Yitzhak ben Moshe, Editor/Reporter, New Mexico

We recently talked with an older Jewish man about his experience in New York. An experience that is becoming all too common for Jews in America.

As citizens of what many call the greatest country on earth, we have certain rights. We have the right not to be attacked because of our religion. We also have the right to police assistance when someone does attack us, as is the case with Aaron.

I understand that New York City is hard. I lived there for quite some time. The streets are mean, and you can find all sorts of evil lurking in the shadows.

From Aaron’s email to the Jerusalem Press:

You can call me Aaron for this piece.

I want to share with you the events I have had to endure as a Jew living in a major American city. What happened to me should not even happen to my worst enemy.

On my way to work, running late, I decided the trains would be faster than buses or cabs. I entered the subway, entered the train, and was quickly on my way. I was sitting by myself, minding my own business, reading the papers. At that moment, three teenagers approached me and ripped the paper from my hands.

They begin screaming at me that I am killing people. That I murder babies and women, they say.

I look at others on the train, and they avoid my glances and silent pleas for assistance.

To these teenagers, I say, and maybe that is what escalated this, “Who am I murdering on a train?”

Two of these teenagers begin to hit me about my head and shoulders. They scream the whole time about me being a murderer while the other boy laughs at everything.

No one comes to help me. No one at all.

The train stops, and the doors open. For this, I am fortunate because the boys move on, and I rush out of the train. Not even my stop, and I rush out of the train.

I go to the two police officers on the platform to report what happened and describe these teenage boys. The police listen but take no notes. They say they can do nothing about this.

The police, they tell me, cannot help me because of the attack they did not witness. They tell me this as I stand there, bleeding, bruises starting to show, and nothing they can do?

This is not the America I moved to 60 years ago. This is not what people are to do: attacking neighbors and people who are different from you. This, the new American, it scares me.

There comes a time when we, as Jews, must once again take our destiny into our own hands. We cannot allow others to tell us who we are or what antisemitism is. We cannot allow others to tell us we are committing genocide for simply defending ourselves.

We cannot allow others to tell us we no longer have the right to exist.

If law enforcement, if the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), if civil rights organizations will not come to our aid, then we must become our own agents of defense.

The right to own a gun is enshrined in the Bill of Rights for a reason.

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