In last week’s Baltimore Jewish Times on-line poll, the platform’s readership were asked by the editor, “Do you feel unsafe wearing Jewish symbols in public?”

Fifty-four percent said yes and 46% said no.

Although this finding was not totally surprising, it is disconcerting, and frustrating.

Just imagine, over half of those polled expressed fear or concern regarding their respective display of Jewish identity in public.

This finding as well as similar surveys suggest that the levels of antisemitism and Jew-hatred today is not only on the increase but has reached a level of unimaginable magnitude.

It is truly unbelievable that we have reached a point in history where members of our Jewish community are actually frighten to display symbols of Jewish identity in public. It is both troubling and foreboding. To be sure, the fact that such percentages exist suggests a condition or reality which demands close review and examination.

About two years ago, I  recall meeting a beautiful couple in their early 80’s from France over Shabbat. They told us at that time that they were forced to remove their mezuzot from their apartment doorposts for fear of  violent antisemitic violent break-ins. They also told us that they no longer wear kippot in public, also for fear of their safety. It was so sad to hear this elderly couple describe how they were being forced to live in fear in the manner they did.

They both recounted when they were children during the Holocaust and how they both hide from the German SS by laying flat underneath the wooden baseboards of a farmhouse just several miles outside a small farming village in France. It was a story of amazing courage, survival  and........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)