The new year brings us old issues of grave concern and unfortunately antisemitism is at the top of mind, even here in Hawai‘i.
Examples:
OCTOBER 18, 2023: Two hooded men threw Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in central Berlin.
NOVEMBER 16, 2023: A 53-year-old man was arrested in Tokyo after crashing a car into a barricade near the entrance of the Israeli embassy and injuring a police officer.
MAY 17, 2024: French police shot dead a knife-wielding Algerian man who set fire to a synagogue and threatened police in the city of Rouen.
JUNE 2024: A Jordanian national broke into a solar power generation facility in Wedgefield, Florida, and caused more than $450,000 in damage. In May 2025, he was sentenced to six years in U.S. federal prison for threats against and attacks on businesses over their perceived support for Israel, after pleading guilty in December.
SEPTEMBER 5, 2024: German police shot dead an Austrian suspected Islamist in Munich in an exchange of fire close to the Israeli consulate.
SEPTEMBER 6, 2024: Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, a Pakistani citizen living in Canada, was arrested and charged with planning a mass shooting at a Jewish center in Brooklyn around October 7, 2024 in support of Islamic State, the Department of Justice said.
OCTOBER 10, 2024: A shooting took place near an Israeli target in the city of Gothenburg, which Denmark's national broadcaster said was a unit of Israeli defense electronics firm Elbit Systems.
NOVEMBER 6, 2024: Masked men attacked two students who were demonstrating in support of Israel at Chicago's DePaul University, resulting in minor injuries.
JANUARY 17, 2025: A home in Sydney previously owned by a senior Jewish community leader was vandalized and two cars were set on fire, with one spray-painted with an antisemitic slur.
JANUARY 21, 2025: A childcare center in Sydney was set alight and antisemitic graffiti was sprayed on the wall.
FEBRUARY 21, 2025: An attacker stabbed a man at Berlin's Holocaust memorial.
MAY 22, 2025: Two Israeli embassy staffers were killed by a lone gunman in Washington, D.C.
OCTOBER 2, 2025: A man drove a car into pedestrians and stabbed a security guard, killing at least two people and seriously injuring three more at a synagogue in Manchester where worshippers were marking Yom Kippur.
DECEMBER 14, 2025: Two men, a father and son, used high powered rifles to attack celebrants at a Hanukkah event on Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia. 15 lives were taken including a 10-year-old child. Authorities confirm Jewish attendees were targets.
These are a select few of a voluminous number of attacks on Jewish people and these are the attacks that are reported while so very many are not.
So, why?
Why is there such a an apparent hatred of Jews?
There may be explanations proffered to explain the burgeoning amount of antisemitism in America and worldwide.
But let me cut to the chase.
It's a reflection of the ever constant deterioration of humanity.
To bolster my claim, antisemitism is just one of the growing numbers of -isms in our collective cultures.
Some examples of pervasive toxic “-isms” include "racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, heterosexism (i.e., homophobia), classism, sizeism, and antisemitism. “-isms” are the behavioral manifestation of bias, conscious or unconscious, that reinforce oppression and inequities in our culture."
Ok, a bit clinical but right on target.
Regarding antisemitism it's referred to as "The Longest Hatred" with roots dating back to the times of Jesus Christ. A foundational basis of this hatred stems from the fallacy that Jews killed Jesus. It was the hierarchal Jewish leaders of the day that used the occupying Romans to fuel their political objective to eliminate Jesus without doing it themselves. Roman leader Pontius Pilate ordered the killing of Christ, and he had the option of preserving His life which he did not.
The Jews did not kill Christ. The Romans did. (This was affirmed by the Roman Catholic Church at Second Vatican.)
The longevity of "The Longest Hatred" is rife with rationale for antisemitism. The intensity of this hatred continued bolstered by false claims that Jew were responsible for the Black Plague. Why? Anecdotally the Jewish survival rates exceeded all others sparking claims the Jews must have created and spread the Black Plague to fulfill their plans to literally take over the world.
Rubbish.
The likelihood of increased survival is attributable to lifestyle fundamentals including personal hygiene and refusal to store exposed food products in the home. Consequentially infected fleas in concert with host rats could not gravitate to the aforementioned food sources, hence a lower infection rate. And, of course, death visited Jews as well.
Over the centuries antisemitism remained a constant. A continuation of hatred was advanced including rumormongering that the obstinate Jew by not accepting Christ and their Lord and Savior leading to allegations of demon worship and more.
Martin Luther during the reformation of the catholic church continued the inflammation of rhetoric concerning Jews. The rejection of Jews within communities led to them turning to mega unpopular commerce such as moneylending which further perpetuated "The Longest Hate."
However the discrimination was fueled by the religious leaders and authors of differing faiths.
Some Christians such as the Catholic priest Ernest Jouin, who published the first French translation of the Protocols, combined religious and racial antisemitism, as in his statement that "From the triple viewpoint of race, of nationality, and of religion, the Jew has become the enemy of humanity." The virulent antisemitism of Édouard Drumont, one of the most widely read Catholic writers in France during the Dreyfus Affair, likewise combined religious and racial antisemitism. Drumont founded the Antisemitic League of France.
Historians refer to contemporary times as the New Antisemitism.
Adolph Hitler embraced and utilized historic yet virulent and hateful writings from the past and invoked them before, during and after his rise to evil power. At the core of Nazism was the notion that it was the Jew who was sub-human and served as an infection to all especially the proclaimed perfect Aryan man, woman and child. By attaching blame to Jews for the, yes, grievous economic and militaristic conditions in post-World War I Germany, Hitler succeeded in convincing most Germans that the future of Aryan Germany was reliant upon the eradication of Jews.
We're all aware of what transpired which further personified "The Longest Hatred" six million times over.
Holocaust denial, the claim that the Nazi genocide of European Jews during the Second World War either never happened or is substantially exaggerated by historical accounts, is a form of antisemitism and conspiracy theory. Political movements seeking to revive the ideologies of the Nazis and other states that participated in the Holocaust, like neo-Nazism and neofascism, practice Holocaust denial.
Today we find similar conditions.
There is significant debate about whether analogies between Israel's treatment of Palestinians and the Nazis' treatment of Jews or comparisons to Anti-Palestinianism are antisemitic. Those who say they are antisemitic have termed such analogies "Holocaust inversion" — a form of Holocaust trivialization in which the Holocaust is compared with other events in a way that downplays its severity. Some maintain Holocaust inversion as a type of Holocaust denial.
As I mentioned earlier, there are a myriad of explanations as to why antisemitism exists even today. And we're not exempted in the land of Aloha in the middle of the Pacific.
Why would anonymous individuals terrorize Hawai‘i synagogues with threats of bombing them and their place of worship? Yes, it has recently happened here on O‘ahu and Kīhei, Maui, and while the Kīhei threat was determined to be a hoax, it was one that derived its power from all the attacks that are all too real. Temple El-Emmanuel in Nu‘uanu has faced terroristic threats in the past requiring key code access, omnipresent security cameras and moving in potted plants to prevent IEDs to be used to inflict damage or even worse.
The Why?
There can be explanations ranging from verbose psychoanalytical pronouncements by professionals to a guy in a bar that simply says that people suck.
I don't know why because I don't understand nor relate to the ism sentiments and how one can spew hatred, inflict terror upon others and commit crimes of abject violence simply based on ones inexplicable hatred of a faith or a race.
I can only infer there are those that are filled with hatred and rage and Jews make a convenient target. Jews serve as an imagined justifiable vehicle to release their hatred and rage although the random selection of any ism would serve their evil purpose.
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