This isn’t normal

But the insidious truth is that a concerning amount of society views it as so.

Last Thursday, another attack on the Jewish community occurred. Another in what has become a regular series of attacks on Jewish institutions, and another in a series of missing a greater truth.

And so now we have another round of increased patrol cars outside our Jewish establishments. Another round of superficial thoughts offered by politicians, minus deeper reflection. Another pause before it’s business as usual for the rest of the country … while our own community is left wondering how long until the next.

As a Jew in Pittsburgh, this hits home. However, this attack hits home for any Jew, as this external pattern and internal worry has become the norm for all of us.

But to state the most obvious truth of our time: This isn’t normal.

Many have already written off this latest violence, as this time no one was killed who shouldn’t have been, choosing to ignore the deadly intended outcome. But we cannot lose sight of the goal: a massacre of over 100 children and their nearly 50 teachers, by a barbarian who placed his bigoted narcissism over the lives of the most innocent.

So, yes, the prepared safeguards thankfully worked to prevent such horror. But why should all of them have to be standard practice?

Why does every Jewish institution need at least one armed guard? Why have guards been standard practice for decades?

Why should any place of worship need training for an assault like this, by a Jewish organization created for it?

Why do security costs for Jewish institutions across the country need to total $765 million?

Somehow 2% of the national population has to deal with nearly 70% of all religious-based hate crimes. That’s not normal.
Neither is it for so many to go to bat for the perpetrator of such a heinous crime.

In the case of any other attack on any other group, there is typically a uniform outpouring of support for the victims and their community … not the victimizer. That individual is rightfully and unequivocally condemned, never excused or
defended.

Yet in the past week, that norm has been lacking to missing. At best, there has been passive downplaying; at worst, active revision of the entire narrative.

Media has gifted this monster with softened coverage bordering on eulogistic, with focus shifted from the community dealing with a horrific intended child massacre to his past and the current state of his family’s community.

A sympathetic — to the point of deranged — online chorus has gone even further, with contesting angles of “can’t believe such a nice guy had this happen to him” and “it’s understandable that the tragic death of his (Hezbollah) brothers would make him feel the need to take out his anger on innocent children” vying for best spin.

Worse, if that’s possible, is that in this case the blame has been almost completely lifted from the man who intentionally drove a vehicle full of weapons into an American preschool to everyone’s favorite fixation — Israel.

The narrative: Israel, which took action against this man’s terrorist brothers in Lebanon, forced him to take action against unrelated kids in America.

The Jews, who dare to defend their lives in Israel, must have theirs ended here.

Humanize the criminal, and therefore dehumanize the victims. But really, what other lunacy can be expected after years of our synagogues stained as evil Zionist centers, while their terrorists are lionized as freedom fighting activists?
This isn’t normal.

It should never be considered as such for people to go to such lengths to excuse and absolve an entire demographic … to ritually infantilize a population, to both others’ and their own demise … to accept as ordinary that one can have so much ingrained hate for another.

It isn’t normal. But the insidious truth is that a concerning amount of society views it as so.

What we’ve been witnessing is not simply a “rise in antisemitism” or “wave of Jew hate.”

To label it as such is to diminish into transience an already existing virus of hate which has fed off of complacency for ages. These escalating attacks here and around the world are the direct result of allowing appeasement and low expectations to reign over responsibility and accountability, due to an inability or flat out refusal to address the true core of the problem: Too many ignore that antizionist radical Islam has the agency to breed and promote a terror-driven purpose, while too few truly believe that Jews have the agency to ensure a secure future for themselves.

Because when it comes down to it, too many simply expect this situation for Jews, both in Israel and abroad. Whether it is kids in Israel running to bomb shelters because of incoming explosions, or kids here running from an explosive-laden truck that rammed their school; whether it is a numbness to jihadist violence, now genuinely believed to be a tolerated part of
culture, or perhaps an assumption that Jews just must have had it coming. Jews are simply not seen as full-fledged people deserving of the complete and equal empathy, security and liberty that others assume for themselves.

None of these ridiculous assumptions are normal, and should never be considered as such; but the world both accepts and expects them to be, and each day that they become more tolerable is a step further that modern society has sunk.

Our society needs to have a serious and vital conversation, not just about why it continues to deem this acceptably normal, but what this truly means for itself and its future. The reality is stark: Doing nothing can be deadly. PJC

Sarah Kendis is a musician living in Pittsburgh.