It’s a Mad, Mad World

September 18, 2024 Alan Feiler, Editor-in-Chief

Protesters argue along Greenspring Avenue about the Israel-Hamas conflict. (Photo by Robyn Stevens Brody)

Strange days have found us.

A young man named Vincent Sumpter was recently arrested for yelling “Free Palestine!” and stabbing a Jewish man walking home on Shabbat near the Chabad Lubavitch movement’s world headquarters in Brooklyn. The victim, Yechiel Dabrowskin, 33, was stabbed four centimeters from his heart and required surgery.

Around the same time, a popular Belgian novelist and intellectual named Herman Brusselmans wrote that the war in Gaza made him want to “ram a sharp knife through the throat of every Jew I meet.” (He later said he was merely indulging in the fine art of satire.)

In Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro blamed “international Zionism” for protests sweeping his country after allegations surfaced about the propriety of recent presidential elections. “All the communication power of Zionism, which controls all the social networks, the satellites and all the power, is behind this coup d’etat,” he said in a televised address.

Then, you’ve got celebrities like ol’ “Slowhand,” Eric Clapton, one of my favorite musicians, who recently told an interviewer, “Israel is running the world, Israel is running the show,” while praising Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And closer to home, you have disturbing incidents like an arson attempt at the Jewish Museum of Maryland in East Baltimore. (A Reservoir Hill resident named Assadollah Hashemi, 66, was arrested for what’s been classified as a hate crime.)

All of this makes you wonder: has the world gone completely nuts?

In all my years covering the Jewish community, I can’t recall another time when antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiments and actions have been trotted out so brazenly and with such abandon. Yes, the scale of violence and death taking place in Gaza is upsetting on a human level. It’s hard to watch. War is a messy business.

But when it’s taken to the point where people participate in protests with slogans proclaiming that Hitler should’ve “finished the job,” you can’t help but wonder what’s going on out there and if Jew-hatred was always just simmering beneath the surface?

I first noticed this phenomenon while covering an Israel solidarity rally last October at Penn Station. A young woman drove her car past protesters gathered near the entrance of the train station and felt obliged to roll down her window and scream, “You’re a bunch of f—ing murderers!” The expression on her face was one of unhinged hatred and revulsion. Mind you, this was only a few weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel.

Perhaps even more disconcerting than the world’s readiness to condemn and demonize Israel and Diaspora Jewry has been the willingness of young Jews to follow suit. I can’t tell you how many Jewish parents have told me they’ve either had screaming matches with their offspring about Israel’s response to Oct. 7 or got to the point where they don’t discuss the subject anymore. Some of these young people attended Jewish day schools and summer camp programs, and even went on Birthright Israel trips.

I’ve had parents tell me their kids have not only attended anti-Israel rallies but even were proudly arrested for their participation. Meanwhile, other parents have told me their teen and adult children don’t believe in Israel’s right to exist and have even questioned the veracity of reports of the atrocities that occurred on Oct. 7.

If we can’t even make our own kids understand why Israel needs to exist and have peace and security and defend itself when attacked, how can we ever expect the rest of the world to get it?

Strange days have found us.

Safe Travels,

Alan Feiler, Editor-in-Chief