When we think of pogroms for many they might think of that scene from Fiddler on Roof.
For others they might think of the Night of the Broken Glass.
For others a multitude of different points in Jewish history might come up and come to mind.
After what happened in Amsterdam that might be what comes to thought.
When Charlottesville happened I like many Jews was very scared and worried that there would be an outbreak pogroms following.
So imagine to all of our surprise that the modern day pogroms came not from right wing extremists and wannabe nazis and those chanting "Jews will not replace us" but rather from the left.
That isn't to say antisemitism on left came as surprise. No, that is something any Jew who in any left leaning, progressive, or liberal political scene is very familiar with.
I mean with familiar with all they types of antisemitism that run the whole gambit of political spectrum, from one extremism all the way to the other.
It is just that we really didn't expect it to come from the left of all places is all.
The other part is part is that I think we and I know this was the case for me expected the modern day pogrom to look like the pogroms that we saw in past.
And while that has been the case in of what happened in Amsterdam and what happened in Russia which yes I consider to be a pogrom even though there were no Jews there to be attacked. A mob gathered to attack because they thought there were Jews to attack.
But the reality is a modern pogrom is going to look different. A modern pogrom is going to act different.
Because for all that we, Jews, still tend to live grouped together it is not the same like it used to be when we lived in ghettos and shtetls. Where access to a whole lot of Jews was much easier, escape was much harder, and we had no way to warn each other or to get help. Also historically there was no real or actual punishment for pogroms historically.
In pogroms they could and did get away with taking entire Jewish villages, locking them in they synagogue, and setting it on fire.
Pulling that off in a world where there are legal repercussions, where it is much harder to break into homes, where technology exists that allows us to call to warn others and call for help, and where we can run and not be blocked by the walls of the ghetto or forest of the shtetl makes a big difference.
So then question is what does the modern pogrom look like. I think that it is yes physically attacking Jews so like I said what happened in Amsterdam and what happened in Russia.
But I would say that all these firebombings that we have been seeing over the past 19 months is the predominant way that the modern pogroms are being expressed.
We have seen a lot of them happening in Canada and Australia. There were also several in other countries too, but those two it has just been non-stop.
And now in the USA there has been a whole bunch of them with the latest being what has happened in Colorado.
This is just my personal assessment and opinion on what we have been seeing and I think that we are going to see more of them not less.
And with that will come escalation meaning that more and more people are going to hurt because with the escalation the target is going to move from building to people and the goal is going to be seeing who can injure or G-d forbid kill the most Jews.
(While I am aware that both the Russia and Amsterdam attacks were not done by leftists the point is the before either of those attacks happened there were firebombings that were done and those were done by leftists)
