As I think about the recent turn of events in Texas, I am reminded of a speech I heard a Holocaust survivor, Marian Turski, give about his experience growing up in Europe and being sent to Auschwitz. His take-home message was that the Jews weren’t a normal part of German society one day and then transported to the camps the next. “Auschwitz didn’t fall from the sky one day,” was how he put it. It was a much slower and insidious process.
First they didn’t let Jews sit on the public benches. No big deal, there were other places to sit. Then they weren’t allowed to go to the public pools and bathhouses. Also not such a big deal. Then they weren’t allowed to join German singing associations. OK, they can make their own singing groups if it’s so important for them to sing. Then they weren’t allowed to buy groceries during the day, then more and more until finally the Jews were considered so alien that shipping them to concentration camps didn’t seem so horrible. According to chazal, this is exactly how the Jews were enslaved in Egypt. It wasn’t an overnight process or a decree but a gradual deterioration in their human rights. This happened so slowly they didn’t realize it until it was too late.
When I first moved back to the U.S., the shul where I am a member had one armed security guard on Shabbat mornings. A year later we had two. Six months ago we installed large cement bollards at the entrance to ensure that no one can crash through the doors and special emergency buttons throughout the facility that lock the whole building down when pushed. I have heard of other synagogues where congregants are told to enter through a side entrance and not the main entrance.
Growing up as a secular Jew in America I understood that there will always be antisemites and antisemitism—I just never imagined it could get as bad as it has, as quickly as it has. I never thought my country that I love so much would be so indifferent to violence against Jews. The FBI isn’t sure the attack at a synagogue in Texas was antisemitic, neither is Joe Biden. The terrorist’s body wasn’t even cold when the media and “progressive left” started their usual tropes about Islamophobia. I wonder what the response will be to the next synagogue terrorist attack. Somehow it’s always the Jews’ fault, even when they are the ones being killed. And of course, the Holocaust wasn’t about racism.
More importantly how long will it be until synagogues aren’t enough and the terrorists start attacking our stores, our restaurants and our schools? When will the government tell us to stop wearing a kippah in public “for our own safety”? A year? Five years? At this point it’s not a matter of “if,” but “when.” If you are skeptical, just look at France. Just last year a Muslim man did not go to trial for the murder of an elderly Jewish woman he beat to death and threw out the window on the grounds that he was high on marijuana and wasn’t criminally responsible for his actions. The same country where an armed attack one Friday morning killed four Jews shopping at a kosher market in 2015 and was dismissed as “random” by none other than U.S. President Barack Obama.
We will do what Jews have always done. We will adapt to the situation, we will react to our environment. Instead of fighting back we will take the path of least resistance and change our behaviors. We will stop wearing kippot in public, we’ll hire more and more security for our shuls and for our schools and for our stores. And slowly we will become enslaved in our own country without even knowing it.
But there is a different way, better in my opinion. Israel is not the perfect option but perfect is rarely an option. It will be hard for everyone. In the end it’s our country and it’s the only option in the long term and, I am afraid, in the short term.
Marc Arkovitz is a pediatric surgeon practicing in Westchester and an associate professor of surgery and pediatrics.
