Just a few weeks later, also on a Friday night, my home was attacked when my son returned home from yeshiva, here he had gone to learn. He came into the house and told us he had been followed down the street. As he closed the door and began to take off his coat, a projectile came crashing through my front window, setting off the alarm. There happened to be plain-clothes officers in a car on my corner, and they responded – but basically told us they couldn’t do anything since the perpetrators had quickly fled. They did add that if we heard about such an occurrence elsewhere, we should call the precinct “because of everything that has been happening.” I suppose they were referring to the series of tire slashings and swastika dubbings that were then plaguing the Marine Park section of Brooklyn.
Some readers may feel that what I’ve written is merely a result of frustration caused by my personal experiences. There might be some truth to that, but please think about what has been occurring these past few years. Three institutions in Brooklyn were desecrated – Avenue N Jewish Center and Congregation Yeshuas Chaim had swastikas painted on them and a Muslim attempted to burn down the Young Israel of Kingsbay.
Congressman Weiner’s report on anti-Semitism during the last quarter of 2003 listed an arson in Williamsburg which left families homeless; a swastika in the Yeshiva University dormitory (!); anti-Semitic graffiti found on a home in Fresh Meadows, Queens; a rock thrown through the window of the Madison Jewish Center; and more swastika incidents in Queens (6) and Brooklyn (11).
In May 2004, a youth leader of the Beitar movement was assaulted by a street vendor who yelled “Heil Hitler” and “Seig heil.” The vendor was charged with assault, but it was not treated as a bias crime. In August 2004, swastikas were placed on a wall in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, and a Flatbush resident found anti-Semitic statements scrawled on his front door.
The victims of these attacks did not do anything to stand out. They were not controversial figures like Rabbi Kahane or even people caught up in a pogrom like Yankel Rosenbaum. The victims in these incidents were synagogues, homeowners, and apartment dwellers. They were religious and irreligious; chassidic, Ashkenazic and Sephardic. They were American-born and survivors of the Holocaust. They might have been you; “they” were me.
Alicia Colon is a columnist for the New York Sun. Ms. Colon, who happens to be Hispanic, Republican, and Catholic, has written about the responses she received to her columns on anti-Semitism – including those calling her a “Jew-lover” and others describing the “Jewish conspiracy” at great length. She wrote that at lunch with a former co-worker she became involved in a discussion about immigration reform. Her friend “suddenly lowered his voice and said that the only ones he had trouble with were the Jews.” Why? Because of the “conspiracy” and because “Jews only looked out for their own kind.”
When I sent Ms. Colon an e-mail about the attack on my home and how I appreciated her articles on anti-Semitism, she responded: “I have been trying to sound the alarm but my biggest opposition comes from liberal Jews who refuse to recognize what is happening…Feel free to refer any non-believers to me.”
Clearly, Islamic extremists are not the only ones who hate us.
Not long ago, Amiri Baraka lost his position as poet laureate of New Jersey because of his blatant anti-Semitism. Subsequently, he was one of two featured speakers at a program in Harlem sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service.
