Above is the article in the local newspapers about my great-grandfather when he died at what was at the time the very old age of 91. He was one of the founders of one of the synagogues in our city and was an observant Jew. Of his three sons two were observant and one, my grandfather, wasn’t.

I grew up in the New York City suburban city of Mt. Vernon as a secular Jew. We never went to temple but did light candles and say a prayer on the Sabbath. I learned to recite the Sabbath prayer:

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tsivanu l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat. 

I didn’t even know what it meant in English:

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, who sanctified us with the commandment of lighting Shabbat candles.

I eventually came to the conclusion that God didn’t exist when I was in my teens. My father describe God not in a religious way but rather as a force for good in the world.

All of my friends were Jewish. Most of them went to a nearby reform temple and got bar mitzvahed. I don’t recognize my friends from this old photo from the Sinai Free Synagogue website but this is what they would have looked like:

I didnt attend services or get bar mitzvahed.

My father was in the Army during World War II but never saw direct action. He served as a corpsman on hospital ships crossing the Atlantic carrying wounded soldiers back home.

My parents told my sister and I about the Holocaust but we never were taught about it in school.

Mt. Vernon’s population was about half Jewish when I grew up. Every family with children on the street where I lived was Jewish except one. When there were Jewish holidays so many kids stayed home from school to go to temple that I liked to go because there would only be about five other kids in the class.

Growing up I never had an experience when I felt that someone looked at me as being different let alone discrimnated against me or hurled an antisemitic prejorative at me.

When I went to Michigan State the college had accepted a large number of New Yorkers in the freshman class so while there were Jews from the Detroit suburbs there none of them had our New York accent so they really didn’t stand out. I thought I lucked out and got in despite my lousy high school grades becaue of my standardized test scores. When I got there I heard a rumor that the college wanted more New York students because they were competing with the University of Michigan to attract smarter students and New York was known to have one of the best public school systems in the country. We might not have been more intellegent but we were better educated than students from Michigan and many other states.

Michigan State assigned me to a three person dorm room. I met my roommate Paul Berger (on left and me above in 1962) and the plane flying from New York to Michigan. Paul was a Jew from White Plains the nearby city where my father worked as an upholsterer, on the plane flying in. We became fast friends. Our third roommate was a farm kid from Michigan studying floriculture who didn’t know what to make of us but he never hinted at not liking us because we were Jewish. I am sure he just thought we were weird.

I wasn’t in my dorm for much more than a week when a student on my floor asked me about myself, I assume merely out of curiosity, by saying “what are you?”

I doubt he was expressing antisemitism. I assume he had the impression that I wasn’t like the other students he was familiar with and asked the question in a very awkward way. I was taken aback. I don’t remember my exact answer except I know I didn’t tell him I was a New York Jew. That answer didn’t even occur to me at the time.

I think I just blew off the question and he didn’t pursue his line of inquiry. I remember thinking I could have answered something along the lines of “I’m a human being just like you, what did you think, that I’m from another planet?”

Public expressions of antisemitism became rampant with the era ushered in by Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. During this time I was aware that Jews were physically vulnerable. About seven years ago I accompanied a friend when she went to pick up her grandchildren at the Jewish academy where they went to school. To enter you had to be checked in by a security guard who looked like he could have been a retired Army Ranger or Navy SEAL. I noticed he wasn’t wearing a sidearm and thought to myself even back then that I hoped he had a weapon within reach lest a terrorist try to get inside.

Now we had articles like this in The Forward: NY Jewish preschool closes and others heighten security amid vague Hamas threats and Hamas calls for global Jihad, invasion of Israel, attack Jews worldwide on Oct. 13 in The American Military News.

Thankfully October 13th came and went with no violent antisemitic incidents outside of Israel. I am sure I am among millions of people whether they are Jews or not who think it is only a matter of time before violence against Jews spreads beyond Israel’s borders.

I have little doubt that there are people like the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooter who killed 11 people and when he gave up explained his motive to one officer, who reported that the shooter said “All these Jews need to die.” (Reference) These people will take the Hamas call for a jihad against Jews around the world as a personal call to action.

Here’s an article from 2022: Jewish communities across the US are on heightened alert after the Texas standoff: ‘Is our community under attack again?

I wish it could be that the only antisemitism a Jew ever experienced was having a niave kid saying “what are you” to them. Now they are being killed in Israel because they’re Jews and around the world they are wondering how safe they are when the congregate with other Jews.