In 2018, the Anti-Defamation League recorded 1,879 anti-Semitic incidents in the United States, as opposed to 1,352 a decade before. Many synagogues throughout America now have armed security guards, not just for the High Holy Days, but every Shabbat. I have spoken with people who are seriously considering aliyah, not because of Zionist leanings, but because they no longer feel safe in their country of origin.
I can relate to their apprehension: During my time in university, I witnessed a lecturer comparing the Jews to the Nazis, anonymous haters releasing anti-Semitic leaflets on campus and neo-Nazis recruiting students. Still, I didn’t believe the simmering animosity I had seen would explode into senseless violence in a place where I had lived, where I still had so many friends.
When two shooters opened fire in a kosher supermarket last December, I was living in Israel, halfway across the world, as a Masa participant in the Israel Government Fellows program. Jersey City is a mere 30 miles from Rutgers, where I spent the last two years getting my M. Ed. in college student affairs. Suddenly, another life claiming tragedy in the news swelled into a possible threat to my friends’ and family’s lives. In my mind, I was back in New Jersey. I frantically reached out to loved ones to make sure they were safe.
Tragedies often bring people together, but in this case, they simply drove home to me the distance between the Jews in Israel and the Jews around the world. My Israeli friends didn’t seem as deeply affected by the news as I was. They were not as connected to the experience of American Jewry.
This tepidness goes both ways: American Jews are also feeling increasingly disconnected from Jews in Israel. According to a 2019 survey conducted by AJC, only 38 percent of American Jews agreed strongly that caring about Israel is a very important part of their being a Jew and 59 percent have never been to Israel. Before I visited Israel, my own attitude could pretty much have been summed up as an unperturbed acknowledgement that I didn’t know much about Israel.
The distance between Israeli and American Jews can and must be changed. My immersive experience in Israel with Masa has taught me that this need is more important than ever. Anti-Semitic hatred chases Jews in all parts of the world and it affects all of us. We need to be our own allies, present a united front and offer other Jews our moral and practical support.
Being an American living in Israel has made me increasingly attuned to the global Jewish community. It has expanded my sense of self and helped me realize how connected we all are. Israel is a nucleus for Jews from around the world; in 2017, a quarter of Jews in Israel were immigrants, in addition to many children of immigrants. Many immigrants have friends, and likely family, in their countries of origin, and are invested in their well-being.
As an international Jewish family, we have so much more in common than we have differences. We share a history and a heritage. We have been victims of hatred and hostility, both historically and recently.
We all need to find ways to connect to the global Jewish community. For me, and for thousands of young Jews around the world, it’s meant coming to Israel on a life changing experience; for others it may mean attending social events at a nearby synagogue or volunteering at a local JCC. Anti-Semitism is rising and the only way we can combat this hatred is if we, the global Jewry, support one another.
Jonathan Schaffer is a 2019-2020 Masa participant of Israel Government Fellows, a program of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center.
