It’s a privilege

It’s 12:30 pm on Saturday. The morning Shabbat services are over and I’m in synagogue having lunch. The services were meaningful, the singing was joyous, and the rabbi as always managed to strike the right balance between gravitas and humor. The food is good and the conversation with friends at my table is engaging.

Then my head turns ever so slightly, and my eye catches a man standing a few yards away from me. Dressed entirely in black, he is the same man I passed when I entered the building a few hours earlier. He has a gun, and I am grateful for his presence.

Indeed, the armed security guard has become a staple in synagogues worldwide. Although protection has been required for some time now, the gun still seems jarringly out of place in a house of worship.

Later when I leave the synagogue, a police car goes by. In fact, the mayor has ordered increased patrol cars around the synagogues in our city.

In recent years there has been much talk about white privilege. The Personify Vitality app provided by my employer has a category for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). It says, “If you’re in the racial group with power, you contribute to racism. If you’re white, or in another racial group with power and privilege, you may feel guilt or shame.”

These statements about white privilege are, in my opinion, over the top. Moreover, I believe that the excessive focus on white privilege and the binary classification of oppressor versus oppressed backfired, contributing to Trump’s win.

There are many kinds of privilege. In addition to white privilege, there is height privilege. Does anyone believe that Trump would be president if instead of standing at 6”3, he was only 5”3? In fact, in order to find a US President who was below average height, you would have to go back to 1896 when William McKinley was elected, and he was actually about average height for that time.

But a far more serious and less acknowledged privilege is religious privilege.

If you never hesitate to reveal your religion to someone because you fear it could have negative consequences, then you have religious privilege.

A 2024 ADL study revealed that in order to receive the same number of positive responses, Jewish American job applicants with Jewish-sounding names needed to submit 24% more applications. Israeli Americans needed to submit 39% more.

With a nondescript last name, I have found it telling on occasion when people find out that I am Jewish. Many years ago, when I was a college student working at a summer job in a brokerage firm, one of the vice presidents of the company, someone who also held the leadership position in our state senate, asked me where I went to school.

When I told him, he looked stunned and shrieked, “Brandeis! Why do you go there?!” I responded, “Because it’s a good school.” He immediately caught himself, and quietly said, “I know it’s a good school. I’m proud to know you.” He then slinked away. While he was left wondering whether I was Jewish or just someone who had no problem going to a Jewish-majority school, I had no doubt that he had a problem either way.

If you can go into your place of worship without passing an armed guard, then you have religious privilege.

Synagogues around the world have become hotbeds of protest, ostensibly against Israel, but in actuality against Jews.

Professor and podcast host Scott Galloway said, “Free speech is at its freest when it’s hate speech against Jews.”

In July antisemitic protesters in Germany interrupted Friday night services by holding a rally outside a synagogue. To show their solidarity with Jews, scores of German citizens, many of them Christian leaders wearing crosses, gathered and formed a human chain around the synagogue. We need more brave and righteous people like them, people who use their religious privilege to support others.

When the topic of antisemitism comes up, there is often a knee-jerk reaction to include Islamophobia in the discussion, however there is little comparison in terms of the scope of the two. In 2024 Jews were about 660% more likely than Muslims to be victims of anti-religious bias offenses in the US.

Moreover, our challenges far exceed those of any other faith.

In 2018, while in Jerusalem, I attended a political briefing in the Knesset. Gil Hoffman, then chief political correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, described some of the challenges facing Israel and Jews worldwide. The long list included threats from Iran, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and various terrorist entities in the West Bank. He also detailed examples of the United Nations’ biased treatment towards Israel, and growing antisemitism on college campuses. It was quite discouraging and overwhelming to hear the multitude of threats from so many regions and entities.

But what took me by surprise was the remark Hoffman made immediately after he finished the list. With an upbeat voice, he said, “The Jews have never had it so good!”, and he was quite serious when he said it. The inference was that we have a privilege today that previous generations of Jews did not have.

There is a saying that the privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

Although this quote sounds Pollyannaish, when it comes to being Jewish, it is quite accurate. I consider being Jewish a great privilege, and my Jewish identity is a tremendous source of pride.

How privileged I am to be part of a people that is so small in numbers yet so great in its achievements and contributions to the world. In terms of population, we represent a mere 1 in 500 people, yet we have won an astonishing 1 in 5 Nobel Prizes.

Amidst police cars and armed guards now woven together into the fabric of our synagogue environment, we will continue to do what we have always done: we will pray for the privilege of peace.