For American Jews, a ‘Delicate Dance’ of How Visible to Be in a Time of War

Leya Kaufman, a sales and marketing executive in the fashion industry, recently decided not to wear her Star of David necklace on the New York subway.

A friend told her she needed to be careful. Kaufman continues to wear her Star of David ring, but turns the star around so it’s not visible until she gets to work.

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and rise in antisemitic threats worldwide, American Jews are grappling with daily questions about their safety and public displays of their identity.

Anti-Israel protests on college campuses, bomb threats at schools and other signs of growing aggression toward Jews have sparked community response in the form of prayer, counterprotest and a reaffirmation of faith, Jewish leaders say. Jews across the spectrum of beliefs, they say, are assessing how much of their identity they’re willing to show and what to keep private.

The war has given some Jews new resolve to show their faith, wearing head coverings or Stars of David for the first time, while others are cutting back their outdoor Hanukkah displays.

In the month following Oct. 7, there were 832 antisemitic incidents in the U.S., up from the 200 incidents reported in the same period a year ago, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has seen a rise in threats against Jews as well as Muslims in the U.S. since the Hamas attack, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray. Three Palestinian students were shot in Vermont last month and a 6-year-old Muslim boy was stabbed to death in the Chicago area in October. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group, said it received 774 complaints between Oct. 7 and Oct. 24, roughly triple what was recorded over about two weeks, on average, last year.

A recent poll by the Jewish Federations of North America found that Jews were twice as likely to say they worry “very much” about their personal safety compared with the general public since the Hamas attack. Poll respondents who said they wore distinctive Jewish items, such the small skullcap-like head covering often called a kippah, were twice as likely to say they felt worried “all the time” relative to Jews who didn’t wear them.

Eric Fingerhut, chief executive of Jewish Federations of North America, says people feel a need to express their Jewish identities, but also are concerned about safety.

Fingerhut says he expects more lit menorahs in windows this Hanukkah, which started Thursday, calling this “a moment where people will want to show light and be visible,” he says.

Kaufman, in suburban New York, says her grandfather survived the Holocaust and that it’s important for her to place a lit menorah in her front window. But her front lawn will no longer display the inflatable Hanukkah dinosaur, a giant dreidel and blowup menorah that she put out last year.

“We are doing a delicate dance, struggling with how to stay true to who we are without becoming a target for hate,” she says.

Outward displays

At Alef Bet Jewelry, sales of necklaces bearing the Star of David have risen strongly since Oct. 7, says Alissa Haroush, vice president of the maker and seller of Judaica jewelry.

“We have never seen anything like this,” says Haroush, who is working weekends trying to keep up with orders from customers. She says customers are frequently telling her that they’ve never worn or wanted a star necklace until the past few weeks.

Dana Gitell, a mother of two and director of marketing for a nonprofit Jewish senior care organization in the greater Boston area, recently bought a Star of David ring from an Israeli artisan she discovered on Etsy.

“I felt the urge to wear a Jewish star,” she says.

Sharon Brand lives in Montreal where there have been several antisemitic attacks, including a Molotov cocktail being thrown at a Jewish community center last month and shots fired at the entrances of two Jewish schools.

Brand consulted her rabbi and asked for permission to put a mezuza, a rolled scroll with Torah verses, on the inside of her door frame, rather than outside as is tradition. She lives alone and didn’t want to tip off anyone delivering food or packages that she was Jewish.

The rabbi, she says, gave his blessing and reassurance.

“It’s scary to have to hide your identity,” says Brand, who owns a social-media brand agency.

Rabbi Yael Buechler, a New York mother of two young boys, doesn’t lead a congregation but is active on social media. She says her followers are mixed, with some saying they are pulling back their Hanukkah decorations so as not to draw attention to their Jewish identity. Others say they want to show their pride in their Jewish faith.

She says she loves hearing her own sons sing Hebrew Hanukkah songs, but wonders if they should sing so loudly walking down the street, wearing their kippah.

“I don’t think they realize that other people are looking at them differently now,” she says. The inside of their house is decorated with Hanukkah Star of David and dreidel strands, as the family tries to find joyful moments even in darkness, Buechler says.

Hanukkah season

There is always a tension between wanting to keep religious identity private and being proud to display it, says Diane Winston, a professor of religion and journalism at University of Southern California.

And where you live makes a difference, says Winston. In Los Angeles, with a large Jewish community, she has noticed more men wearing a kippah since the war began but she says that might not happen in a smaller less-diverse town.

In the week following the Hamas attack, members of NuRoots, a Los Angeles organization of young Jewish adults in their 20s and 30s, debated whether to delay promoting their upcoming eight-day Hanukkah Infinite Light festival.

They decided to proceed, says Chelsea Snyder, vice president of NuRoots, which is part of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. Tickets for the opening-night event on Thursday sold out quickly.

“People want to show up,” she says. Security at all events, which require registration, will be tight, with extra patrols.

It’s not a question of whether to celebrate Hanukkah, but how, says Deborah Gilboa, a doctor in Pittsburgh. “We’ve celebrated during hardship throughout our entire history,” she says.

Gilboa plans to display a Hanukkah menorah with nine candles in the window of her home, in a largely Jewish urban community, where 11 people were killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018 in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the shooting earlier this year, the wall outside a nearby high school was sprayed with antisemitic graffiti.

“I don’t want to let anyone make me afraid to be who I am,” she says. Her teenage son started wearing a Star of David around his neck after the Hamas attack on Israel, something he never did before, she says.