In 1994, our family took its first international trip, going to visit family on both sides who lived in England. We were met at the airport by my wife’s older cousin, Johnny, who was a successful London architect.

Much of my wife’s extended family, including Johnny, were able to escape Nazi Germany. Johnny’s mother had gone to the Berlin airport in the late Thirties with her children and boldly boarded a flight to London with no papers, persuading them that her family’s lives were at stake — and amazingly, they were let on board and into England. Many others were not so fortunate. Britain did well by Johnny’s family and he in turn did well by Britain, gracing London and other towns with his buildings. (READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: RIP Joe Lieberman: A Man of Principle in an Unprincipled World)

On our visit, we stayed with Johnny in the Mill Hill area of London and went with him to his synagogue — which he had designed — on the Sabbath. As we approached the building, I was dismayed to see a security force there. It was a jarring breach of the peaceful Sabbath state of mind to me.

I found out it was routine for synagogues in England. Not well publicized, but real — even before September 11 changed the atmosphere, the threat of violence was real enough in England.

Thank God, I thought, I live in America, where antisemitism has been relegated to a powerless fringe.

In the next decade, I spent a few years making occasional working trips to Asia, facilitating kosher certification of food producers who wished to gain entrance to the kosher market. When I would spend the Sabbath with a host in Manila or in Singapore, I had to come the day prior, bring my passport, and register at the armed guard’s booth to secure entrance to the synagogue the next day. Everyone had to be vetted before being allowed entrance.

I twice spent Shabbat in Mumbai. The first time, there was no such requirement. The second time I went, only a few months later, the rabbi and his wife had been tortured and murdered by Pakistani terrorists, the rabbi’s home was temporarily closed, its walls pockmarked by bullets, and the old synagogue had a sandbagged position manned by a squad of soldiers guarding the entranceway.

It is many years now since my place of worship in good old middle-America Dayton found it prudent to hire armed security for our public events. Eventually, we put up fencing, lighting, and security cameras all around. Our synagogue has a defense committee and some members carrying a concealed weapon. We let the police know who is carrying, so police will know if there ever is an incident and not target them.

Our community has taken that in stride. When you stand strong against the hateful actors in the world, of which there are many, discipline is demanded and the willingness to see the fight through.

What we have no intention of taking in stride is the growing acceptance of hatred of Jews, variously tolerated and encouraged by those who once were considered mainstream, guardians of our culture and its institutions of education and government.

This is no small change in America. It is repudiation of the best in our history, our pioneering of freedom and our willingness to uproot hatred no matter how long the struggle, to establish equal justice under the law and equal opportunity to pursue happiness in a peaceful, civil society.

The crucible of World War II purified this country. As a society, we stopped tolerating hatred, and with a national effort, we confined it to the fringes. The generation that spilled their blood and treasure to expunge Nazism would fight and succeed in uprooting Jim Crow. Antisemitism was no longer welcome in the mainstream.

But now, it is being welcomed back to the mainstream. Though there are right wing antisemites, as was evident on January 6, they are still on the fringes there. Today, it is the Democrats taking the lead, disgracing the memory of people like Harry Truman, JFK, Hubert Humphrey, and Skip Jackson — and now, Joe Lieberman, of blessed memory.

Our government spouts Hamas lies, lies that it knows are lies, to persuade Americans that Israel ought to give those poor Hamas guys the same kind of second chance that we blue states routinely afford to those such as the killer of Laterria Smith’s son, the good folks pushing people onto the subway tracks in NYC, and the guy who was just turned loose in the Big Apple after randomly slamming a woman in the face and breaking her jaw. What’s a wired jaw between friends? Don’t traumatize the jawbreaker. Alvin Bragg’s got more important things to do, saving the country from having a choice for president. (READ MORE: Biden’s Cowardice Feeds Hamas’ Criminal War Strategy)

No doubt all these folks — the subway shover, the jaw breaker, the murderer — are very misunderstood and the victims of — maybe Jews? (Not yet there, but given the trajectory — naw, such things could never happen. Just look at history.)

But really, it’s just a little too much, you Jews and Israel. Stop it with the Hamas Hamas Hamas. What’s a little bit of murder, organized rape, beheadings, infanticide, corpse desecration, kidnapping?  You’re overly sensitive, not properly deferential to the superior intersectional qualities of the ones you deem your enemies (the word is so — uncomfortable). We Dems are using our control over the message now to counter your truths with our narrative (“truth” is such a colonialist concept).

They’re in hot pursuit of something exhilarating, and their thought leaders know where it lies. One of the many left stars in Academia identified it memorably. The Cornell scholar said of the Hamas orgy of rape and murder, “It was exhilarating. It was energizing.” Thousands of rockets showered indiscriminately on Israel year after year just didn’t cut it anymore. Boring! Mass rape, dead babies, spitting on corpses being driven in pick-ups through cheering crowds, sex with dead women — there’s excitement! Anything as good as that on Net porn? Let’s get that exhilaration into our voters.

Well, got to energize an electorate. It may take more Adderall than an octogenarian body could take for Grandpa Joe to mass-produce his angry-old-man SOTU routine for the stump. Violence seems to work great against an easily identifiable enemy who has done just a little too well to have sympathy. And hey, we might be able to go around the curve and siphon off a few of those antediluvian Jew-haters of the Right who never could get past Trump having Jewish grandchildren.

So run my toxic musings. Societal decay and antisemitism have gone hand in hand for centuries. Someone must be to blame.

And when truth becomes an unwanted guest and sophistry is lionized, when debate becomes unwelcome and people fearful to say what they think, the leaders of the rot will look for someone to blame, to keep the power they misuse firm in their hands.

Is it any surprise that they come back to that old standby that has been turned to by tyrants from Torquemada to the Czars to Hitler?

There is one good thing left us — we have a say still in just how well they will succeed. Let us use the power we still have left in the best way we can. (READ MORE: Biden Policy Divides at Home and in Israel)

Let’s use it wisely and well. The Divine Providence whose hand Washington continuously saw as he established American independence is waiting for us to take up its mighty cause.