Why Anti-Semitism Flourishes Whenever Hatred Thrives

As I walked into synagogue Saturday morning a woman rushed up to me, “Rabbi did you hear what happened? We ran away from Iran to escape this.” Half my congregation at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles are Iranian Jews who lost everything in fleeing Ayatollah Khomeini almost 40 years ago. Many of them still have nightmares. They know that you can run away from governments, but not from hatred. Anti-Semitism is a different sort of hatred, the most durable and versatile in history.