Think about the terrible times of slavery
Or WW1
And WW2
Or times of famine
Etc etc....
Our times are not THAT bad.
If only diplomats were more efficient!
JMO
I’m afraid I can’t entirely agree.
It all depends on where you are and who you are, IMO, because that changes one’s perspective on what is happening now.
I’m certainly not enduring a time of famine, as has happened throughout history in different times and places, such as the Siege of Leningrad.
I am not a slave in bondage to a master.
Yet, as a Jewish person, I absolutely feel much more threatened than I did prior to the October 7th massacre by terrorists of Jews in Israel.
My parents were born in America in the 1930s and so did not directly experience Naziism, but my grandparents in Europe were under constant threat, pogroms and oppression, due to being Jewish. My great-grandfather was murdered and hung from a tree because he was Jewish.
As an American, in NYC surrounded by millions of other Jewish people, I’ve never felt threatened because I’m Jewish. I’m extremely adapted to people of every stripe, from every imaginable country and every religion and culture.
I did feel threatened by terrorism after living through 9/11 and having friends who died at the WTC. I felt threatened then as an average American.
Now, I feel PARTICULARLY under siege as a Jewish person.
I had an appointment last week in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn but couldn’t go due to the protest against Israel there. I always go to the Brooklyn Museum but can’t go ever again because of the anti-Israel protests there.
We are being told not to wear the Star of David, to take the Mezuzahs off our doors, the ultra Orthodox are being warned not to walk outside in their idiosyncratic religious garb.
I feel I am about to walk in the persecuted footsteps of my ancestors.
There have been anti-Semitic incidents, some violent, all around. The siege of the airport in Dagestan, marches in London and elsewhere, all the things we’ve seen on the news.
Here, in my homeland, in my native city, in A.D. 2023, it is unbelievable that this is what we are being told to do for our safety.
Lone wolf terrorists have committed many violent acts in NYC and across America, but the tone is much more vicious and widespread now.
Horrifically, these protests are even taking place in so-called institutes of higher learning, including my college Alma Mater.
I do not feel safe. I do not feel my family is safe.
IMO it is also naïve to believe this terror will not spread beyond Jews as targets, because the goal of Islamist extremists is indeed to wipe out all who don’t share their religion. They even kill their own women if they are not wearing a hijab and in some countries, a burka, or commit honor killings by fathers and brothers if a woman marries for love instead of who’s been arranged for her.
Terrorists are not playing, I repeat, they are not playing. They mean what they say and they follow through. They will wait patiently for their moment to strike, but strike they will.
IMO