The release of the “manifesto” from one of the kids who attacked the Islamic Center of San Diego reveals the motives of those young attackers. Instead of solely focusing on Muslims, it includes a laundry list of Nazi targets: Jews, Muslims, women, queer folks, and so on. (It also says that “all the wrong in the world … can be traced back to or be caused by one group, the jews”). It expresses admiration for Christian nationalist, White supremacist terrorists from all over the world, from New Zealand to Pittsburgh.
Our synagogue convenes under the protective cover of armed security. Jewish communities have witnessed an ugly resurgence of antisemitism. As a result, Jewish professional and lay leaders sometimes feel that we’re alone in confronting murderous hate. Of course, we are not alone. Muslims too feel isolated in facing Islamophobia, as do Black folks confronting racism, immigrants facing fear and suspicion, and queer folks threatened by homophobia and transphobia.
As such, the screed written by the perpetrator of this nightmare has done us a great service — if we’ll listen. While we argue about which group faces more hate and bias, let the horrors in Israel/Palestine break apart our coalitions, and refuse to stand next to would-be allies with whom we disagree, the White supremacist global hate movement marches on, unabated.
This poison is a threat not just to an Islamic center, or to a Jewish community center, but to all of those targeted by bigotry and deadly bias. Whether you are an immigrant or a transgender person, a religious minority or a person of color, this hate is coming for us all.
No, targeted groups don’t always agree. Sometimes we say things that make each other furious. That doesn’t change the fundamental truth: We are safest when all marginalized groups stand in solidarity with each other.
If we are really committed to keeping our communities safe, we need to do the hard work of sitting with people we disagree with, and facing that there are people in this world who want us all dead.
The brutal Islamic Center of San Diego massacre was just the latest illustration of this awful truth.
The choice before us is clear: We either join together and face the hate that’s coming for all of us, or we face the consequences on our own.
I know what I choose.
Rothbaum is the rabbi for Congregation Dor Hadash, a Reconstructionist synagogue in La Jolla.