Orthodox Jews around the country — and specifically in the tri-state area — were still reeling from the shooting at a kosher deli earlier this month when we gathered with our families to celebrate the holiday of Chanukah. But that air of tranquility was shattered by a string of nearly a dozen anti-Semitic attacks over the holiday, the most severe of which was a mass stabbing at a rabbi’s home upstate as he lit his menorah.
The stabbing attack succeeded in bringing to the fore what we visibly Orthodox Jews have known for quite some time: There’s a growing epidemic of anti-Semitism in this country, specifically targeting Orthodox Jews, which needs to be addressed before more Jews are killed.
This isn’t something that sprung up overnight. The animus against Orthodox Jews has been here for some time now, but in a more underhanded way, which made it easier to excuse and ignore.
It has been here as towns and municipalities from Chester in upstate New York to Jackson in Central New Jersey used municipal planning and zoning laws to keep Orthodox Jews out.
It has been here as social media companies give a soapbox to and amplify the voices of those dedicated to smearing us and depicting us in deprecatory ways.
It has been here in the way the media covers us, from highlighting negative stories involving Orthodox Jews inordinately and framing them in a way which reflects poorly on us all, to allowing people with an ax to grind against us to make whatever accusations they want about us with little to no substantiation or fact-checking of their claims.
And it has been here in the way some politicians talk about us, and how they get away with it. Few of us have forgotten the way Mike Bloomberg, in his closing days as mayor of New York, boasted to The Atlantic that he “took on” the Orthodox on a circumcision practice. “Who wants to have 10,000 guys in black hats,” he said, “outside your office, screaming?”
Few of us have forgotten, but who else even noticed it at the time?
All this has snowballed into what is becoming a new and unsafe reality for identifiably Orthodox Jews. It’s no longer a given that your child can walk home from school without getting punched in the head. When a woman walks in the street, she needs to worry that someone might randomly pull off her wig. And now, when you attend a religious ceremony, you need to worry that someone out there sees the gathering as a target.
Make no mistake: We will always be visible and identifiable in our Jewishness; it’s our comfort level that has completely changed.
Sometimes it takes a horrific tragedy to break through, and it seems as though this stabbing might have done just that. People are now leaving behind partisanship and discussing real ways to help Orthodox Jews feel — and actually be — safer.
Acts of solidarity, such as marches and public statements, are an excellent start, but they are only a start.
What is needed is a real change in how people relate to Orthodox Jews, how you perceive us as human beings despite our differences. Sure, we look and dress differently, and our value system is much more traditional, putting us at odds with much of modern society.
But we are, after all, still human beings. Each of us is an individual, with a life, with dreams, passions, and of course, family. Instead of writing us off because of our differences, talk to one of us, try to understand and appreciate us — so you can actually see us for the people we are.
Everyone can and should do this. We shouldn’t accept it when people deny others their humanity, whether those people are making government policy, posting content online or driving media coverage.
If we do this, we can hope to stem this rising tide of hate before it washes us away.
Steinberg lives in Lakewood, N.J. with his wife and five children.
