By COLlive reporter
Chabad Shluchim around the country are being asked about their opinions and approach to the recent wave of anti-Semitics acts and threats, while working to protect their communities and institutions.
Sacramento’s Jewish community says it’s bracing for acts of antisemitism, like we’ve seen take place across the nation.
Local law enforcement agencies say a response plan is now in place to protect their freedom of religion.
Menorahs are still standing tall, prayers are going on in full public view, but at synagogues and Jewish centers in Sacramento, congregations are on alert, Lemor Abrams reported on CBS12 Sacramento.
Sacramento has been the target one of the the country’s worst acts of antisemitism in history when 4 local congregations were firebombed in 1999. Nothing similar has happened recently, but locals are still concerned.
The vandalism of a cemetery in Philadelphia and ongoing bomb threats to Jewish community centers across the country has the Sacramento Police Department on alert, CBS12 said.
“We’re very thankful to the police and government for protecting us, and we turn to them. But we know that the real help comes from G-d. Because as much security as we have, there’s no assurance that nothing will happen,” said Rabbi Mendy Cohen of Chabad of Sacramento.
CBS12 cameras showed a local Jewish man putting on Tefillin on the street in front of a vehicle in a proud display of Jewish commitment. “It’s a wake-up call for Jews around the world,” Rabbi Cohen said.
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In Miami Beach, swastikas were keyed into vehicles parked near 28th Street and Prairie Avenue. WSVN reported that Police received four similar vandalism reports on Sunday.
Rabbi Mendy Levy, Director of the Ligrom Arichas Yomim – Chabad Chaplaincy Network in Miami Beach, lives next to one of the homes where cars were vandalized.
“It’s a predominantly Jewish area over here,” Levy said, “and just the current crisis that we’re in now, the climate that is taking place around America, it’s very disturbing, so we want people to keep vigilant, at the same time, we want people to spread the message of peace and light and not hate.”
Rabbi Levy said a synagogue was recently vandalized with a swastika. On Friday, members of the congregation found the swastika drawn with a marker on the side of a glass door.
Levy said the swastikas are painful reminders of the Holocaust. “It’s very hurtful. The whole concept of the swastika goes back to the times of the Holocaust, and it brings up horrific memories of genocide and hatred toward a minority,” he said.
In Nassau County on New York’s Long Island, a press conference was held on the steps of Cong. Chabad Mineola attended by Hempstead Councilwoman Dorothy Goosby, Nassau County Legislature Laura Curran, Chabad’s Rabbi Anchelle Perl and civil rights lawyer Sara Kane.
“Nothing will stop us in continuing to contribute to society, we will only redouble our efforts in friendship and appreciation with our friends and neighbors of all walks of life, with all faith communities, to counter your world of
darkness and evil, with acts of goodness and kindness,” Rabbi Perl said.
There is a book printed by SIE (in English) and there is a Purim sicha from the Rebbe which discusses “Divine Protection”…the sicha discusses how a God is above the laws of nature but one of the key messages in the sicha is that a Yid needs align himself with Hashem in thought speech and action and then it becomes Hashem’s responsibility to care of everything