At 6:00 pm in a Mid-Atlantic State, I stood outside in a parking area near a small park as the temperature dipped into the mid-twenties. I found myself contemplating the near absurdity of what I was doing.  I say “near absurdity,” because it turns out, it was not absurd at all.

I am a sixty-something year old man, who should be home catching up on Daf Yomi. Instead, I am standing in the travel lane of a parking lot as part of a volunteer community security group, helping to make sure those who came to a Chanukah event, for a shul not my own, did not become victims of another senseless killing of Jews. Less than 72 hours after the horrors of Bondi Beach, I, and several others are in this nearly absurd circumstance.

As my nose begins to run from the cold, I think about a political commentator on a popular news and opinion program I saw earlier in the day. He was on a segment with the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League discussing the events in Australia. I am purposely not naming the network, the program or the commentator, because I don’t want to get caught in the back and forth of right versus left, blah blah blah. I will say that while I am not a huge admirer of this particular commentator, I find his views on hatred and calls for greater humanity and understanding very close to my own.

Discussing the horrors of Bondi Beach and the pervasiveness of antisemitism, this commentator said that hate, whether antisemitic, racist, or Islamophobic, comes from an unholy place and that the resulting violence all stems from that same unholiness. I believe this commentator recognizes the horror of Bondi Beach.  I........

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