Are We Living Through the Synagogue Burnings of the 2020s?

Six months ago, I stood on the grounds of Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Mississippi. I observed a sign that read in bold, “Bombings In Jewish Community.”

I was curious about the history, so I leaned in and read further: “In 1967, Beth Israel broke ground for a new synagogue on Old Canton Road. The first service was held that March. Six months later, the Ku Klux Klan bombed the new synagogue.”

I have visited synagogues across the United States, and spent years studying Jewish history through firsthand experiences visiting sanctuaries, cemeteries, memorials, and communities that thrived in places many already forget that Jews ever lived in.

So coming across a sign of a synagogue being attacked in the 1960s felt horrifying, but not unfamiliar. American Jewish history knows well what living under the shadows of hate feels like — especially in those years when Jews were accused by extremists of “masterminding a plot to ruin America.”

That led to the synagogue bombings of the late 1950s, where justice never arrived in many of the cases.

After reading that sign, I walked the garden of the Beth Israel Congregation, which has a Holocaust memorial formed from seven glass structures, each representing a part of the Holocaust. One of them depicts the Ghetto, another one Kristallnacht. One that caught my eye, was for the victims who wore striped clothes. Another one depicts the book burnings. I found myself thinking of my own family history, as all of my great-grandparents were Holocaust survivors.

And yet, I stood there grateful. Grateful to be an American Jew living freely, enjoying the unalienable rights this country promises its citizens. Grateful for raising my children in a land that, with all its flaws, has been a safe haven for Jewish life.

Still like many American Jews, I asked myself: Could another synagogue be attacked? Could our books burn again? Could this history return in a new form? And most of all, could the unthinkable become thinkable again?

Earlier this month, that question was answered — painfully.

Federal authorities say a 19-year-old admitted that he set fire to Beth Israel because of the building’s “Jewish ties.” The fire consumed portions of the building, some Torah scrolls, and memories of a defiant and historic Jewish community.

Synagogue attacks are often treated as isolated incidents. A tragedy for a few. An investigation for authorities. A bit of solidarity from some, and the news cycle moves on.

They are no longer reported as “The 1950s Synagogue Bombings,” which is how they were in the past, and even has its own dedicated Wikipedia page.

But looking back, over the past few years, multiple synagogues and Jewish centers in the United States have been targeted by fire.

Some have been prosecuted as arson, while most carried hate crime charges. In Texas, a man was charged and sentenced after admitting guilt to a hate crime and arson connected to an attempt to burn down Congregation Beth Israel in Austin. In Arizona, the Justice Department announced a hate crime charge tied to the Khal Chasidim synagogue fire in Casa Grande. In Florida, prosecutors charged a man tied to the fire at the Chabad Jewish center in Punta Gorda, stating that the man had “hatred towards Jewish people.”

But the latest attack in Jackson, Mississippi is symbolic. It’s not another one — it  is a second act by fire on the same platform, nearly 60 years apart.

We live in a faster world now — social media, constant noise, outrage, and excitement. We often skim through things that should make us stop.

We treat extremists’ behavior as news, and hateful rhetoric as theater or comedy. We rarely pause. But standing at the Beth Israel Congregation months ago, reading what happened in 1967, worrying about what could happen again and then watching my worry become a reality — has forced me to pause and ask are we living through “The 2020s Synagogue Burnings?”

American Jewry changed dramatically over the last 60 years. Jews have done very well in this country, with most still holding onto their Judaism. And yet it pains me to say that hatred did not disappear. It changed its vocabulary, its slogans, its platforms, its activists, and its camps. But the basic “Jews are the problem” is maintained. Our houses of worship are burning throughout the land.

Jew hatred travels. It mutates. Sometimes it wears the nationalism hat, other times the “social justice” hat, and other times it wears the libertarian hat. Sometimes it’s just a joke. But the line is not hard to draw when we’re willing to draw it consistently.

When leaders in our country dismiss Nazi rhetoric as “Kids being kids” and brand them as “stupid jokes” or when Jewish leaders and politicians choose to politicize antisemitism and make it a partisan tool, it sends a confusing and ultimately a harmful message.

We should be clear.

Hate towards any group of people is wrong. Hate towards Jews for being Jewish is wrong. Nazi “jokes” are not childish or stupid, they’re corrosive. Praising terror groups is evil. Harassing a visible Jew in the streets with any political chants just because you recognize a Jew and want to intimidate him — is evil.

We the Jewish community have work to do, too. We cannot let our public voice become only “look at what they did to us.” We cannot let bigots frame the story of American Jewish life as one of living in the shadows.

While speaking of and confronting bigotry, which is real and dangerous, we should also insist on our truth and shine light — that Jewish life here has contributed quietly and profoundly to the country’s civic and moral fabric, and that our contributions, just like the contributions of many others in the country, have shaped our country for the better.

And while we do not have to justify our existence and right to belong, it is still a mistake that we allow our identity in the American public to be reduced to one of victimhood.

I am a Jewish father, and a patriot of this country. And I keep returning to the most difficult question: will my children and grandchildren read this 60 years from now and conclude the same — that nothing has changed? Or will we as a collective finally do better?

The writer is an Orthodox Jewish New York businessman.