Dear Diaspora Jews, Are You Okay?

It’s been a while since we got a full night’s sleep around here. Most of us are walking around constantly tired, children have been out of school for weeks already, and everyone is doing everything they can to find some semblance of normal. Through all of that, though, the general mood that permeates the air is one of optimism. Sure, things are crazy, but we’re getting to know our neighbors more. Yes, we have sirens on a regular basis, but look, we can still go out to the coffee shop and to the park. Granted, we are being attacked by a murderous regime and its proxies, but hey, we’re all in this together, right?

The irony, of course, is that reading the various headlines last week and seeing reports of antisemitic attacks across Europe and North America made me feel as though I—the one living in the war zone—should be checking up on the Diaspora. I ought to clarify: I am well aware that seeing things in the news is not necessarily an accurate reflection of what life looks like on a day-to-day basis. But when you see the events laid out in a list, it’s very startling:

Last weekend, there were three shootings at synagogues in Toronto, Canada.

On Monday, a synagogue in Belgium was bombed.

On Thursday, a man drove a vehicle filled with explosives into a synagogue, which doubles as a school, in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

Later that same day, a man was arrested outside of a synagogue in Norway for suspicious behavior.

On Friday, there was an arson attack on a synagogue in Germany.

That’s nothing to say, of course, of what’s gone on over the last two and a half years since October 7, which succeeded, if nothing else, in releasing the dam of civility that held back the flood of antisemitism in the west. Antisemitism—excuse me, anti-Zionism—is now the flag to bear to show that one is cultured, educated, and post-modern, similar to what it was a few years ago to be anti-racist.

As fun as it is to be the center of attention, it’s slightly scarier when it comes with the price tag of being the target of attacks intending to damage, destroy, and kill. Of course, there is plenty of that in Israel, but at least in Israel we have known, since before the establishment of the state, that there is this real and present danger. And if we’re being very honest, Europe does not have the greatest track record when it comes to antisemitism, going back about two thousand years. But the US? Land of the Free? What place does this growing wave of increasingly absurd-yet-constantly-justified hatred have in the land that gave my family refuge from the storm that was the Holocaust?

The Stories We Need

If you were to listen to certain right-wing commentators, this newest iteration of antisemitism not only belongs in America, it is practically an American birthright. They’re “just asking questions,” of course—is it not right for Americans to find out who is really controlling the banks? And the government? And Hollywood? And the weather? And then is it not the imperative of the American people to rise up and throw off this overlord, to take back what is rightfully theirs? Is that not fundamentally American?

The answer, of course, is no, not really. Putting aside the fact that Jews don’t actually control the media or what have you (don’t tell anyone about your space laser!), what makes America wonderful is not the echoes of the Boston Tea Party. It is the fact that it is an incredibly diverse country, made of infinite communities, coming together on the backs of good people who care about their neighbors and who want to do what is right in the world. They’re the ones who don’t make the news but should.

The part of the story that came out of Michigan last week that didn’t make the news is that there is an Iraqi Christian country club across the street from the synagogue where the attack took place. When the building was evacuated, which included over a hundred preschool-aged children, this country club opened its doors, welcoming as many people as they could, keeping them safe and fed until they could go home.

These are the stories we need to be telling. These are the kinds of acts that should be making the headlines. I’m still nervous about Diaspora Jewry, and I still smile wryly at that irony, but I have hope. Because regardless of the anti-du-jour, there are still good people in the world who care about doing the right thing simply because it is right and it is good.

And that is enough to begin to light the path towards a brighter tomorrow.