KA CC Archive Nov 2023

I read a quote from the Anti-Defamation League Director and CEO Jonathan Greenblatt this weekend, stating that there has been a 388 percent increase in antisemitism since the October 7^th Hamas attacks in Israel, which resulted in over 1,400 killings. This comes after an increase of 36 percent in 2022. Over the past few years, I have been reading articles about increasing incidents of antisemitism not only around the world, but even more troubling, here in the United States. The number of reported incidences has been increasing over the past few years and has been supercharged over the past month.

This past weekend marks the 5^th straight weekend since the start of the war with protests around the world.  I am particularly concerned with the speed to action, the crowd size, and how the organization of these protests have taken shape. These protests are taking place in some of the largest cities around the world, like New York, Washington, London, Berlin, Paris and Anarka. The tone of these protests is alarming, with the protesters calling Israel the aggressors of genocide. Incongruity seems like the appropriate word to describe this dichotomy of occurrences, especially since some of the younger generation and other groups deny that the Holocaust even occurred.

Other disturbing incidents keep popping up at some of our college campuses. Some parts of the campus protests have a suggestion of hatred toward Jews, while others have displayed flat-out antisemitism. When people use the word antisemitic to describe the attacks in Israel, yes, they are; but more so, the attacks were violently inhumane. With most of the young generation getting 90% of their information from social media and the amount of misinformation spread on social media, how do we teach them not to hate us?  How do we do that? We continue to be Jews. We continue to keep our faith. We continue to go to synagogue. We continue to have Shabbat dinners. We go to synagogue and pray as a community.  If we as a community give up on our heritage, then the work of the antisemites will have been successful.

We need to support our communities and condemn all antisemitism whether it is written, spoken, or acted upon.

 L’Shalom,

Kevin Cross