By Lillach Atiya

Jersey City, NJ - On December 10, 2019 at a supermarket in a Jewish neighborhood in Jersey

City, five people, including a responding police officer, were killed by two gunmen affiliated

with a hate group called the Black Hebrew Israelite movement. This movement has no

connections to Judaism, despite their misleading name. This attack comes among a slew of anti-

Semitic shootings in recent years, including a 2019 attack in Poway, California, in which a

gunmen attacked a synagogue, leaving one dead. Another 2018 shooting in Pittsburgh at the Tree

of Life Synagogue left eleven dead and six others wounded. These shootings are the culmination

of an ongoing rise in anti-Semitism, which has, in these cases, come to both violent and deadly

ends.

Anti-Semitism has always been a problem all around the world. Anti-Semitism, as a

concept, has its earliest roots in Egypt over 5,000 years ago, as is recounted in the Biblical tales

about Moses and the exodus of the Jewish people. While evaluating fact from fiction when

looking back this far is a challenge, the impact of Jewish history on our modern psyche and the

struggles of the Jewish people are undeniable. People often like to think that anti-Semitic actions

have stopped following the Holocaust or the creation of the Israeli state. Sadly, as recent events

have shown, this is not the case.

“Nothing has changed for hundreds of years. The people are still uneducated and

behind,” said Yosef Atiya, a resident of Fair Lawn and a Jewish immigrant.

If people are so apt to recognize these attacks as a spike in anti-Semitism, how big of a

systemic problem is this really becoming? According to an article by Foreign Policy magazine,

anti-Semitic hate crimes are rising at an alarming rate.

“In its most recent count in 2017, the FBI recorded 938 anti-Semitic incidents, a 37

percent spike over 2016, more than double the annual increase for hate crimes overall,” said

Suzanne Nossel, a writer for the magazine.

The Jewish people only make up a very small minority of the world population.

However, Judaism is one of the top five targeted religions discriminated against, only after

Christianity, as is noted in the report the FBI released. Additionally, and perhaps more

frighteningly, statistics show that the current world Jewish population is so low that in thirty

years, it is unlikely to increase.

According to the Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project, in 2010, there

were about 14 million Jews around the world. As is reported, “[the] Jewish [population] – 0.2%

– is expected to remain about the same in 2050 as it was in 2010.”

Stopping, or greatly decreasing, the percentage of anti-Semitism would likely take

decades to happen. It is very common to hear many personal stories of anti-Semitism recounted

by Jews in communities all over the United States, including in our own backyards.

“It is amazing to me that I have experienced anti-Semitism myself as a student in the nineteen

eighties, sort of on my college campus as well. And now years later all three of my kids have

experienced it not just in their high school, but also on their college campus,” said Donna

Weintraub, a local activist with the Jewish Federation.

In a sign of working to combat a rise in anti-Semitism on the national level, the House of

Representatives has recently passed the Never Again Education Act to educate people in order to

help prevent the spread of anti-Semitism, led by New York congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney

“We are at a dangerous moment in time. Anti-Semitism is on the rise around the world

and here at home, and the memory of the Holocaust is fading for far too many Americans. We

can combat this by making sure we teach our students, tomorrow’s leaders, about the horrors of

the Holocaust. It is simply not enough to condemn hateful, violent attacks against the Jewish

community- we need to be proactive, we need to take action... we can be vigilant in the fight

against hatred,” said Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney.

This act hopes to educate people about issues of anti-Semitism, but the struggle no doubt

continues as we work to safeguard against discrimination as a whole.

“People view different as negative and or scary… people are scared of different and

change therefore they try to control it and stop it,” said a student at The Frisch School, a Yeshiva

high school located in Paramus, New Jersey.

Banner Credit: The Jewish News of Northern California

Thumbnail Credit: Stephanie Keith