The horrific machete attack on Hanukkah celebrants at a rabbi’s home in Monsey, N.Y., requires everyone in our nation to denounce the rise of anti-Semitic violence. Although the attacker in this instance apparently is suffering from untreated schizophrenia, this attack marks the eighth incident of anti-Semitic violence since Dec. 13 in the New York City metro area alone.
Deadly and violent attacks motivated by anti-Semitism are becoming disturbingly more commmon as our nation witnesses the rise of white nationalism — with the inevitable concomitant rise of Christian nationalism. In April, a shooter opened fire in a San Diego synagogue during Passover, injuring three and killing one. Earlier in December, two shooters entered a kosher supermarket in Jersey City that ended in a shootout with police, and six people dead.
Earlier this year, the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks anti-Semitism globally, noted that “Anti-Semitic attacks in the US have doubled” and that 2018 “marked the single deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation condemns violence, especially against anyone seeking to follow the dictates of their conscience, a freedom afforded to this country by our secular Constitution.
The aspirational goal of the United States is to be that “melting pot” where all of us — regardless of race, color, sex, gender, national origin, religion or irreligion — is equal and equally welcome. The motto “In God We Trust,” that interloper of the 1950s, breeds the pernicious idea of religious supremacy, a class of those citizens with the “right” religion who are insiders, and with religious minorities and nonreligious who become outsiders.
As FFRF Co-President Dan Barker has often pointed out, the original motto, “E Pluribus Unum” [from many, come one] actually means “Divided, we stand.” America’s diversity should be its greatest strength.
Hate must have no home in this country.
