Survey

SURVEY What do YOU think? Do you feel safe as a dew in America today? A rash of hate crimes targeted Jews recently. From JCC shooting to synagogue arsons, anti-Semitic acts appear to be the rise....

...I won't go into the different kinds of Jews that one has to put up with here...
...I know that the United States is not Germany and that we, as Jews, are protected and respected here in a way totally unknowable in Europe, but I am still scared for my safety and the safety of my family...
...Whether in Israel or in the Diaspora, this is still the way to tackle the matter...
...Elliott Sadie, real estate investor, Louisville, KY We are seeing the beginning of "millennium madness," whose manifestations included pogroms one thousand years ago...
...By contrast, the U.S...
...We must never be different from anyone else...
...If, as usual, these neo-Nazi thugs attack children, the elderly, or synagogues, from the dark of night or from behind the back, then no...
...If these same neo-Nazi thugs approach and attack me from the front...
...So despite the fact Jews were never more than a tiny fraction of the world's population, Jewish ideas became the basis for the civilized world...
...Many will blame the Jews when Jesus doesn't return to earth next year...
...I never experienced anything like this before, so something is changing in our culture today...
...I am aware but not afraid...
...Catherine Ribb, manager of an entertainment company, Los Angeles, CA I do not ever conceal the fact that I am Jewish...
...And I am heartbroken that one of my gut responses is hatred and anger directed against non-Jews...
...With respect to the shooting at the Granada Hills JCC, I feel no safer as a Jew than I do as an average American living in a country with a plethora of relatively easy to access firearms...
...We teach that one must curb his speech...
...Jews are so accepted here that they are voluntarily intermarrying and assimilating at very high rates...
...But violence because of ethnicity or religion is random and relatively infrequent...
...I am also scared because I do not know how- to teach my son about this kind of hatred...
...No matter how many ministers and priests join us and speak out about their revulsion for such events, I feel targeted and isolated as a Jew and think no one else can truly understand what it is like to be hunted and hated...
...I prominently display my mogen David and proudly wear my favorite "Israel-Hatikvah" T-shirt with the largest, bluest, boldest mogen David (Star of David) you'll ever see...
...I love who and what I am...
...If all people demand to be taken seriously, without gender, religious, or racial biases, we also have to be willing to refrain from the knee-jerk cry of "victim" when there may be a much larger issue at hand...
...Two years ago our house was vandalized with garbage on our front lawn...
...I grew up in a suburb near San Francisco, which was a melting pot where there were Jews, Irish Catholics, blacks, and Asians...
...I am sad that, on the threshold of a new century, we are still mired in such terrible events...
...I do have steep concern that every time I pray at my synagogue there is no protection at all...
...Certainly members of a society that feared Jews would not be marrying them...
...Daniel Feldman, computer instructor, Woodmere, NY The lack of morality that has become a major part of U.S...
...In that case, they will be the ones not getting up off the floor...
...It doesn't matter, because if we really wanted to feel safe, maybe we should all convert to Christianity or Islam...
...Since then, my kids have been called anti-Semitic names at school, and some people have told their daughters not to play with my daughter...
...Keren Burdt, medical technician, Brentwood, CA I live in a small town in northern California that has almost no Jewish community...
...Thomas Roper, retired customer service manager, Virginia Beach, VA Yes and no...
...By the time the conversation was over, I had caught his sarcasm...
...And with that, the Jews became a lightning rod for those opposed to the moral message...
...Yehuda Riemer, historian, Kibbutz Urim, Israel Safe in America...
...Violence is desensitized daily on TV and in movies, and the NRA keeps marching in defense of gun ownership...
...Would we feel safer in Israel...
...I didn't know what to tell her...
...Any crazy person can come in at any moment to bomb the place or shoot down Jews with a gun...
...I don't harbor any delusions that people are less superstitious now than they were then...
...I am angry because it makes me feel helpless...
...Bennett Lovett-Craff, editor, New Haven, CT I feel safer as a Jew in America than I would if I were black in America, considering the number of black churches that have been burned down in the last decade compared to the number of synagogues that have been attacked...
...But the worst thing was finding a swastika in chalk on my front porch just a foot away from my mezuzah...
...History makes these attitudes understandable, holding onto them with an iron grip as a way of keeping ourselves in a separate category...
...But if we want to feel free, then maybe vigilance is the price we must pay...
...Form self-defense groups...
...They started actively seeking solutions for survival...
...Have better synagogue security...
...My friend said the reason that Jews experience attacks is that we are way too visible...
...Looking back, it seems that much has turned out differently from what we expected...
...I made aliyah 50 years ago, not so much because I felt unsafe in the United States, but because I felt I wanted to live as a Jew among Jews...
...Are American racists a greater danger than Hamas and Hezbollah...
...David Goldman, graduate student, University of Wisconsin, Madison Recent acts of violence towards Jews create the illusion that Jews are targets for well-organized groups of anti-Semites...
...He said we should not have JCCs or visible synagogues...
...Rabbi Shraga Simmons, Internet rabbi for www.aish.edu, Modiin Ilit, Israel The Jewish people were commanded to be a light unto the nations, to communicate the message of morality to the world...
...The truth is that Jews have never lived in such a hospitable nation as the United States...
...Getting a large amount of Jews together at a JCC just lets the Jew haters know exactly where we are and is an open invitation [to] them...
...We must stop wearing kippot or anything that distinguishes us...
...Their followers and listeners are being encouraged to hate and cause physical violence against the "enemies" of Islam, the Aryan Nation, and anyone else that does not conform...
...Rachel A. Bernhardt, museum professional, Takoma Park, MD Over thousands of years, we've grown used to the idea that underneath die thin veneer of civilized behavior, there is a core of anti-Semitism ready to emerge at the slightest provocation...
...My daughter was seven years old, and when she saw it, she cried...
...Jack Rosenfeld, retired school administrator, Philadelphia, PA I feel as safe as any other citizen in the United States today...
...No, it's not...
...society today is a major cause of physical violence and hatred...
...Is it safe to be Jewish in this country...
...The nationwide revulsion to the recent [Jewish Community Center] shootings of Jews displays the zero tolerance the overwhelming majority of Americans have for such despicable acts...
...Sad to say, it is probably safer to be a Jew in America than a high school student...
...Thus Nazi groups, Louis Farrakhan, and other notorious Jew haters are given freedom to march and preach in Washington, Skokie, New York, and other areas...
...I am not one to judge...
...You would be surprised at how many people glare at me with open hatred when I wear that shirt...
...What do you think...
...Anne Kay Berson, nurse, Richmond, VA As the child of Holocaust survivors, hate crimes raise memories and feelings of what happened to our people in Germany...
...Should we have a rally...
...constitutional right of freedom of speech is completely uncurbed...
...That's why I'm making aliyab (immigrating to Israel...
...One of the changes brought about bv Zionism was that Jews stopped being passive—waiting for emancipation or the Messiah to solve their problems...
...I am a survivor of both the Holocaust and a burglary in my California home...
...Miriam Coodley, retired civil servant, Walnut Creek, CA I feel relatively safe after setting my security system before retiring to bed...
...Do we feel safe in America...
...Judaism does not teach "freedom of speech...
...If it weren't for my personal faith and trust in God's protection in the house of worship, perhaps I would never pray in a synagogue...
...I'd feel safer as a Jew in Japan or Great Britain where handgun ownership is severely restricted and gun deaths are absurdly few compared to the United States...
...Binyamin Bresky, director of Betar Zionist Youth Movement, London, England I asked my friend, a Jewish martial arts instructor, what we could do about the recent attacks against Jews...
...All move to Israel...
...Is living with Jews, just because they are Jews, such a bargain...
...I learned a greater lesson...
...Although not paranoid, I have learned to take precautions and get on with my life...

Vol. 25 • February 2000 • No. 1


 
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