When Hamas a year ago led the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, there seemed to be immediate shock and sympathy in the U.S. The numbers were stunning: more than 1,100 people killed, including dozens of children and hundreds of civilians; thousands wounded; more than 200 hostages, including American citizens; dozens of reports of rape and sexual assault. Families, dreams and communities ripped apart. Gruesome images and videos, along with brave and thorough journalism, captured the horror and terrorism of Oct. 7, 2023.

Though there was broad support initially for Israel’s right to defend itself, public sentiment started to shift once Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces retaliated. And then social media, as it often does, provided a platform for misinformation, hate speech and a de facto war of hashtags, ushering in #standwithIsrael and #freePalestine. It wasn’t long before a war thousands of miles away impacted the U.S. In the last year, college presidents have faced intense scrutiny for uprisings and campus protests.

Antisemitism has surged to alarming levels — Maryland ranks seventh in the country for the most reports of antisemitic harassment and attacks. Jewish Americans, most of whom have no connection to and may not agree with Netanyahu or the IDF, are being attacked here at home.

It’s not getting better. The war is escalating at home and abroad. Flags for Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, are flying at American colleges and universities. Jewish students are being attacked. There are still more than 100 hostages in Gaza who have lived in darkness for a year, and Jewish Americans here have been forced into a different type of darkness in the U.S.

“Getting into my synagogue in Northwest Washington, [D.C.], is harder than getting into the airport,” said Alan Ronkin, director of the American Jewish Committee. “I know of no church, I know of no mosque, I know of no Hindu temple or gurdwara where you have to go through … security and go through a metal detector to go to synagogue.”

Security was boosted at synagogues after the antisemitic attack at Tree of Life in Pittsburgh in 2018 that killed 11 people and wounded six. The victims in that attack included Holocaust survivors. As the High Holidays are underway during wartime, Jews will be going through extra security measures at synagogues, including taking off their shoes and scanning special QR codes at entrances with armed guards.

“If this was happening to any other ethnic or religious community, I have to believe that it … would be taken differently,” Ronkin said.

Imagine if Christians had to go through extra security at church on Christmas Eve. There would likely be an outcry far louder than what Jewish Americans are hearing. Imagine if there were stickers all over your community that said “Destroy Christians” the way there are stickers plastered throughout Ronkin’s Silver Spring neighborhood that say “Destroy Israel.” Imagine if your sons and daughters were attacked on their college campuses and had their cross necklaces ripped off of their necks on the way to church.

This is anti-American. Nobody in this country should fear practicing their religion or going into their place of worship.

Things weren’t great before Oct. 7, 2023. Conspiracy theories, including those of QAnon, had fueled antisemitic views. A white nationalist march in Charlottesville in August 2017. The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in October 2018.

But the last year has been excruciating. This month marks a particularly fraught time for Jews.

“There are three times a year when antisemitism tends to rise — around elections, around Jewish holidays and around the violence in the Middle East,” Ronkin said. “And we’ve hit the trifecta.”

Meredith Weisel, regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, put it another way. “The Jewish people throughout America and the United States are really feeling under siege.”

She pointed to a sharp rise in reports of antisemitism, including harassment, vandalism and assaults. The ADL tracked 8,873 antisemitic incidents in 2023, a 140% increase from the previous year. In Maryland, there were 339 incidents last year, a 211% increase compared with 2022. ADL data for 2024 hasn’t been released yet.

New data from the FBI shows 1,832 anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2023, a 63% increase from 2022. It marked the highest number recorded by the bureau since it started collecting data in 1991.

“There’s an unprecedented amount of incidents on a daily basis,” Weisel said. She attributes it to a normalization of antisemitism that ramped up eight years ago. And then the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, “sort of took the lid off the boiling pot of hate … and it has really led to one of the most difficult years for many of us in recent memory.”

At the Democratic National Convention in August, Jewish groups didn’t list — and were told not to list — where their gatherings were for security purposes, and theirs were the only groups that received that recommendation, Weisel said.

Jewish Americans shouldn’t have to hide or live in fear. The Jewish community can’t be left alone to deal with antisemitism. Those of us who aren’t Jewish have a greater responsibility to make it clear that antisemitism is unacceptable. Our friends and neighbors need our help to stop the hatred and bigotry. Allowing hate to fester against Jewish Americans is allowing it to fester against all Americans.

“We’ve seen this movie before, and we don’t like the way it ends,” Ronkin said.