Jewish Group

Behind the Aegis

(53,952 posts) Mon Mar 19, 2018, 02:38 AM Mar 2018

(Jewish Group) Anti-Semitism Is Rising. Why Arent American Jews Speaking Up?

(THIS IS THE JWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)

Anti-Semitic hate crimes are on the rise, up 57 percent in 2017 from 2016, the largest single-year jump on record, according to the Anti-Defamation League. That increase came on top of the rise in incidents in 2016 that coincided with a brutal presidential campaign.

I have personally seen the anti-Semitism, in online insults, threatening voice mail messages and the occasional email that makes it through my spam filter.

If not quite a crisis, it feels like a proto-crisis, something to head off, especially when the rise of anti-Semitism is combined with hate crimes against Muslims, blacks, Hispanics and immigrants. Yet American Jewish leaders — the heads of influential, established organizations like the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Federations of North America — have been remarkably quiet, focused instead, as they have been for decades, on Israel, not the brewing storm in our own country.

But American Jews need to assert a voice in the public arena, to reshape our quiescent institutions and mold them in our image. And Jewish leadership must reflect its congregants, who are not sheep.

more...

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I have mixed feelings about this article/opinion piece. While it seems to mainly be finger-wagging at Jews on the right, combatting and speaking out against anti-Semitism is not the sole, or even the main, responsibility of Jews. ALL people should be speaking out!