.” And what is the resounding response?
More often than not… silence.
Or at best we hear some convoluted response minimizing the idea that antisemitism is the driving force for any of these attacks. Proof? The FBI originally claimed that the radical Islamic terrorist who attacked Congregation Beth Israel was a “British national” who had motives that had “nothing to do with the Jewish community.”
Really? Is this really the point we have reached in 2022 America?
What we are seeing right now is just one of the many, many reasons why no matter what, Israel must always exist. And Jews must always have a place and a homeland where we can be safe.
Am Yisrael Chai!
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