Indeed, it\u2019s not only the most American of stories\u2014of people welcome nowhere else coming to a land that promised them liberty, it\u2019s a story of unique resonance to American Jews dating back to our nation\u2019s founding. As New York Times editor and writer Bari Weiss relates in her outstanding and moving book, How To Fight Anti-Semitism, George Washington wrote to a Rhode Island Hebrew congregation all the way back in 1790 that American Jews \u201cpossess alike liberties of conscience and immunities of censorship.\u201d<\/p>\n
America is Israel\u2019s closest ally. America is the home of the second-largest population of Jewish people in the world, behind only Israel. And now, in communities where Jews have lived and thrived for generations, they don\u2019t know if they\u2019re safe. They don\u2019t know if they\u2019ll be victimized by random, vicious attacks. Even worse, those attacks aren\u2019t coming from a single movement that can be identified, isolated, and defeated. They come from radical left and radical right. They come from Americans black and white. The ancient hatreds have re-emerged to such an extent that I\u2019ve heard more than one friend question whether this land can truly remain their home.<\/p>\n
In fact, one of the central political, cultural, and spiritual challenges of our time is reassuring Americans increasingly divided by religion and still divided by race that this nation is, indeed, home.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s America\u2019s 400-year challenge with an African-American population that endured 246 years of slavery, 99 years of widespread legal discrimination following Appomattox, and has lived only 56 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s America\u2019s challenge as increasing diversity is accompanied by increasing cultural clashes, and the omnipresent human will to power prefers victory and domination over pluralism and accommodation.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n The terrible truth is that when populations of new and different people move to new places, they often encounter vicious bigots. They don\u2019t create vicious bigots. Thoughts on the awful violence against Orthodox Jews: https:\/\/t.co\/0PMFIjYykD<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 David French (@DavidAFrench) January 19, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n