In the last ten days, Jews the world over celebrated the holiest of our holy days: Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
While I took away more lessons than the one I am about to impart, this lesson stands out the most. What did I learn?
I learned that Jews are not safe worshipping in their synagogues without having a police presence greater than we have ever had before. And it’s necessary. There were synagogue attacks on Rosh Hashana in Russia and Norway.
I learned that the off-duty police officers (whose salaries come out of the synagogue’s budget, and are not provided by the towns in which we worship) are now a standard practice of High Holy Day services. Ours were particularly aggressive, for which I was strangely grateful. No one got in without a ticket.
I learned that Jews are not free to worship as they please, even here in America—because too many people the world over blame all Jews for anything they dislike about Israel. Or for anything they dislike about Jews. Or for anything they dislike, for that matter.
Our children are already learning at a young age that they are not safe in their religious schools—we surround them with security from pre-school on.
When I was growing up, the only reason we had a police officer outside the synagogue was to direct traffic so that the congregants could cross the street.
Times change.
This is reason number 842 why I made Aliyah.
No, I’m not really keeping track, but here in Israel, on Yom Kippur, everything shut down, there were no cars anywhere, and even the people who weren’t in shul were respectful of those of us who were.
The fast is a lot easier, and more meaningful, when most of the country is doing it with you.
On a lighter note, I learned not to go to break-fast at George Allen’s, unless I want to try his mother’s famous holiday pork chops…
“On a lighter note, I learned not to go to break-fast at George Allen’s, unless I want to try his mother’s famous holiday pork chops…”
But Doctor, she’s from a renowned Sephardic family. Surely she must have learned a traditional recipe.
I’m not trying to sound callous or smart-alleck, but I wonder if people are overreacting to the actual threat level. Clearly there are Jew-hating kooks out there, but attacks like the one in Seattle are extraordinarily rare. In particular, I’ve never heard of anyone attacking or plotting to attack an American synagogue during a service. Is it all that risky for a typical suburban synagogue to just hire a cop to direct traffic and not hire cops as armed guards?
Well the police officers who have been at our congregation are there primarily to direct traffic. However, we have been increasing “security” each year since 9/11 and access into the building has become more controlled in general.
I do not think it is an overreaction – there have been too many nut cases who rather than just jumping off a bridge or shooting themselves in the basement, want to go out in a blaze of media attention (see: recent school shootings). That’s without the ones who want to make a twisted religous or political statement at the cost of my family and friends, or my neighbor’s family and friends (see LAX El Al counter attack, various attacks in DC, DC sniper, Seattle).
Quite seriously, I fully expect to hear one day that ours or one of the other synagogues in the area has been vandalized or worse, or, one of the local mosques for that matter (beyond the graffiti that appeared on the “future site of” sign for the one 2 miles from my house after 9/11).
We had a debate about HH security at our synagogue board. People were seriously calling for metal detectors and armed guards in addition to “rent-a-cops.” The Rabbi suggested that before we go off the deep end we contact the local FBI office to ask their opinion, as the experts, in the local threat forecast [and we’ve never had more than a few broken windows which were not thought to be Jewish-specific] and it was actually hard work to convince the board to accept this sound advice. People WANTED to be scared and paranoid…