Rising anti-Semitic hatred is changing Jewish life across the United States

May 1, 2019

One rabbi in Riverside, California, now begins services with an announcement about where the exits are – in case people need to run for their lives.

In Glen Rock, New Jersey, a rabbi is unsure what to write on signs at the temple's entrance. At first, the message read “entering a secure space,” but that wasn't exactly what she wanted convey to people arriving to worship.

A synagogue in San Francisco is allocating an increasing amount of money toward airport-style metal detectors and security guards, while the Christian church across the street has open doors.

Saturday’s deadly shooting at the Chabad synagogue of Poway near San Diego killed one woman and injured three people when a gunman opened fire during a Passover service.

It came exactly six months after a mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in which a man who said he wanted all Jews to die killed 11 people and injured seven. It was the deadliest act of anti-Semitic violence in U.S. history.

Such attacks are becoming more frequent. Across the nation, anti-Semitic incidents are reaching historic levels. In 2018, there were 1,879 recorded attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions, according to the Anti-Defamation League. That was the third-highest year on record since the 1970s, when the ADL first started tracking anti-Semitic attacks.

Jewish leaders say they are increasingly dealing with a new reality of metal detectors, armed guards and an ever-present threat of violence. They say their community is determined to go on practicing their faith despite the risks, and many rabbis are observing a growing number of people finding their way to services to show their support.

r many Americans, every week seems to bring new reports of swastika graffiti or other acts of hate.

Anti-Semitic incidents for 2018 were 48% higher than the total for 2016 and 99% higher than in 2015, according to ADL. Its audit includes tallies of physical assaults, vandalism and harassment.

The increases coincided with annual jumps in reported hate crimes nationwide for three consecutive years from 2014 to 2017, according to the FBI. In 2017, hate crimes peaked at 7,175 incidents.

Other Western nations have at the same time seen a significant rise in anti-Semitic violence. In France, there was a 74% increase in anti-Semitic incidents, from 311 to 541, including the torture and murder of an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor named Mireille Knoll, said Catherine Chatterley, editor-in-chief of the journal Antisemitism Studies and a history professor at the University of Manitoba in Canada.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/30/holocaust-remembrance-day-arrives-us-jews-under-attack/3616318002/

so sad, I always looked the US thinking of a place wger synagogues don’t need protection like in Europe