It happened in America
It happened in America

How many times have we heard the mantra: "It can't happen here in America!"

A volcano of mad hatred pervades American society today. It is focused against Trump, but as Pittsburgh tragically forewarns, it is bound to turn against the Jews, no matter how liberal or religious they are. 

The America Jew desperately wants to believe that it could never happen again in America. Decades of the good life, free of fear and violent outbursts of Jew-hatred, have convinced the Jews of America that they have finally found a lasting haven. And it seemed that the Statue of Liberty did lift her lamp "beside the golden door," beckoning to the downtrodden Jewish people, part of the "humbled masses yearning to breath free," as Emma Lazarus wrote so poignantly. 

The success of Jews in every field of endeavor has strengthened their security. Surely, they believe, the foundations of democracy, equality, and liberalism as laid down by the Founding Fathers would always protect them.

The massacre in Pittsburgh shatters this delusion, revealing that the hatred of the Jews is very much alive in America. Long ago, an eternal, universal law was recorded in the Talmud: Esau hates Jacob. That hatred hasn’t changed. Jew hatred hasn’t vanished. As Rabbi Meir Kahane warned again and again, the history-long hatred of the Jew, in one country after the next, needs merely the match of political, social, or economic crises in order to erupt once again.

The social and political climate of America today, with the explosion of hatred unleashed by Trump’s election, has lifted the mask off the smile of American liberalism, exposing an ugly and frightening face of fascism, from Antifa to Black Lives Matter, from Farrakhan to Sarsour, and the lack of a public condemnation of their anti-Semitism, which reminds us of times that we all hoped had passed.

The Torah knows better. Every day, we are to remember what Amalek did to us. “Remember – don’t forget!” Because it can happen again. Even in America. The madman’s murderous bullets carried a message: “Jews! It's time to go home. Now.”