(Jewish Group) 5780, We Jews Must Put Aside Our Differences And Stand As One Against Anti-Semitism

[Behind the Aegis]

(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)

If two Jews have three opinions, how many opinions might six million American Jews have? We’re a boisterous, disputatious bunch, as we should be. We’re also remarkably good at dividing into tribes of those who dress or think as we do. But what if identifying first and foremost (and even only) with such subgroups is a luxury we can no longer afford?

It’s hard to say whether the Jews who came before us, during periods like the Dreyfus Affair, knew they were living history — not in a generic sense, but in the sense that they were living through tumultuous times that became part of Jewish history.

We study such periods today to better understand the ongoing story of our people, including familiarizing ourselves with the threat of anti-Semitism. In a related way, I’m increasingly convinced that we will look back on 5779, a year that included deadly attacks on both Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue and the Chabad of Poway, as a turning point in the history of American Jewry.

Anti-Semitism never completely disappeared in the United States, but in my lifetime, it hasn’t been prevalent, and it has largely been consigned to society’s fringes. That’s changing. Rapidly.

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On a macro level, Jews led the FBI’s latest list of religion-based hate crimes, 58% of which targeted us. A new report from the Amcha Initiative found that while “classical anti-Semitic harassment decreased by 42%” on American college campuses between 2017 and 2018, “Israel-related harassment increased by 70%” over that same period.

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