There is a new coming-of-age moment for many Jewish young adults in the US. It happens around eighteen, and it is nothing like a bar or bat mitzvah. Instead, it arrives quickly and without warning, often during the first weeks on an American university campus, when a young person who grew up believing they would be judged by their character is confronted with a brutal reality: some people will hate them simply for being Jewish.
That moment came for my grandson this month at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has just begun his freshman year and is a member of the Jewish fraternity. Overnight, intruders broke into the fraternity house, urinated on the couches, and drew a swastika on the mirror. When the fraternity brothers came downstairs, there was a confrontation. Thankfully, the perpetrators fled before anyone was hurt. My grandson holds a black belt in karate, and as his grandfather I shudder to imagine what might have happened in that moment if fear, anger, and violence had collided.
What happened to my grandson did not occur in a vacuum. Across the United States and around the world, Jewish communities are increasingly being targeted by vandalism, intimidation, and violence. Recent headlines have included an arson attack on a synagogue in Mississippi and other incidents that remind us how quickly hateful ideas can become real-world acts. The geography may change, but the message is the same: Jews are being told, in unmistakable terms, that they do not belong.
Read more from People4Peace founding chair and filmmaker Peter Samuelson at The Times of Israel.