“Go back to Auschwitz!”... ”We’re coming for you!”... “Are you scared yet?!”
I am just back from a short trip to the United States, and the above remarks are just a sample of the threats and insults directed at Jews in Teaneck, New Jersey, by rampaging anti-Israel, antisemitic protests this past week.
Teaneck is one of America’s premier Jewish communities, and so it has been targeted by these clueless/racist pro-Hamas gangs. Supplied with keffiyehs, Palestinian flags, and Arafat-style PLO scarves – paid for by the organizers who regularly orchestrate these “demonstrations” – the mindless mobs ominously surround Jewish institutions and activities. They attacked an exposition featuring the sale of homes in Israel – “stolen land” according to the Hamasniks – as well as a benefit for ZAKA, waving signs that read “ZAKA Lies Equal Genocide.”
These latest incidents come after a recent infamous “walkout” of students at Teaneck High School that began on school grounds, a direct violation of the school rules. School board members, intimidated by the students and their parents, allowed the walkout to be held and the students reinstated to their classes.
To its credit, the Teaneck Jewish community is battling back. Though its members have been urged to avoid direct confrontation or to exchange acrimonious debate with the protesters, they are holding anti-protest protests and weekly vigils in order to bolster Jewish solidarity and show their determination to respond to the evil.
It was stunning to hear one of Teaneck’s leading rabbis and pro-Israel activists, Elliot Schrier, encouraging his congregation to come out in force, while briefing them on increased security measures to be added to the police patrols that already guard the synagogue on Shabbat and holidays.
While listening to him speak, I was transported back to the Poland of 1938, where Jewish stores and places of worship were targeted by the Nazis, with “Juden” painted on the windows, and locals yelling curses and insults at the fearful and helpless Jews. There was nothing they could do in the face of these affronts; the courts had already been contained and contaminated, the laws bent to favor antisemitic behavior.
Hate crimes rise: A war to demonize Israel and Judaism worldwide
Sadly, this situation is now being duplicated in America and elsewhere, as police turn a blind eye to hate speech and refuse to jail the offenders. Indeed, as hate crimes proliferate in New York City – ground zero for the haters, who literally took over Times Square this past week – even those rare few who are taken into custody for physically attacking Jews are invariably freed the same day, their overnight retention being labeled a “racist” act.
Even as we in Israel confront Hamas on the ground, another kind of war is being waged around the world. In virtually every place where Jews live – and even in countries that are “judenrein” – the backers of Hamas are gathering to demonize, defame, and delegitimize Israel, Judaism, and democracy as a whole. In a systematic assault on the values we hold dear, there is virtually no place that has been left untargeted.
Once, Australia had the allure of being the “end of the world,” free of distraction and the angst and anxiety of the rest of the planet. Nevil Shute’s post-apocalyptic novel On the Beach painted a picture of an Australia that was the last place on Earth to face nuclear disaster. Well, disaster has come Down Under as well; attacks on Jews there are no longer an oddity.
When the Second Temple was destroyed, Jews were dispersed and found refuge throughout the Mediterranean. When the Jewish communities of Spain and Portugal were ravaged by the Inquisition, Jews fled to Italy, Greece, or France. When the tsar was assassinated and life in Russia became unbearable, Jews left for America or Israel. But where will they go now, when they are assaulted?
Throughout the entire world, Jews are being called out and confronted. Concerts and comic performances by Jews are being boycotted and their venues denied them on the pretense of “security issues.” Jewish schools are targeted; after all, they promote the “genocidal” State of Israel and the “racist” tenets of the Jewish faith. It is already old hat that pro-Israel speakers are banned from delivering their messages on campus; only ignorant comments by self-hating Jews like Jonathan Glazer – who pompously “refute their Jewishness” – are allowed to pass, and even receive standing ovations.
More and more Jews are putting their kippot in their pockets and tucking their Magen David pendants under their blouses when they walk the streets of North America and Europe.
Sad to say, it will only get worse, especially if the war against terrorism continues, as it must. The raging protests, until now obscenely vocal but still held somewhat at bay, will invariably break their boundaries and become violent. Jewish day schools, Jewish neighborhoods, kosher establishments, and any Jew who does not defect to Muslim/woke ideologies will become fair game. Shaming and bullying, already at frightful levels, will become not just the norm but the required response of anyone meeting a Jew, demanding to know where he or she stands. TikTok, Twitter, and social media in general will fuel the fire, attracting and activating masses of young people to join the hate parade. Safe spaces will be increasingly hard to find.
WHAT WILL be the response?
Of course, we here in Israel would encourage our fellow Jews to join us, to at least purchase a foothold in the Jewish state if not move here altogether.
But Jewish immigration from the West, never more than a trickle, is still a far-off dream, as too many people consider aliyah – especially at this critical time – as jumping “from the frying pan into the fire.”
And so, the only alternatives left are to lower one’s profile and steer clear of the streets; join the haters; or stand and fight. Fight, that is, on all fronts: speaking out, despite the pressure; holding fast to what we know is right and true; refusing to accept unfair, discriminatory practices; and physically defending homes and synagogues from attack.
In a sense, all of us are now living in the Garden of the Finzi-Continis. No matter how high the walls may be, we won’t – we can’t – avoid reality forever.
The writer is director of the Jewish Outreach Center of Ra’anana. jocmtv@netvision.net.il