Byko: I am a Jew and I am not afraid

Recent incidents — desecration of Jewish cemeteries in Philadelphia and St. Louis, and dozens of phoned threats to Jewish community centers across the nation — have alarmed some who share my religion, especially those who let emotion and political viewpoint rule them.

Here I point a finger at those who point their fingers at President Trump, calling him an anti-Semite at worst, an enabler at best.

This is not a defense of Donald Trump, who has been too slow to condemn various kinds of hate. But an anti-Semite? With a Jewish daughter, son-in-law, grandchildren?

Friday, police announced the arrest of a St. Louis man, charging him with at least eight of the scores of phone calls and emailed bomb threats to Jewish institutions. Juan Thompson, 31, seems like quite a guy — fired for faking news stories from the Intercept, a muckraking website,  and accused of fabricating anti-Semitic hoaxes to settle a score with an ex-girlfriend. This is not quite in the league of trying to kill Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Foster.

There is nothing to suggest he is a Trump supporter. He attacked Trump in tweets.

The phoned threats seemed orchestrated and had the earmarks of a conspiracy, and the FBI is investigating. The threats can be unnerving, especially because there are children in JCC facilities, but they were only threats.

"Do terrorists give notice of an advance attack?" asked security expert Ed Devir, president of Protexia One Security Group, which is on the Main Line and protects several area synagogues. Phoned threats seldom result in an attack. They are terrorism and psychological warfare.

Through his law enforcement sources, Devir told me, he had word several days ago the FBI was closing in on a suspect, and speculated Trump might have had the same information, which led Trump to suggest the attacks were staged to frame his supporters. He was widely condemned for that speculation.

He may have been right, but we may never know and it is hard to take Trump's word for anything.

Let's turn to the cemetery desecrations, almost 900 miles apart.

The vandalism at the Mount Carmel Cemetery in the Northeast was not a first.

The cemetery was attacked in 1989 and 1982, and neither set off anti-Semitic alarm bells. It was believed drunken teenagers were probably the perpetrators. Maybe this time, too. We don't know.

What was different this time was, the attack came on the heels of St. Louis and the wave of threatening phone calls.

To some, it seemed like the start of something big and bad. American Jewish organizations and community leaders sounded the alarm, supported by leaders of other religions and various elected officials.

And this is where it is so different from what has happened to Jews here, and especially overseas, in the past.

In Europe, over the centuries, both the state and the church targeted Jews. "America never passed a law saying Jews could not come into the country," I am told by Josh Perelman, chief curator at the National Museum of American Jewish History.

Without question, there have been prejudice, exclusion and discrimination against Jews over the centuries in America, but from the earliest days of the republic, Jews were welcome here, officially.

In 1790, in a letter to a synagogue in Newport, R.I., President George Washington made that clear.

"May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants," he wrote.

The government, he wrote,  "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support."

Washington knew Jews supported the cause of independence, and Haym Salomon, a Jew, was called the "financier of the revolution."

Moses Seixas, a leader of the Newport congregation, proclaimed fidelity to America because Jews for the first time had "the invaluable rights of free citizens."

For the first time in millennia, Jews had a safe harbor.

The safe harbor is still here. Even with the occasional hate crime, I am a Jew and I am not afraid.

Yes, there are anti-Semites among us, as there are racists and homophobes among us. But they are a minority and we all are protected, no matter who is in the White House, by the Constitution.

If you ask me if I am saying it can't happen here, as it did in Germany and elsewhere, my answer is: It can't happen here.

Have faith in your beautiful country and the embrace of your fellow Americans.