And as companies, managers\u00a0and universities sent emails to their employees and students showing solidarity with the AAPI community \u2013 just as when they did the same to express solidarity with the Black community in the wake of George Floyd\u2019s murder last summer \u2013 bigots\u00a0threw explosives into a crowd during pro-Israel demonstrations in New York, sent a Jewish man to the hospital after pummeling him in the street, and vandalized synagogues and Jewish-owned shops around the country.<\/p>\n
All the while, similar messages of solidarity with Jews were few and far between. It took the White House a week\u00a0to even issue a statement.<\/p>\n
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Zach Schapira in Surfside, Fla., in May 2021. (Photo: Family handout)<\/span><\/p>\n None of this is meant to draw attention away from the urgent needs of the Asian American community\u00a0or the Black community; one of the best ways to fight hate is through solidarity. But the slight was hard to miss.<\/p>\n This is not a new phenomenon. Even after 11 Jews were slaughtered in 2018 while praying at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in the bloodiest antisemitic event in U.S. history,\u00a0Congress did not pass a measure specifically combating antisemitism. When such a measure was proposed in early 2019, after a congresswoman made antisemitic remarks,\u00a0it met such resistance that it could only pass as a blanket anti-hate bill, mentioning several minority groups.<\/p>\n Mourners carry Moshe Deutsch's casket outside a synagogue following his funeral in 2019 in New York. Deutsch, 24, was killed that December in a shooting at a kosher food market in Jersey City, N.J. (Photo: Seth Harrison, The Journal News via USA TODAY NETWORK)<\/span><\/p>\n Congress didn\u2019t act when a Jewish woman was killed on the last day of Passover in April 2019 at another synagogue outside San Diego.\u00a0Nor did Congress act when anti-Jewish assaults hit a fever pitch at the end of the\u00a0year; that\u00a0December, attackers\u00a0mowed down several people\u00a0at a kosher supermarket in New Jersey, and others took a machete to Jews at a Chanukah party\u00a0in upstate New York.<\/p>\n A right to exist: <\/strong>Israel is the Jewish people’s ancient home. We will always defend ourselves from Hamas.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Now, in this 2021 redux, the new rationalization for violence against Jews was Israel. Many stood up to condemn antisemitism only to qualify their condemnation with something else: A New York Times columnist bemoaned that this would make it harder to criticize Israel. Biden\u2019s Jewish outreach director for his campaign suggested Jews worried about their safety\u00a0start thinking about hiding their Jewish identity in public.<\/p>\n And a steady stream of House members,\u00a0senators\u00a0and other public officials said we should also talk about Islamophobia. I must have missed the concurrent wave of anti-Muslim attacks.<\/p>\n As your Jewish neighbor, I am asking for your help. Please, when you see outrage and solidarity in the face of one community\u2019s suffering\u00a0but silence, excuses\u00a0and equivocation in the face of another\u2019s, speak up. Call out the double standard, and demand better. Because building a more just and tolerant society will benefit us all.\u00a0<\/p>\nAn epidemic of hate<\/h2>\n
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