Packing for a long-awaited trip to Italy recently, I reached for the two necklaces I never take off: my Star of David and the dog tag for Israeli hostages, which I have worn since just after Oct. 7, 2023. Before I zipped up my suitcase, several Jewish friends asked a question that stopped me: “Are you going to wear those in Europe?”
It’s a heartbreaking question—understandable, yet profoundly unfair. Why should anyone have to choose between feeling safe and being themselves?
Yet for many Jews today, this is the choice.
This summer alone, Jewish and Israeli tourists in Europe experienced harassment, intimidation and even violence. In Venice, an American-Jewish couple was cornered and verbally assaulted. In the Swiss Alps, vandals defaced the car of British-Jewish tourists with “Free Palestine.” In Vienna, a Jewish family was expelled from an Uber simply for being Jewish.
The messages sent in these incidents are unmistakable: If you’re visibly Jewish, you may not be safe.
At the same time, this anxiety no longer stops at the water’s edge. It is not just “over there.” Since Oct. 7, fear has crept into American life—from our trains and schools to social-media feeds. Jewish parents now ask whether their children should wear Judaica to school or hide their Star of David under a shirt. They wonder if they should tell a new teacher their family is Jewish, especially when that teacher’s social-media affiliation includes the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a slogan widely understood as a call for indiscriminate violence against Israel and, potentially, against Jews.
Let that sink in: In 2025, American parents are asking whether it is safe for their children simply to appear Jewish, not in Europe in the 1940s, not in a theocracy abroad, not in nations today with a population harboring extreme levels of antisemitic attitudes and beliefs, but in a public school classroom in the United States.
Consider the average Jewish college student in America. They are not deeply involved in student Jewish life—not at Hillel, not at Chabad or at an advocacy group, but they wear a small Star of David necklace. In today’s climate, even that quiet expression of identity can make them a target. The vulnerability comes not from activism but from visibility.
The question is painful because it is not theoretical. It reflects a chilling reality in which visibility has become vulnerability.
According to a global survey by the Anti‑Defamation League and the World Union of Jewish Students, nearly one in five Jewish students worldwide say they know peers who were physically assaulted on campus in the past year. Some 80% say they have hidden their Jewish identity for safety. They think they are choosing safety, but in truth, they are being forced to choose silence.
The modern-day Jewish dilemma of whether to wear or not to wear the star, to speak or to stay silent, to be visible or to hide is not about fashion. It is a profound, painful commentary on the state of Jewish safety and belonging in society. It signals the normalization of antisemitism and the quiet resignation that Jews must somehow accept less safety, less freedom, less visibility than others.
So, yes, it’s just a necklace. But it is also a question of identity, dignity and safety. When someone asks, “Is it safe to wear this?” what they’re really asking is: “Am I allowed to be who I am without fear?”
In a country founded on freedom of religion and expression, the only acceptable answer should be an unequivocal yes. The fact that it no longer feels that way is an American tragedy.
A recent incident in Skokie, Ill., serves as a stark reminder of such a reality.
This past Oct. 7, a group of mostly 12- to 15-year-olds who were playing basketball were confronted by another group of youths who hurled antisemitic slurs, fired gel-pellet guns and chased them off the court. One child was struck in the leg. The Skokie Police Department classified the attack as a hate crime.
This is suburban America—not a war zone, not a distant dictatorship. And yet, Jewish children were targeted simply for being Jewish. The Skokie incident, among many others, is not an outlier, but rather, a warning that the freedoms once taken for granted in this nation are increasingly under threat.
In August, a post in the Mothers Against College Antisemitism (MACA) Facebook group asking whether children should wear a Star of David sparked hundreds of heated comments. Most parents urged pride in Jewish identity, though many voiced fear over safety, citing hostile environments like “Jew-hating Seattle” or “pro-Hamas spaces.” Some parents forbade their children from wearing the symbol, even if they wore it themselves, calling it a painful choice. Others advised caution depending on location and risk. Overall, the discussion revealed a community torn between pride and fear.
Still, amid this uncertainty, one truth remains: Being Jewish is not a liability; it is a gift. And with that gift comes the responsibility to remain visible and seek to engage outside of the community, even when it’s difficult. Of course, with safety and security always top of mind, our priority now must also be to push prejudice back to the fringes with our presence.
In 2025, wearing a Star of David in a major American or European city, or on a college campus, is no longer just an act of faith. It is an act of courage and a declaration that we will not be erased.
