The town of Monsey in the state of New York got on the map of anti-Semitism when the Chanukah banquet was interrupted by a black man and a machete in his hand, who entered the house and harmed anyone he could. The peaceful suburb, less than an hour's drive from Manhattan, which many of its residents are anxious Jews, is amazed that the long-standing hand of renewed anti-Semitism in America has also arrived.

City Councilman Dov Hakind, who was interviewed near the rabbi's home, told the media: "People are being murdered. Attacked. It's a sad situation, and the biggest problem is that the government is not doing too much. ". And he's right. All the institutions speak out against anti-Semitism, Jews and non-Jews, in Israel and abroad.

We cannot exterminate this phenomenon. Protest against anti-Semitism // Photo: Oren Ben Hakun

We keep accurate records of the anti-Semitic incidents, and appoint people who are heads of bodies aimed at fighting anti-Semitism. Politicians promise "zero tolerance" to her. Leaders of the world are coming where they need to be condemned, promising to root out the phenomenon and fight against it with all their might, but it may well be that Hakind is right, and "there is no way to deal with it."

So much has been written and researched, so many institutions and organizations are dealing with the issue of anti-Semitism, its origins and ways to fight it, and it raises its head in predictable and unexpected places, in erupting waves, without us being able to understand their meaning. Is this the result of economic crises? Is it because Christians insist on attributing the killing of Jesus to us? Is this related to criticism of Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories? Is it because we stand out in many areas of life and the success stories between us annoy those less successful?

Our natural desire to prove to the world how "fine" we are, and to present rational arguments against senseless phenomena, shatters, time after time, against thousands of years of fear, hatred and jealousy. There is nowhere in the world that tried to uproot anti-Semitism and succeeded. Even the dramatic change in the Vatican's attitude toward the Jewish people probably happened too late. American Jews, who wanted to believe that they had come to their destination, and that the US multiculturalism would protect them from anti-Semitism, encountered it, in full force, in the 1930s and 1940s, and, to their astonishment, encountered it Naturally, they expect the authorities to do something, and the authorities can only condemn, and the police can only locate the haters of the Jews after the fact, and perhaps - rarely - before the act, and the judges can exhaust the law with the murderers and the documents.

But no one really knows how to deal with anti-Semitism. Herzl, who thought that if the Jews left Europe, especially the poor, would no longer be anti-Semitic on this continent, he was wrong. Most European Jews did not emigrate but were exterminated, and the number of European Jews today is the lowest since the end of the 18th century, but so many evictions do not put an end to anti-Semitism.

The fight against anti-Semitism must, of course, be sustained, even if it is a Sisyphean struggle. No government in the world and no law enforcement system can be exempted from this, and most importantly - no education system. But next to all this is important to internalize: it is not a phenomenon that can be exterminated, even if Jews leave the places where they live today. It is a phenomenon that we cannot understand and that we have no cure for. American Jews will not immigrate to Israel tomorrow. The vast majority do not encounter anti-Semitic phenomena and do not feel insecure. Most of them are very integrated into the life and culture of the United States, and many of them actually see a place in Israel that has no similar security to what they enjoy. But one thing is known to everyone: There is only one place in the world where, once they leave the room, no one whispers: " You know he's Jewish! "