Zach Schwartz is director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine. 

It was one of the first Hanukkah celebrations in the world. The Jewish community of Sydney, Australia — whose time zone sits 16 hours ahead of us — had gathered on a beach to celebrate our eight-day “festival of lights.”

Children were eating fried desserts; people were dancing and listening to music. Gunfire soon punctured the celebration, leaving families fleeing for their lives. With 15 confirmed dead and dozens more injured, the night became Australia’s worst terror attack of the 21st century.

This grotesque act of violence came as a shock to some, but not the Jewish community. For us, it joins a list of other deadly attacks this year: a shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.; an attack at a U.K. synagogue on Yom Kippur; a firebombing at a Jewish gathering in Denver. These attacks are the culmination of years of vile, harmful lies spread about Jews — including some right here in our great city of Portland.

As the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, I document antisemitism incidents around the state. Sometimes, antisemitism is easy to spot: for example, when the New England White Network puts up flyers in Bethel stating “Jews have no place in a healthy White society and are no longer welcome,” or when a white nationalist spams hundreds of Portland educators with Substack articles like “The Fight Against Jewry Is the Most Noble Fight That Ever Existed.”

But in the last two years, another type of antisemitism has skyrocketed. I’m not talking about criticism of Israel’s government; I’m talking about antisemitism that exploits the Israel-Palestine conflict to deal out raw Jew-hatred.

For example, multiple local Jewish organizations received a death threat letter this summer stating, “I will kill all at this place for Palestine for Russia.” Stickers reading “Nuke Tel Aviv” and flyers encouraging a “D-Day” against the local Jewish community were placed around Portland. A Jewish child heard classmates yell “Free Palestine” at her whenever she walked in the room.

As you can imagine, none of these things did anything to free Palestine. But I suspect that’s not really the point. There are those who recognize that being pro-Palestinian does not equal being anti-Jewish or anti-Israeli — including many Palestinian and Muslim peacemakers — and yet there are other bad-faith actors who exploit that cause to harass, terrorize, exclude and harm Jewish people.

Antisemitism is a mark of an unhealthy society. Throughout history, countries that develop the cancer of antisemitism often fail, trading in clear-eyed thinking and problem-solving for scapegoatism and hatred of one of the world’s smallest minorities. (Jewish Mainers make up just 2% of the population; Jews make up 0.2% of the global population.)

When Adolf Hitler was deciding whether or not to ally with Joseph Stalin, he sent spies to photograph Stalin’s ears to determine if they were “Jewish” or not — the kind of supremacist, delusional reasoning that led to Nazi Germany’s annihilation.

There are many other communities that are also hurting right now, and we care deeply about them. The JCA is proud to be leading the effort behind the state’s nonprofit security grant bill, working with a multi-faith coalition of Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and others to make all houses of worship in Maine safer. We provide diapers, winter boots, food and services to Portlanders in need. We collaborate with other cultural and faith communities to promote peace between all. 

The current rise in antisemitism represents the worst surge since the Holocaust. Since 2022, antisemitic incidents in Maine have jumped nearly 300%. Deadly attacks against Jews are rising here and abroad. And it doesn’t take much scrolling in a local group’s Facebook comment section to find someone claiming that we deserve it.

Truthfully, it won’t take too much to help a Jewish person feel cared for. A simple “How are you?” or “I care about your safety” might end up meaning everything. “Happy Hanukkah” is appreciated, but even better would be a few minutes learning the Hanukkah story, when we miraculously reclaimed our Holy Temple in Jerusalem from the Seleucid Greeks in the 2nd century BCE.

You might find the holiday oddly relevant in these times. It tells the story of a people who are surviving, thriving and continuing to light candles — no matter how dark it gets.