Sacramento rabbi: Antisemitism is escalating. Will we finally confront it? | Opinion

The brutal murder of a young Jewish couple outside the Washington D.C. Jewish Museum is not an isolated act, it is part of a terrifying pattern of rising antisemitic violence around the world, with Jews in the United States experiencing an alarming surge.

In my interfaith work over the years, I have attended churches and other houses of worship of many different faiths. Never, in my experience, have I seen a security fence around the perimeter of those buildings, nor have I encountered armed guards at the door.

That stands in stark contrast with my synagogue, and many synagogues and Jewish institutions in America today, equipped with wrought iron fences with locked security gates, off-duty armed deputies from the local sheriff’s department and panic buttons with direct lines to the police. At many synagogues, services now begin with instructions for responding to an active shooter — an unsettling sign of the times in which we live.

The day after the execution of the young couple, my wife and I flew to Los Angeles to attend Grandparents Day at our granddaughters’ Jewish day school, housed at a synagogue. As we approached the school, we were met by armed security officers who asked for government-issued identification and verified that our names were on the guest list. I don’t recall ever encountering such measures at any other house of worship I’ve visited.

Am I missing something, or is it not painfully clear who is being targeted?

This is the reality of what it means to be Jewish in America today.

And it is compounded by a more dangerous form of antisemitism, one that hides behind the language of foreign policy. Let’s be clear: the criticism of any nation, including Israel, is legitimate. Israelis themselves debate their government’s actions openly and often. But when the Jewish state alone is denied the right to defend itself or even to exist, that is not about justice. That is antisemitism, plain and simple.

To the Jew-haters of the world: We will not be silenced. We will stand strong, remain proud of who we are, and we will resist every attempt to erase our presence, our voice and our people.

While the consoling words from our government and community leaders after tragedies like the one in D.C. are appreciated, words alone are not enough. It is beyond time for our leaders — and for every citizen of moral conscience — to wake up, speak out and stop this hatred.

If we fail to act, we will only continue to feed the flames of Jew-hatred that have burned for centuries. I pray we find the courage and resolve to extinguish those flames once and for all.