Jews are being attacked and physically assaulted because… Israel or something.
We met some friends the other night, and they asked if the New York subway system was safe. They had seen reports of stabbings and people being pushed to their deaths on the tracks. I said that it was a hard question to answer – 3.6 million people travel by rail in New York every day. Let’s imagine that there are 36 or even 360 violent events per day, while statistics show “only” 16 murders during an 11-month period, even with 360 attacks, that represents 0.01 percent of the daily ridership that experienced something violent. That is almost statistically insignificant.
Estimates place the number of Jews in the world at around 15.6 million, with nearly half living in Israel. So, of the 8 million Jews living outside of the Holy Land, is life dangerous? There is no question that in the West (as opposed to, say, China), there is a significant increase in the reporting of antisemitic events, from the minor to the fatal. Just in the past week:
- A fellow was assaulted in LA near a local synagogue, with the perpetrator screaming about a free Palestine while choking the victim.
- Two Jews in Golders Green, London, were stabbed by a Muslim who was known to authorities due to prior violent activity.
- The convicted terrorist head of the Palestinian Football Association refused to shake hands with his Israeli Arab counterpart during a FIFA event.
- A famous Israeli chef, Eyal Shani, closed his Berlin restaurant after Jew-haters made its continued functioning impossible.
- Jews eating outdoors at a "kosher-style" restaurant in New York were hounded by the “intifada revolution” crowd as they tried to enjoy their food.
So, using the New York approach, the vast majority of Jews get up and go to bed without any direct antisemitic event in their lives. But this approach is flawed. I remember once, during a particularly bad period on the subway, seeing pictures of straphangers all lined up against the far wall of the station so as to reduce the likelihood of meeting the rails personally. That is always the effect of terror: while those directly affected may be few in number, the multiplicative effect is enormous. During the second intifada, one could see the number of people milling about in downtown Jerusalem ebb and flow according to the ferocity of attacks. When Israel gave a free Hellfire missile to Sheikh Yassin, then head of Hamas, the terror organization swore revenge. From our offices at the end of Ben Yehuda Street in the middle of the city, one would have been hard-pressed to see 10 people at any one time during the day.
During the “Troubles,” a high school friend told me a joke:
A fellow is walking in Belfast, and a guy puts a knife to his throat. He asks him, “Catholic or Protestant?”
The victim tries to figure out who his attacker is in order to give the right answer, but he can’t tell. So he says, “Jewish.”
The attacker smiles and says, “I must be the luckiest Arab in all of Northern Ireland.”
I don’t have the statistics as to the breakdown of Jewish victims by religious affiliation, but it often seems that those attacked are religious Jews—as in LA and London. The reason is obvious: without religious garb or an Israeli flag or a Star of David necklace, how can one figure out if the guy is a Jew? So those wearing a kippah on their heads or having orthodox garb are obvious targets when it doesn’t matter which Jew is attacked, so long as a Jew is harmed, threatened, harassed, or brow-beaten. But wait a second. These people who bother or attack others have a problem with Israel. What does some Jew in Flatbush, Brooklyn, or Pico-Robertson in LA have to do with Bibi, the IDF, Gaza, Lebanon, or Iran? The reality is that there is zero connection. But Jew haters hate Jews, and Israel is easy to latch onto to find reasons to attack some Jewish-looking Jew as he waits for his bagel at a local shop. “Intifada revolution!” Another fellow in Florida screamed at some Jews and said that they pray at the “synagogue of Satan.” Now wait a second. Where did I hear such an expression? From Candace Owens! She said that Jews prayed there, and voila, this guy screams at some apparently random Jews that they worship the devil.
Of course, none of this is new. Jews who served the Fatherland in World War I were rounded up and sent to Dachau. Jews who were in the German government or universities found themselves unemployed. At least in Germany, Hitler’s rhetoric was against all Jews equally and everywhere. So when my grandfather returned from a Russian POW camp in Siberia after World War I, he could be badgered and threatened because he was a Jew before German. In modern Jew-hating, the original “sin” was Israel defending itself against the murderous Hamas onslaught. In the process of feeding the Gazan ingrates and carefully fighting in order to reduce civilian casualties, Israel was accused of starving the locals and committing a genocide. There was no basis for either claim, but they stuck with the hate-filled Left, and then the claims were transmogrified to somehow apply to all Jews. I saw a Ring video of a religious deliveryman who was screamed at by some local guy and was terrified to the point of not wanting to leave his home again. If I could use one of my three timeouts, I would ask what some random Jew has to do with decisions made in Jerusalem and applied in Gaza? But Israel is the gift that keeps on giving for this generation of Jew haters. Whereas Hitler had to tie “Bolshevism” and other sins around the Jewish neck, today’s antisemites simply take Israel’s legitimate actions, contort them, and then blame all Jews for what’s going on. One at times sees fake religious Jews carrying Palestinian flags or joining in antisemitic protests in New York or elsewhere. To quote Arnold in Commando, the Islamists will kill them last.
Another Greta flotilla was intercepted and tied up valuable resources of the Israeli navy. There was no humanitarian aid, only spoiled losers and hard drugs. Their Jew hatred is a reflex, and as long as there are the lefty billionaires to fund their activities, they will jump on their version of the Love Boat, though they couldn't care less about Palestinians. Is the U.N. looking into many reports of Gazan women—especially the widows of their dead fighters—being raped by Hamas members? Oh, that makes me feel better: it’s not only the Jewish women they don’t care about; they don’t give a hoot about the Palestinian ladies either. At Columbia last week, students were screaming for a ceasefire. There has been one for six months now. Who will break it to them that Trump won in 2024?
Israel has become a useful handle for hating Jews. Even Jews who are no great fans of the Jewish state don’t get a “Get Out of Antisemitism” card from our modern Jew haters. They, too, will find their kippahs knocked to the ground or get an earful about genocide or being baby killers. Whereas Hitler made his Jew hatred universal, the present generation of Hitler disciples ostensibly are against Zionism but not Jews. That’s like having a cup half-full, but only from the top. Jew hatred is visceral, and Israel continues trying to show how amazing its inventions and discoveries are. When one hates a Jew, the fact that there is Israel tech in his phone or that his life-saving drug is made by Teva means nothing. Hating Jews is the only Israeli invention they like.
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