A couple months ago, my husband and I took our usual walk in Brooklyn near the salt marshes. It is a quiet spot and the walk is both soothing and invigorating.
Not that day. Going our regular route, we spotted three huge stones that mark the path’s midway with stark black graffiti that spelled out, “Free Palestine".
The vandalism didn’t only deface the stones; it defaced our cherished retreat. I called the park office to complain and said that as a Jewish person this slogan is intimidating. The park ranger didn’t seem overly sympathetic and told me to call 311.
A few weeks later, my husband and I found ourselves on the Upper West Side, walking up Broadway in the high 90’s. An unkempt black man with a dog started following us and muttering “Israel, Israel". He walked closer and closer, until he was invading our personal space, and his voice grew increasingly louder and more menacing.
We fled into the first open storefront we could find, which was a Carvel ice cream shop. The man yelled after us, “When you finish your ice cream, go and kill people."
The pervasiveness of Jew hatred is such that even a homeless looking man is now well versed in the genocide myth. Anecdotal evidence by Orthodox Jewish friends who ride the NYC Subway proves that ours was not a one-off incident.
Sadly, antisemitism has become so rampant that this time we didn’t even think to report the incident. We were just happy not to have been physically harmed.
But as violence increases globally against Jews, especially identifiable ones, Jews need to start assessing how much is too much. Practically each day brings another report of an assault against Jews and some of them are deadly. While one antisemitic attack is one too many, the profusion of attacks over time seems to have caused many Jews to become inured to them.
Normalizing antisemitism doesn’t just normalize it for the haters or for the general public. It risks normalizing it for the victims. Jews are tolerating what shouldn’t be tolerated.
What is the tipping point? There has to come a moment when we don’t bemoan another report of antisemitism and then move on to the next news story.
The threat of becoming jaded towards antisemitic crimes is as dangerous as the crimes themselves. As antisemitic incidents and rhetoric become more severe and more frequent, we raise our threshold of tolerance and lower our bar of offense.
However, becoming blasé only invites more of the same and worse.
The recent knifing attacks in London followed a long spate of deadly attacks and near misses, including attacks on synagogues, Jewish schools and businesses, and the torching of Hatzolah ambulances. The UK Home Secretary raised the terrorism threat level raised to 'severe' following the Golders Green stabbings, and the government vowed, once again, to do more to protect the Jews.
Too little, too late. British Jews, like all Jews, are sick of hearing from their elected officials that their “thoughts and prayers are with the Jewish community." After years of platitudes instead of practical measures to protect Jewish citizens, there is little faith things will change.
Following the stabbings, Israeli Immigration Minister Ofir Sofer said that "the safety and security of the Jewish community in the UK continues to decline. The recent attack is a grave and deeply unsettling event, reflecting a surge in antisemitism alongside a protracted inadequacy in the response from the British authorities."
This same tale can be said for most of Europe. Australia and Canada are not much better. A week ago, B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights released a report showing that, on average, the increase in antisemitic attacks over the past year represented 18.6 incidents a day.
Jew hatred in America is not lagging far behind. In the span of just one week at the end of April, an Orthodox Jewish man leaving a shul in Los Angeles was nearly choked to death by a black man yelling “Free Palestine". Antisemitic taunts against Orthodox Jewish children playing in parks in Skokie, IL escalated into physical altercations.
In NYC, several shuls and private homes in the Queens were vandalized overnight with swastikas and antisemitic graffiti two days ago. At a community meeting at the Park Slope Food Coop over a proposed boycott of Israeli goods, a member declared, “Jewish supremacism is a problem in this country." And a violent mob of protestors descended on Park East Synagogue in Manhattan, yet again, at an Israel real estate event.
Living in NYC under an antisemitic mayor, married to an antisemitic wife, has particularly diminished expectations of what should be considered Jew hatred and how much of it should be endured. This itself is a lowering of standards that no other ethnic minority in the city would abide. It is also a frightening foreshadowing of a Democratic party overrun with proudly antisemitic politicians.
Rather than condemn the violent protestors in front of Park East Synagogue, Mamdani released an official statement condemning the pro-Israel event. While he couldn’t withhold police protection, he said he was “deeply opposed" to the gathering.
This past March, Mamdani met with a select group of Orthodox Jewish leaders to discuss safety and concerns regarding antisemitism. Some of the participants had even inexplicably endorsed him for mayor. The very next day, Mamdani used his St. Patrick’s Day breakfast speech at Gracie Mansion to accuse Israel of "genocide". He went on to veto a bill that would have created buffer zones to block protests directly in front of educational institutions - sorely needed safety plan to protect local yeshivas from harassment.
Only several years ago, one such antisemitic act would have provoked sustained national outrage. Now, these acts are so numerous that one cannot even count them, let alone sufficiently lament them.
So, what do we do? I do not know of any one sure solution.
Jews are increasingly arming themselves in states where they are able to do so, one positive step in self-defense. And many are moving from blue states to red states. However, there is no guarantee that the crazies on the right will remain a tiny fringe within the Republican Party.
Fortunately, we are grateful to Hashem to have a Jewish State. Many of us living outside the State of Israel harbor a sense of security, a sort of insurance policy, knowing that if it ever gets bad enough, we can move there. The real question is what is bad enough.
Bad enough should be no longer accepting antisemitic hate that is growing incrementally worse. Bad enough should be refusing complacency with the status quo and rejecting one new norm of Jew hatred after another.
Jews are citizens like anyone else. We vote, pay taxes, and more than contribute to society. We should demand government officials provide the same security that is afforded to all other citizens. Certainly, Jews should not have to beg for that protection or pander to Jew hating politicians to provide it.
I regret not having reported the antisemitic harassment that my husband and I were subjected to on the Upper West Side. Even if it would have just been added to the growing roster of crimes against Jews that barely elicit a ho hum.
Sara Lehmann is an award-winning New York based writer. For more of her writings please visit saralehmann.com. A version of this article first appeared in Hamodia.