“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”
— Albert Einstein
The murder of Chabad Rabbi Zvi Kogan late last year in Abu Dhabi haunts me. It was a heinous act of terror that has world Jewry steeped in a collective mourning. Yet it is not just about the murder of one rabbi, but the hunting and murdering of the Jew for the singular reason of being Jewish. Reminiscences of the past jogging your mind? Well, not only should it jog your memory, but stop you in your tracks.
Three Uzbek nationals were reportedly contracted by the Iranian regime of terror to commit this heinous attack. They crossed into the United Arab Emirates where they surveilled the young rabbi before they abducted, tortured and murdered him in cold blood.
I see the rabbi everywhere, yet I never met him. I see him as I go about my day, and I imagine his face as he faced the terror, as the final words of his faith likely rolled off his tongue as he saw the reflection of evil in the eyes of his assailants.
I am so sorry for you, Rabbi Kogan. You were a person of purity taken from this world so early and savagely. You were a person with idealism and energy, who was excited at the prospect of sharing the goodwill of God and worked tirelessly to do good for any person in need without condition or judgment.
How have we come to this dark and evil place?
The murdering of a Jew because he or she is a Jew is, unfortunately, a scenario that has played itself out many times throughout history. Yet, we are still shocked when it happens, and, I have to ask, why are we surprised?
If the current situation is allowed to continue, if the rhetoric of hate is not stopped at the source, more violence is likely to follow.
The rhetoric against Israel has been building, unchallenged by law, into a crescendo of hateful content and violent undertones. The aftermath of Oct. 7 bears witness to a wave of lawlessness throughout the world. Police services in many Western nations appear defenseless against the growing crowds who call for the destruction of Israel with perverse poetic chants and slogans on placards like “From the River to the Sea,” “Long live Oct. 7,” and “There is only one solution, intifada, revolution.” All of these slogans have one meaning: a planned genocide against Jews.
These protests are normalizing violence against Jews, and it is only a matter of time before that violence becomes real. I am watching the protests in my neighborhood and cities across the world with alarm. If the current situation continues, it will only be a matter of time before some madman (or woman) will say to themselves, “Someone has got to do something. I’ll get it done myself.”
The more the hatred is stoked, the more people are likely to act on it. This was as true in Dubai in November as it was in Paris in April 2017, when Sarah Halimi, a 65-year-old retired doctor and Orthodox Jewish woman, was beaten in her apartment by a neighbor who yelled Allahu Akbar! (“God is great!”) and shouted antisemitic slurs before throwing her out of her third-floor window. And it was true in March 2018 when Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor, was murdered in her Paris apartment. She had been stabbed 11 times and her body set on fire. It was true when 11 Jewish worshippers were murdered in cold blood on Oct. 27, 2018, at the Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue in Pittsburgh.
There have been more than 45,000 jihadist terror attacks around the world since Sept. 11, 2001, according to the Religion of Peace website. The meter on their site is a dark measurement of terror and destruction.
Incidents of antisemitism are on an extreme trajectory in the wrong direction. Anti-Israel protests have crossed the line from an exercise in free speech to a call for violence. There is a difference between peaceful dialogue to bring attention to a matter of concern by like-minded people and the blatant threats used by protesters.
Jews everywhere feel at risk. It has come to a place where I must now consider my safety before telling someone my name. I am a third-generation Canadian, and for me to have to concern myself with the consequence of my name or a display of Jewish pride, to the point that I must fear for my well-being, is sad.
The worst of all is fighting the instinct to go into hiding post-Oct. 7. As the jihadi chants become louder, my discomfort becomes stronger. As a Jew, I am feeling increasingly unsafe. Iran and its regime have been spreading their vile hate and prompting antisemitic actions not just with words but with funding and encouragement, and Western governments lack the agency to call it out.
Iran cannot continue to use its proxies to disconnect itself from direct responsibility for this hate and other terror events so that it can continue to sit at a negotiating table. The Iranian regime is solely responsible for almost every act of terror that has targeted Israel, her allies, her people and her land. Its hateful ideology is spilling into the borders of our country and will eventually overrun the safeguards of even the most powerful of defenses.
In the view where hindsight is 20/20, let’s not say that we could have, should have or would have had we known. We know what is possible, and what hate and threats are present among us. What happened to Rabbi Kogan is endemic to what could happen anywhere, anytime. We must demand and ensure that governments everywhere take the threat to Jewish lives seriously.