Miami Jewish Federation decries anti-Semitic attacks, urges all to step up against hate
In reaction to the recent spate of anti-Semitic attacks around the world, the Greater Miami Jewish Federation circulated “An Open Letter on Anti-Semitism” Thursday saying the unbridled hate “is unacceptable and it must stop.”
The rare public statement, which appeared as a full-page ad Thursday in the Miami Herald, was shared via social media and sent in a mass email. It was meant as a wake-up call to the community, said Jacob Solomon, federation president and CEO.
“The facts of the dramatic and frightening increase in anti-Semitic incidents speak for themselves,” he said. “We did not feel that we could stand idly by watching this rash of hatred spreading all around us without speaking up and expressing our outrage and our concern.”
The letter begins with a breakdown of anti-Semitic attacks around the world in 2018 and 2019. The first one: 11 Jews killed at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on a Shabbat morning in October 2018. Most recently, five people were stabbed in a rabbi’s home in New York during Hanukkah. That incident came days after an attack at a kosher market in New Jersey. A detective and three other people in the market were killed.
“With the spate of anti-Semitic attacks in New York and New Jersey over the last month, we felt that we needed to really lift this issue up and call on the community to join with us in fighting the scourge of anti-Semitism,” Solomon said.
With about 500,000 Jews living in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, South Florida has one of the largest Jewish communities in the world.
In 2018, the Anti-Defamation League reported 76 verified incidents of anti-Semitism in Florida, including a Nazi symbol etched onto the building of a Miami Jewish doctor’s office and a rabbi who received a death threat via Facebook. The numbers for 2019 have not yet been reported, but according to the ADL’s Tracker of Anti-Semitism, there were 41 U.S. incidents in December alone.
“It is profoundly disturbing that in the U.S. and around the world, expressions of anti-Semitism have largely become normalized. Community leaders, social media companies, and officials from all levels of government must acknowledge the heinous threat of anti-Semitic rhetoric, clearly denounce anti-Semitism — regardless of its source, and recognize that anti-Semitism is un-American,” Sheri Zvi, ADL Florida Regional Director, wrote in an email to the Herald Thursday.
“We are devoting more of our resources than ever before to train law enforcement about hate crimes and how to better protect all communities. Additionally, our young people must understand that an attack against any of us is an attack against all of us.”
Solomon said the federation ramped up security efforts several years ago by creating an Office of Community Security. The director is Stephanie Viegas, a former FBI agent in the Miami office. Carol Brick-Turin, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Federation’s lobbying arm, said Thursday the federation works year-round on training and educational programs.
“OCS is facilitating security and situational awareness training in Jewish institutions, while maintaining the highest level of partnerships with local and national law enforcement, to whom we are most grateful,“ the federation wrote in the letter.
Recent anti-Semitic events led the federation to plan its largest fundraising event of the year called the Main Event on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jan. 27, as a reminder of what happened 75 years ago. The Federation will recognize Deborah Lipstadt, an Emory University professor whose written books about the Holocaust and Jewish history.
She’s probably best known for a Holocaust denier filing a libel suit against her, resulting in her book, “History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier,” which was made into a film, “Denial,” starring Rachel Weisz.
The Federation letter ends with this message: “Anti-Semitism is not just a Jewish issue. Anti-Semitism is a societal threat that does serious harm to the pluralistic, democratic, multi-cultural society we all value as citizens of this great country and of the world. The Jewish people cannot fight anti-Semitism alone.”
This story was originally published January 9, 2020 at 6:46 PM.
