In Tragedy, the United States Joins the Rest of the World

In 2008 when we entered the synagogue in Florence, Italy we had to go through a metal detector. The people there were grateful that their synagogue was again in use as a place of worship, as a community center, and as a Jewish Museum.

When we went to the main synagogue and Jewish Museum in Buenos Aires in 2012, we were buzzed in after answering a list of questions. Even then, we were not allowed to wander through the building independently but had to go on a tour. When my husband left the group for two minutes to take a picture, the tour guide had a fit and asked where he was going. A British couple on the tour with us told us that these precautions were taken at their synagogue in London as well.

In 2014, we traveled to Eastern Europe. In Budapest, we attended Shabbat services at a Reform Jewish Congregation. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming. They invited us to stay for a potluck dinner during which we had conversations with several congregants who told us how threatened they felt by the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Hungary.

In 2015, shortly after the Charlie Hebdo killings, we were in Paris. French soldiers guarded the Musee du Judiasme and other Jewish sites in addition to the major tourist spots. Unlike the first three countries, the French government tried to protect French Jews against anti-Semitic attacks. Nevertheless, the sight of all the soldiers was unsettling to us and to French people unused to living with a military presence.

After those trips, I was grateful to come home to the United States where I could live in safety as a Jew. This feeling changed when our current President was elected. During the campaign, he had expressed many anti-Semitic views and released various dog whistles of anti-Semitism subliminally encouraging his supporters to express their anti-Semitism any way they wanted to.

Since the 2016 election, there has been a marked increase in anti-Semitic and other racist incidents. The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith reports a 35% increase in anti-Semitic incidents in 2016 and a 57% rise in 2017. Up until this Saturday, October 27^th, those incidents had mainly involved property damage. No Jews had been killed. After the Current Occupant gave permission saying at a press conference that the Nazis and KKKers in Charlottesville were “fine people”, it was just a matter of time until the violence escalated.

It had already been open season on African-Americans. Two black people, Vicki Lee Jones and Maurice E Stallard, were murdered while shopping in a Kroger’s supermarket on October 25^th.  When people are killed because of their ethnicity in an atmosphere that condones it, we are all at risk for our lives. 

Although we Jews are not as visibly identifiable as African-Americans are, we are also numerically a minority. Anti-Semites know where to find us and so they did. Eleven Jews were killed in their synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27^th.

Last night October 29th, we stood with our friends and hundreds of others at a vigil in Skokie. We mourned the deaths of the eleven people who were killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh as well as the two people who were killed at a Kroger supermarket for living while black in the new USA. I also mourned for the dream of America as a beacon of hope and freedom throughout the world that died for me the day that bigotry was elected.

Today we mourn. Tomorrow we people of good will must find a way forward to turn America back to pursuing its ideals.