I don't think most non-Jews realize how scary things have been getting for Jews in diaspora because what's been going on literally doesn't pierce peoples' algorithms if they're not Jewish.
I'm not going to be so hyperbolic that I'd say things are feeling very 1930s Germany, but... I don't think saying that things are feeling very... maybe 1920s Germany? Post WWI Germany? I don't think that's hyperbolic.
Jews have been by far the most targeted group in the United States as far as hate crimes in the most recent data. Antisemitic incidents are up 344% over the last five years. I quibble with defining antisemitism as religious hatred as the current FBI stats do, but even so, antisemitic incidents made up 70% of all 'religion- based' hate crimes in the US in the last year.
Truly every day there's another synagogue set on fire, another foiled terror attack on a Jewish site, another violent incident. Also, of course it's religious Jews, who are the most visible, who bear the brunt of it.
But what's especially been scary is that we are seeing a rise in antisemitism that has broad *active* (not just tacit) support across the political spectrum. From left to right, the rhetoric coming from people has become increasingly just boldly antisemitic. Just straight up blaming Jews for all of society's problems as if we're some nefarious malign actor within US politics level antisemitism. And this antisemitism is being widely disseminated and supported. I have seen people I know *in real life* share and disseminate antisemitism and casual malignment of Jews.
And then the silence from people about it, signaling tacit support, or at least an unwillingness to stick ones' neck out for us in allyship, is making all of our collective inherited trauma spidey senses tingle. Especially because the rhetoric we're seeing from right and left is the same classic antisemitism we know from our history has led to extreme violence, pogroms, and genocide, being repackaged with a pretty transparent "politically acceptable" veneer.
It just really feels as if the rhetoric is hitting such a fever pitch that, being a student of my own history and knowing where such things historically lead, it's inevitably going to lead to something terrible. I am not saying Holocaust-level terrible, I'm not going to be that hyperbolic, and I don't believe that. But terrible nonetheless.
And there simply aren't enough Jews in the world for us to fight against this on our own. And there's just no groundswell of support from anywhere on the political spectrum seeking to help. Which leaves us all feeling very precarious and vulnerable.
And if your instinct when you read the previous two stories is some sort of subconscious 'it's deserved cause, Israel,' ask yourselves...
How do you feel about Russians? Chinese? Iranians? North Sudanese?
If you instinctively understand you shouldn't hold all Russians collectively responsible for the actions of the Russian government, or all Chinese people responsible for the actions of the Chinese government, etc, but if your gut instinct from reading the previous two stories is that Jews should be held collectively responsible for the actions of the Israeli government (whether or not those Jews are Israeli citizens), or deserve the steep rise in antisemitism because of the actions of the Israeli government, you might want to do some introspection.
There's also a reality that so many people are much more interested in using Gaza, or using the Israeli- Palestinian Conflict more broadly as a politically acceptable space to litigate their feelings about Jews than they are in actually trying to resolve conflict.
And I know this because I watch so many people who, without any actual understanding of Jewish history, culture, identity, or Israeli history, culture, identity, and most of all politics and realpolitik of the country beyond turning it into a flattened strawman, engage in rhetoric and activism that actively perpetuates conflict rather than doing anything that might even come remotely close to resolving it.
Because if people had interest in resolving it they'd be supporting the Israeli and Palestinian peace camps and supporting organizations and people that promote dialogue, respect, and coexistence, not calling for more violence in the name of seeing their side "win" while pretending they're "pro-peace."
And I admit I'm speaking emotionally and not with as much nuance as I normally would. So pretend this is as nuanced as my usual content is and understand I don't mean to be speaking in such absolutes.
But the frustration of the last few years, when frankly, most people don't know what they're talking about, is starting to boil over.
