Since Oct. 7, we’ve seen the ugliest public display of Jew-hatred since the demise of National Socialist Germany, and it shows no sign of abating. Is this America?
Missouri’s KMOV reported that three synagogues in Creve Coeur, Missouri—Temple Israel, Temple Emanuel, and Shaare Emeth—received bomb threats on Sunday. No one would have thought of Creve Coeur as a hotbed either of Marxist Antifa types or of Islamic jihad sympathizers, but it is clear that even America’s heartland isn’t free of the maladies that plague that nation today.
Creve Coeur and St. Louis County Police, accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs, searched all three synagogues and found no explosive material. They “said after the search there were no immediate safety concerns.” But as an added safety measure, they searched other synagogues in the area as well.
These are just the latest bomb threats to synagogues in the United States. Nashville’s WSMV reported that the Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville “announced they, and other Jewish organizations, received an email threat on Sunday morning.” The Federation noted that “these threats are part of a national trend to harass and intimidate American Jews.”
It does indeed look like a national trend. Bangor, Maine’s WMTW reported that “South Portland Congregation Bet Ha’am was searched by police after a bomb threat was emailed to the organization on Sunday morning.” From WILX in Lansing, Michigan, it looked to be the same story: “Officials were called out to a congregation in East Lansing about a bomb threat Sunday morning. On Sunday at 11 a.m., police responded to a bomb threat at a congregation on Coolidge Road. East Lansing police, officials from Michigan State University, and the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office investigated the scene.” A synagogue, Congregation Shaarey Zadek, is on Coolidge Road in East Lansing.
None of these threats turned out to be genuine: no bombs were found. But the threats themselves may have served their intended purpose. Both radical leftists and Islamic jihadis love to terrorize those whom they hate and wish to destroy; the Qur’an even contains commands to “strike terror in the enemies of Allah” (8:60; cf. 3:151 and 8:12).
Threatening synagogues hasn’t been the only attempt to terrify and terrorize Jews and supporters of Israel. In Philadelphia several weeks ago, pro-Palestinian protesters gathered in front of a falafel shop, Goldie, and chanted: “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide.” Has Goldie been mincing Palestinians and serving them up as falafel? No, but the owner of the shop, Michael Solomonov, is not only Jewish, but Israeli.
The menacing of Goldie was far enough over the line to draw a rebuke even from the White House. Biden regime spokesman Andrew Bates stated: “It is antisemitic and completely unjustifiable to target restaurants that serve Israeli food over disagreements with Israeli policy.” He didn’t say anything about how the regime’s relentless demonization of Israel and repetition of Hamas propaganda in warning Israel that it must do more to reduce civilian deaths, when in reality, the proportion of civilians killed in Gaza is lower than the death toll of civilians in other recent conflicts, notably the battle of Mosul against ISIS in Iraq.
What’s more, despite the White House rebuke, the same thing happened in Detroit on Saturday. Israel-haters gathered in front of Townhouse Detroit, another Jewish-owned restaurant, and taunted its owner, Jeremy Sasson: “Jeremy, Jeremy, what do you say? How many kids did you kill today?” It was shocking enough when hippies chanted that at Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, but he was the president and had gotten us into a war. Jeremy Sasson is no LBJ.
Related: Here's the Real Reason Why So Many American University Students Hate Israel
On the night of Nov. 9, 1938, National Socialists (more commonly known as Nazis, but it’s useful to recall that they were socialists) in Germany carried out a nationwide pogrom, smashing windows, looting and burning Jewish-owned stores and buildings, as well as synagogues, schools and more. How far away are we from an American Kristallnacht? Closer than anyone imagines; who would have predicted even a year ago that we would be seeing this number of public and unapologetic displays of antisemitism?
When he was officially president, as opposed to running things through an earpiece while sitting in sweats in his basement, Barack Obama was fond of schoolmarmishly scolding the American people and trying to shame us into accepting his far-left agenda by characterizing opposition to it as hatred and bigotry and proclaiming, “That’s not who we are.” Where is he, or Old Joe Biden, or anyone on the scene today to declare “That’s not who we are” not just about the incident at the Goldie falafel shop, but about today’s rapid recrudescence of antisemitism in general? Or would that upset the Biden regime’s far-left base too much to be even possible?
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