By H. Applebaum
SAN DIEGO — By now we all know the facts: on the last day of Passover, 2019, an anti-Semitic fanatic attacked the Chabad synagogue in Poway. He killed a woman and injured several others including the rabbi. This latest attack on Jews in America comes just months after the worst attack on American Jews occurred in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre.
An Israeli and his eight year old niece from Sderot were injured in the attack. They came from the town, on the border with Gaza, that has endured constant rocket attacks since 1993 when Gaza was transferred to the Arabs. They thought they would find safety in America.
But, synagogues and Jewish schools across the nation now have to hire security guards to protect them, as if America was a lawless third world country.
It wasn’t outside guards though, who saved Jewish lives, it was fellow Jews!
Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein tried to reason with the gunman, Lori Gilbert Kaye, who had come to say Yizkor for her mother, stepped in front of the rabbi, and took a bullet that claimed her life. The rabbi ran, bleeding, to usher the children to safety. Oscar Stewart, a former soldier in the congregation chased the gunman from the building, and off-duty Border Patrol Officer Jonathan Morales (who was also in the congregation,) shot at the car as it sped away, disabling the vehicle, and ensuring the gunman’s capture.
Some see G-d in this, in that the attacker’s gun jammed. I see the godliness of those who overcame the human instinct to run away, and instead ran towards the danger to save lives.
I see a miracle in Jews standing together.
In the outpouring of responses from institutions and politicians, San Diego State University announced a demonstration “against all forms of hatred and violence on our campus, in our community, and in our world.” That’s like Congress’s (so-called) rebuke of the anti-Semitic comments of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Anti-Semitism is not “all forms of hate.” It is specifically against Jews. All forms of hate take place every day, but the timing of the attack wasn’t random, it took place on Passover, when pogroms traditionally occur.
Blanket condemnations are banal and meaningless. They water down the crime and absolve people from taking individual responsibility. Equating and mixing anti-Semitic attacks with “all forms of hate” does nothing to stop it.
Rabbi Goldstein made a video from his hospital bed in which he requested that Jews answer this attack by going to their local synagogues. That’s a start, showing solidarity as Jews, but we must do more.
We dare not rely on outside forces to lead the fight. Anti-Semitism is our fight and we, as Jews must be in the forefront.
We must confront anti-Semitism in all its ugly manifestations, in comments from politicians, in newspaper articles and editorials, in cartoons (like the recent one in the New York Times depicting Prime Minister Netanyahu as a dog,) at our jobs, in schools, and on social media.
If we are not for ourselves, who will be? If not now, when?
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Applebaum is a freelance writer based in San Diego.