Anti-Semitism is the oldest form of bigotry in the world. It dates back to biblical times and has never had a pause.
Ancient Jews were hated for sticking to their faith and not bowing to whatever idols were being worshipped. They were hated for eating differently. For praying differently. According to the Old Testament, they were enslaved in Egypt for generations because of their beliefs.
Jews were forbidden to intermarry, forbidden from holding government jobs, accused of having hidden horns and tails. They were raped and massacred throughout the Crusades. Falsely accused of spreading bubonic plague and burned alive because of it. Continually persecuted and murdered as “Christ killers.” It wasn’t until the 1960s that the Catholic Church finally repudiated that.
Superstitions about Jews, spoken and written, claimed they wanted to drink Christian blood. They have been stereotyped as dirty, money-grubbing, hook-nosed. Their deaths have been called for more times than you can count.
And lest this be dismissed as ancient history, it was less than 85 years ago that Jews were rounded up all throughout Europe and systematically exterminated in Nazi death camps. Yellow stars were stitched to their clothes. Numbers were tattooed on their arms. Body by body, Jew by Jew, they were shot in the head, experimented upon like rats and gassed in phony “showers,” their lifeless bodies tossed in giant pits.
Six million Jews were lost in the Holocaust, along with millions of other innocent victims. Had they not been wiped out, there would be more than twice as many Jews in the world today, according to demographers. The decimation of family lineage is impossible to measure.
This horror ended only in 1945. There are still people living with tattooed numbers on their arms, and nightmares of hollow-eyed corpses in their dreams.
And today, across the globe we are witnessing an outbreak of anti-Semitic threats and violence. The Anti-Defamation League recently collected 222 reports of anti-Semitic harassment, vandalism and violence in the United States. Again on the rise, like a shark that keeps coming back. Mass shootings at synagogues. Attacks on rabbis. Swastikas painted on Jewish graves. And the tireless poison talk about money, power, and secret plans that Nazis used to spread and so many continue to perpetuate.
A brick shattering a window of a kosher pizzeria on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Jewish diners outside a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles attacked by men shouting anti-Semitic threats. Vandalism at synagogues in Arizona, Illinois and New York.
In Salt Lake City, a man scratched a swastika into the front door of an Orthodox synagogue in the early morning hours of May 16.
Yet no outrage from the leftist social media companies. No massive protests for Jews, no videos or tweets from liberal celebrities, no workplace memos expressing concern for the safety of Jewish employees. No leftish academic associations sending public letters denouncing the use of anti-Semitic tropes by pro-Palestinian activists. Barely a word from our most visible elected representatives.
In the land of inclusiveness, Jews are denied inclusion.
