Two seemingly disparate pieces in this week’s JLNJ (“Bipartisan NJ Bill Will Allow Guns in Shul,” by Harry Glazer, February 12, and “Why Are Democrats Skipping Out on AIPAC,” by Jonathan Tobin, February 13) are actually two parts of the same problem, that is, the alarming increase in anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment in the United States.What would have seemed completely inconceivable as little as 10 years ago is widespread and mainstream today.

First, violence including shootings and stabbings against Jews and Jewish institutions has become so commonplace that many shuls today, including many in our own area, have to pay for armed guards to protect them during routine services. This is what is being addressed by Assemblyman Gary Schaer.

Second, the Democratic Party has always been supportive of Israel and Jewish causes, but has now become the locus for open anti-Israel, anti-Semitic rhetoric even in the halls of the U.S. Congress itself. Yet to this day it is still inexplicably supported by an overwhelming number of Jews. The far-left radical drift of today’s Democratic Party has become so extreme that even Democratic politicians are being pushed to advocating unimaginably ridiculous options. For example, Brooklyn Councilman Chaim Deutsch has recently resorted to issuing a plea for Jews to register as Democrats in order to, in his words, “seize back the Democratic Party from the clutches of the most extreme leftist voices.” In other words to help bail out the Democratic party from its own folly.

Who would have believed that we would be witnessing these events today in the United States of America, even in our own area, which has the greatest concentration of Jews outside of Israel?