America’s profound moral crisis looks like this

Unfortunately, it is becoming clearer with every passing day that America is in the midst of a profound moral crisis—and that crisis is a virulent, metastasizing cancer called antisemitism. And how we respond to this mortal threat will have an enormous impact on whether American civilization will survive and flourish as we have known it, or be diminished greatly.

We look around and we witness two remarkable Jewish young people, Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, preparing to spend their lives together, mercilessly gunned down in our nation’s capital (the young woman, trying to crawl away, was shot again by the gunman), yelling, “Free Palestine!”

Weeks earlier, an arsonist set fire to the Governor’s mansion in Pennsylvania on the first night of Passover (Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s Governor, is Jewish).

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Then, in Boulder, Colo., an illegal immigrant from Egypt set 15 Jews on fire with Molotov cocktails and a homemade flamethrower because they were Jews peacefully demonstrating for the release of Jewish hostages captured during the terrible October 7 terrorist attacks. Among the 15 victims was an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor.

I was born in 1946, in the midst of the Nurenberg Trials (1945-1946), where the world held the leaders of the Third Reich accountable for “crimes against humanity,” the most heinous of which was the Holocaust—the genocidal murder of more than six million Jews, millions of whom were gassed and incinerated in ovens!

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, I suspect most Americans, and the vast majority of the world’s population, joined in a unified chant of “Never Again!” Frankly, I think most Americans, and even the vast majority of American Jews, never imagined that virulent antisemitism would ever sweep across America.

Frankly, prior to October 7, 2023, and the horrific atrocities committed against Jewish settlers and young people by Hamas terrorists, I would not have imagined the vicious waves of antisemitic attacks that have washed across America could have happened.

We have seen riots and demonstrations on college campuses and other venues, targeting Jews, chanting inane phrases like “from the river to the sea,” “Palestine will be free,” “globalize the intifada,” “free, free Palestine!” and “say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here,” as antizionism morphed into antisemitism.

How could these despicable scenes be taking place in America? I was raised in Houston, a city that witnessed significant Jewish immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I attended public schools in Houston, where I had numerous fellow students who were Jewish. It was no big deal. I did not personally hear any antisemitic jokes or slurs until I was an undergraduate in college in New Jersey. I was both offended and shocked.

My fellow Americans, we must all take this upsurge of violence and prejudice seriously. Can you imagine the reaction if actions against Jewish students had been directed against Black students? There would be outrage that such actions had occurred and demands that they be stopped and the perpetrators be severely punished.

It is well past time for all Americans of goodwill to stand up and speak out on this issue. I believe that the vast majority of Americans stand with and behind our Jewish fellow countrymen.

In the months after the October 7th attack, I wore a U.S. flag and an Israeli flag intertwined on my coat lapel. About a year ago, I started substituting a lapel pin of intertwined Ukrainian and American flags, feeling that the Ukrainians needed my support more as they took on the Russian behemoth.

I have now become convicted that my Jewish countrymen need my visual support more. So from this point forward, I am wearing the Israeli-U.S. flag pin as a sign of solidarity. We should be as vocal as we can be both to the government and the public at large that we support the Jews, we condemn antisemitism in any and all forms and we expect everyone to oppose it and condemn it in no uncertain terms.

Furthermore, seek out your Jewish friends and tell them how much you appreciate them and support them. We need to say it, they need to hear it, and the would-be terrorists need to hear it as well. “If you take on the Jews, you are taking on all of us.”

If we do not speak up and make our feelings known, things will get worse, not better. I implore you to join with me in speaking out and declaring, “This will not stand. Leave our Jewish neighbors alone.”

As the great British philosopher Edmond Burke (1729-1797) once reminded us, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing!”