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Source: https://mailchi.mp/bostonglobe/jesus-synagogue-safe-today?e=b14bdda02a
Would Jesus Be Safe in a Synagogue Today?
(Boston Globe) Jeff Jacoby - I used to scoff when some American Jews told opinion surveys that antisemitism in the U.S. was "a very serious problem." I thought Jews had been blessed in America with a degree of tolerance and goodwill virtually unparalleled. America's story was rooted in Judeo-Christian soil. The founders of the American republic believed that they, like the Israelites of old, had been led to a Promised Land. Jews seemed familiar - the original protagonists in the very story the founders believed they were continuing. Jews were embraced as heirs to the scriptures Americans revered. George Washington in his famous 1790 letter to the Jewish community of Newport, R.I., said that in America, every Jew would live safely "and there shall be none to make him afraid." But the golden age has been replaced by a grim new reality in which antisemitism is being normalized with terrifying speed. Today, American synagogues and Jewish schools must spend a fortune on security. Jewish-owned businesses are targeted by antisemitic mobs, podcasters with huge followings platform Holocaust deniers, and social media is awash in anti-Jewish venom. Rev. Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, an Episcopal priest and director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College, noted the difference between synagogues with rigorous security protocols and nearby churches where people were free to walk in and out of the open doors. "Why are we Americans willing to live like this? Why are Christians, who worship Jesus the Jew, willing to stand for this? Why do we stand by as Jews in our communities are threatened by antisemitic graffiti, as Jewish children are bullied in their schools, and as more and more Jews feel they must hide their Jewish identity for fear of harassment - or worse?" "Jesus lived as a Jew and taught as one. The gospels recount that one of the first acts of his public ministry was to teach in his home synagogue. If Jesus were to reappear today, what would he make of armed guards and locked doors at the entrance of U.S. synagogues?... Antisemitism threatens all of us. Rarely do those who target Jews with persecution, threats, or violence stop there. They come for others....Jesus would not keep silent at the sight of Jewish worshipers who need armed guards to pray in safety."