As an American Jew, I try hard not to have a persecution complex when it comes to anti-Semitic acts, like last weekend’s attacks on four synagogues in the Fieldston and Riverdale sections of the Bronx, as reported by Norwood News. 

 

However, in retrospect, I view the attacks on these houses of worship as part of a trend that has engulfed our city, our state, and our nation ever since Donald Trump first ran for President of the United States.

 

Trump successfully used scapegoating, as bigots and self-seeking politicians do, to increase support for his causes and cover up his own inadequacies and shortcomings.

 

Fomenting bigotry, Trump described Mexicans as rapists, inferred that Black people were rioters, and spread the lie that all people of Chinese descent deliberately spread the coronavirus.

 

By appealing to our worst instincts, our former president has enabled racists, like those who have been attacking persons of Asian descent, and those who have killed Black churchgoers and American Jews in their houses of workshop.

 

Throwing rocks through the windows of houses of worship is a terrible thing, but violent attacks on persons of Asian descent are far more troubling.

 

Probing beyond the surface, I find it extremely troubling when people who are, themselves, victims of persecution, like American Jews or Black Americans, engage in hostile and violent acts against oppressed minorities, such as persons of Arab or Asian descent or Latinos.

 

We should never forget how dangerous it is to negatively stereotype all people in one group or another in a specific way – the way Donald Trump and other demagogues have.

 

The words and actions of the bigots and racists, especially when they are widely publicized, are a signal to some irrational people that it is okay to smash the windows of houses of worship, kill Christians and Jews while they pray, or beat Asian-Americans to the point of near death, as a way of trying to cover up for personal shortcomings and inadequacies.

 

Unfortunately, the troubled person or persons who vandalized four synagogues in The Bronx last weekend were acting against the backdrop of troubled times, in which some bigots and racists feel that they have a license to scapegoat those who are different from them.

 

Michael Horowitz is a long-time journalist, Bronxite and member of the American-Jewish community. He recently wrote an opinion piece about the importance of the Jewish holiday of Passover to him and his community in the Northwest Bronx.