The 10-year-old boy bounded out of his bedroom with excitement. It was Saturday morning, and he was going to one of his favorite places, a local science museum. Suddenly, his mother’s sharp voice burst his joyous bubble.
“No! I’ve told you, you can’t wear that shirt out,” she exclaimed, staring at the words “I Stand With Israel” emblazoned across the front of his t-shirt.
The smile disappeared as he simply asked “why?” “You know why,” his mother answered. “We have talked about this. Because two people got shot coming out of a Jewish event in a Jewish building.” Disappointed, but not surprised, the boy muttered “I know,” went back to his room, and changed shirts.
This happened just last month. The boy is my mentee as part of a mentor-mentee program run by Ruth & Norman Rales Jewish Family Services in South Palm Beach County. We talked more about what happened in the car on our way to the science museum. It was not the first time he had this conversation.
This, unfortunately, is the new normal for Jews in South Florida and around the world in the aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023. Ten-year-old’s who shouldn’t be thinking about anything other than how excited they are to win first prize in a camp robotics contest have to worry about getting shot if they wear the wrong t-shirt.
Regardless of how you feel about what happened on Oct. 7, how Israel has responded, or who is telling the truth about the situation in Israel and Gaza, Jews in our community and elsewhere feel the impact of events in the Middle East and have to make difficult decisions about even the smallest of acts every day.
So, we must ask:
Is it safe to wear clothing, jewelry and other symbols of our Jewish identity? In Nov. 2024 alone, a Jewish man wearing a yarmulke was shot on his way to synagogue in Chicago, a rabbi in Maryland was attacked by a man wielding a wooden stake, and a man wearing a yarmulke in New York was called a dirty Jew and punched in the face.
Is it safe to keep up our mezuzahs, the symbol of a Jewish home, in the door frame? Within seconds, you can find stories on the internet about mezuzahs being ripped from doors and swastikas being drawn over them in London, Paris, Berlin, and colleges from Washington, D.C. to California. The governor’s mansion in Pennsylvania was the victim of an arson attack in April – with the Jewish governor and his family sleeping inside.
Is it safe to go to our temples and synagogues? Since Oct. 7, 2023, Chabad’s and synagogues in Kendall, Hallandale Beach, and Gainesville have been vandalized or had antisemitic graffiti scrawled on or near them — and that’s just Florida. Hundreds of synagogues all over the world have suffered a similar fate. My temple in Hollywood recently had a cookout and Friday night Shabbat services at a picnic shelter in a local park to celebrate a minor Jewish holiday. Several families with children were there. On one side of the shelter was a marked City of Hollywood police cruiser with two officers inside. On the other were two off-duty officers the Temple had hired as private security. All four of the officers closely scanned anyone walking by for any signs of trouble. I was grateful for their presence. Without them, we would have been sitting ducks.
Is it safe to go to Jewish-run events? Clearly not, as evidenced by the shootings of two Israeli embassy staff members in Washington D.C. and the arson attack on peaceful protestors in support of Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado within a month of each other this spring. A California man was beaten over the head and killed at a rally shortly after Oct. 7.
Is it safe to go out to eat? Jewish restaurants and patrons of them have been vandalized and attacked in the last few months alone in New Jersey, Colorado, Los Angeles, New York City, Toronto, Montreal, and London.
This is far from an exhaustive list. The Anti-Defamation League reports antisemitic incidents in the U.S. have almost quadrupled since Oct. 7, 2023. An astounding 61 percent of American Jews surveyed in a poll conducted by the University of Miami and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago reported personally encountering antisemitism in the year after Oct. 7.
Jews feel every one of these attacks personally. We’re a small lot – just 0.2% of the world’s 8 billion people. There are fewer of us in 2025 – 16 million – than there were before the Holocaust (18 million). It’s not hard to find someone who knows someone affiliated with many of these individual attacks. Regardless of where we stand on other issues, any Jew even remotely connected to their faith feels anguish over each one. They happen solely because the victims are Jewish. Which means it could happen to any one of us at any time.
One of the worst parts of all of this? The silence of our non-Jewish friends and neighbors. Like me, many Jews have stood up for decades in support of marginalized and minority communities in their time of need – Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and Muslim-Americans in the aftermath of Sept. 11, just to name a few. Now, in our time of need, Jews feel abandoned by the people we thought were our partners.
I can honestly say that since Oct. 7, not one non-Jewish person I know has independently reached out to express empathy or even ask how I am (and like many Jews, I am definitely not ok). Three friends and a handful of others have made supportive comments on social media posts, but never followed up. It’s depressing to realize that all my years of social activism, including professional work as a lawyer and newspaper reporter, mean little or nothing to the groups I have supported.
The lack of support was recently driven home by an experience with five very close friends who I have known for more than 40 years since we all worked together at a newspaper in the 1980s. I’m the only Jewish member of the group. After the shooting of the two Israeli staffers in Washington, three of my friends were agonizing in our texting group because the 26-year-old woman who was shot grew up in the Kansas City area where one lived, and attended the University of Kansas where two other group members went to school. They were clearly upset over a remarkable young woman’s life being snuffed out by hate, but never once mentioned the reason she was shot – because she was believed to be Jewish coming out of a Jewish event.
I felt my friends’ pain, but I also knew this was a one-off for them. But not for me and not for other Jews. This is the pain we feel almost every day, because almost every day there is another heartbreaking and senseless tragedy that befalls one of our own.
We had a sensitive, difficult conversation on a group call not long after that shooting, where I essentially had to explain “welcome to my world.” They had no idea of the difficulties I have experienced recently as an American Jew, even in South Florida. I was at the same time gratified that my thoughts genuinely moved them, and surprised and saddened that these educated and progressive friends could be so unaware of what Jews are going through.
While my friends were moved, as I predicted, they have gone back to their regular lives. It’s a luxury Jews don’t have. Your Jewish friends and neighbors are in emotional turmoil right now, and could use the support of our community in meaningful, tangible ways.
Bob Levenson, 67, is a retired lawyer and former newspaper reporter. Before retiring in 2022, he spent 21 years as a senior trial counsel with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Miami office. He is a 1996 summa cum laude graduate of the University of Miami School of Law. He has lived in South Florida off and on since 1975 and has resided permanently in Hollywood since 1996. He and his wife Robin Benedick have two adult children. He is a member of Temple Solel Reform congregation in Hollywood.
