This Time in Michigan...
Does an Anti-Semitic attack in the United States even make us blink anymore? It should.
The New York Times is reporting that a truck rammed into Temple Israel, a synagogue in the suburbs of Detroit, today. Below is something I wrote a few years ago and edit and adapt from time to time. I started sharing it in a format more digestible in digital formats last year.
Which should give anyone reading this pause.
I share what I wrote below repeatedly.
I feel the need to write about anti-semitic violence repeatedly.
At least yearly.
And it never feels helpful.
There’s much we don’t know about the attack in Michigan—the particularities of the perpetrator’s political and/or religious radicalization, for one. But honestly, because of the nature of this sort of hate, I doubt I’ll be surprised by anything that we learn.
That’s initially why I wrote what I wrote below. Nobody has a monopoly on Anti-semitism. It’s a hate stockpiled and overstocked, easily accessible and manipulated.
And you should worry about it, if for no other reason because it tells you something about how your own safety in a society that excuses bigotry is an illusion.
So keep reading.
And do something, too.
