JEW KILLINGS IN DC;

LIKELY TO TRIGGER OTHERS

By Jeff Kamen

Nobody should pretend, that last night‘s murders of two young Jews (photo) attending a publicized Jewish cultural event in Washington DC is somehow a shocking anomaly, unexpected, not part of American life. Instead, and in truth, it was a predictable next event in the unfolding nightmare of antisemitism in America in 2025, made worse by the ongoing war in Gaza, which was triggered by the Hamas massacre of more than a thousand Jewish children and adults in Israel on October 7, 2023.

Ever since President Donald Trump declared that there were, “fine people on both sides, “of the Nazi riot in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017 antisemitism in the United States has been dramatically on the rise.

Acts of hatred against Jews in the U.S. have increased significantly, with 2,717 incidents in 2021, a 34% rise from 2020, marking the highest since 1979. In 2023, incidents surged to 8,873, a 140% increase from 2022, driven by events like the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. The trend continued in 2024, with 9,354 incidents, averaging over 25 per day, a 344% rise over five years.

Failure to protect the perimeter of the event last night in Washington DC falls on both local and federal police agencies. At the very least, they were guilty of a lack of imagination – which means that because similar events had not had a crazed gunman opening fire on people exiting the building, there was no need to think about the possibility of such a thing happening in the current context. Given the current antisemitic environment in our country, the presence of an anxiously pacing man outside such an event as the one hosted last night by the American Jewish Committee would certainly have drawn the attention of any veteran cop.  At a press conference following the murderers, police declared that there was no additional threat to the community. Talk about a massive failure of imagination!

Of course there is an ongoing and amplified threat to the community— especially in other big cities with significant numbers of identifiably Jewish institutions and people like Chicago New York and Los Angeles.

The DC gunman who screamed, “Free Palestine,” will be portrayed in certain media around the world including the dark web as a hero of the cause. His name is now spread across the planet. What we know of the human condition is that such an incident with the attached notoriety, is all but certain to stimulate copycats and others who may choose to innovate but with the same bloody outcome as their goal.

Additionally, the psychological trauma, especially to the American Jewish community and in fact to the global Jewish community is significant flowing from last night’s event. Denying that would be both obscene and stupid.