Terrorism Doesn't Occur in a Vacuum

The Atlantic

3 days ago

Terrorism doesn't occur in a vacuum. It depends on the oxygen of rhetoric for sustenance and encouragement. Nearly two years after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, the cumulative effect of calls to 'Globalize the intifada' and 'End Zionists' perhaps inevitably led to the horrific attack yesterday in Boulder, Colorado, where a man yelled 'Free Palestine' as he threw an incendiary device at a Jewish gathering in support of the hostages.
Words matter. The protester at Columbia University in 2024 holding a sign labeling Jewish demonstrators who were waving Israeli flags as Al-Qasam 's next targets was dismissed as being hyperbolic. So were the By Any Means Necessary banners carried at demonstrations and the red inverted triangles, similar to those Hamas uses to mark Israeli targets, spray-painted on university buildings, a national monument, and even the apartment building of a museum director. When demonstrators wave the flags of terrorist organizations, wear headbands celebrating those same groups, and publicly commemorate the martyrdom of terrorist leaders such as Hamas's Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah, they're not throwing the bomb, but their message can light the fuse.
Iddo Gefen: What 'intifada revolution' looks like
In the past six weeks, that fuse has produced a succession of terrorist acts that have threatened the safety and security of America's Jewish community. That two of the incidents also occurred on Jewish holidays—the arson attack on Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's official residence on the first night of Passover and yesterday's incident in Boulder on the eve of Shavuot—show that Jews in America are not only in some danger, but even more likely to be targeted on specific dates marking religious ritual and observance.
And they won't be just singled out, but subjected to especially heinous acts of violence. The attacker in Boulder used a homemade flamethrower and Molotov cocktails, resulting in eight people being hospitalized with burns and other injuries. Tragically, among the eight victims, who ranged in age from 52 to 88, the eldest was reportedly a Holocaust survivor.
Yet another example of an especially egregious act of violence was the shooting deaths last month of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim on the street outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C. One bullet from a powerful 9-mm handgun is often sufficient to kill. But police found 21 shell casings scattered around the two bodies. The murderer allegedly stalked Milgrim as she attempted to crawl away, shooting her repeatedly. This was an execution.
For years, American Jews watched with horror the attacks on their European co-religionists. A young man kidnapped and tortured to death, an elderly lady beaten and thrown out the window of her home, and a teacher and three children murdered outside a Jewish day school are among a long list of violent anti-Semitic incidents in France alone—the country with the world's third-largest population of Jews after Israel and the United States.
'What history had taught him was Amazement,' Lion Feuchtwanger writes of the conclusion reached by one of the characters in his deeply prescient 1933 novel about Nazi Germany, The Oppermanns. 'A tremendous amazement that each time those in jeopardy had been so slow in thinking about their safety.' Despite the sharp increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. recorded over the past decade by the Anti-Defamation League, American Jews also once believed that the violence against Jews in France, Britain, Germany, and other European countries couldn't happen here. Many told themselves that this threat was unique to European Jewry, given the internal frictions within their own countries, which had absorbed large immigrant populations from former colonial possessions. But yesterday's attack, coming on the heels of the firebombing of Shapiro's residence and the D.C. murders, has proved otherwise. As Ian Fleming, the former spy and novelist who created James Bond, reportedly observed, 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.'
Arguably the system was already blinking red after the 2018 mass shooting at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue, where a gunman killed 11 people, and the near tragedy averted four years later, when an armed man took hostage the rabbi and worshippers at a Colleyville, Texas, synagogue. The October 7 attacks heightened that awareness and led Jews to emulate the security measures standard at synagogues, day schools, community centers, and senior residences in Europe. Private companies were hired to provide guards at the entrances to synagogues and schools. Volunteers were solicited, trained, and deployed by community-based security organizations. The positioning of at least one local police car and patrol officer in front of synagogues became commonplace.
But in today's threat environment, the question for Jews everywhere is inevitably: How much security is enough?
Shapiro's residence was not unprotected. Additional armed guards were deployed at the entrance to the Jewish museum for the event that Lischinsky and Milgrim attended. Jewish institutions, organizations, and agencies, moreover, are already burdened with rising security costs. A study of expenditures at Jewish day schools in four states found that the average cost for security had nearly doubled in 2024–25—to $339,000—compared with 2022–23. After the past six weeks, further increases can be expected. The same is true on university campuses across America, where Jewish- or Israeli-studies departments and centers, as well as similarly oriented student organizations and Jewish ministries, are themselves responsible for paying for the security now standard for all of their events.
And there will be challenges in what can be done to prevent such tragedies in the future. For instance, although security was increased at the entrance to and inside the D.C. Jewish museum, Lischinsky and Milgrim were gunned down outside, on a street corner. Will security measures now require that a secure perimeter be established, or even concentric circles of security in front of every venue and surrounding any event? Will a phalanx of local police or community volunteers be required to box in and protect participants at any and every Jewish event? After yesterday's attack in Boulder, the answer, most likely, is yes.
From the April 2024 issue: The golden age of American Jews is ending
Security provisions are often likened to the proverbial length of a ball of string. In the case of American Jewry, however long that once was, it now needs to be lengthened. Whatever upgrades and increases have been implemented in the past will necessitate reassessment, further modification, and enhancements. More resources will need to be dedicated to ensure the protection of Jewish places of worship, clerics, and congregations. The same is true for other Jewish and Israel-related activities at schools, community centers, offices, and senior homes. The same goes for marches, parades, demonstrations, vigils, and other inherently public events. Strengthened physical, personal, and digital security measures will likely follow—especially during religious holidays and festivals. Even greater cooperation, coordination, and information sharing between law enforcement and Jewish institutions than already exists will be needed.
Ultimately, however, physical security alone will not protect American Jewry. The prejudice and calumny directed against that community that have now become commonplace and have often been treated with indifference must change as well. And with this must come the recognition that violence threatens not just American Jews but all Americans. The Council on American-Islamic Relations cites record numbers of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab incidents; CatholicVote finds hundreds of instances of vandalism as well as more serious attacks on Catholic churches in the U.S. since 2020; and the Hindu American Foundation had to issue a 'Temple Safety & Security Guide' to its worshippers.
Violence against all faiths is rising. To stop it, our society must take more seriously not just bomb throwing, but the messages that light the fuse.