Never again is now
On January 26, 2025, outside Oheb Shalom in South Orange, antisemitism showed its face once again.
Protesters chanted slurs, waved bloodied dolls, and defaced the synagogue’s driveway with “Terrorists this way” and an arrow pointing to the building.
This wasn’t about politics. It wasn’t about peace. It was hate. Pure, targeted, antisemitic hate.
This comes nearly a year after two similar incidents in Teaneck. On March 10, 2024, at Keter Torah, protesters shouted at Jews to “go back to Auschwitz” and ran over an Israeli flag they had ripped apart. Their chants of “Your hostages are dead” sought not to provoke thought, but to cause pain. Just weeks later, on April 1, 2024, they stood outside Bnei Yeshurun, targeting ZAKA, an organization that performs the holiest of tasks, retrieving and honoring the bodies of the dead, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. They were there to speak the truth of what they witnessed on October 7, and for this, they were met with hateful chants and lies designed to dehumanize and intimidate.
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Now, it’s Oheb Shalom. The protest came on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, during the week of the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation. Inside, the synagogue was honoring Unit 669, an Israeli rescue unit dedicated to saving lives, Jewish and Palestinian Arab alike. Outside, protesters used bloodied dolls and graffiti to deface sacred ground.
This is not activism. It is antisemitism, plain and simple.
These protesters weren’t there to debate policy or express ideas. They were there to terrorize Jews in their place of worship, to intimidate, and to spread the same hatred that has plagued our people for centuries.
A Teaneck resident wrote to me after the Bnei Yeshurun protest. “My 97-year-old grandmother, who lives a block away from the synagogue, was a little girl in Berlin on Kristallnacht. She vividly remembers running with her family to the rooftop as the Nazis broke into their apartment building and destroyed their home. She has told me many times since October 7 that she never would have imagined living through such evil twice in one lifetime.”
This is what it feels like. Kristallnacht. The same slurs, the same dehumanizing lies, the same venom disguised as protest. This isn’t just about South Orange, or Teaneck, or what’s happening this week. It’s about the same hatred that has always been directed at us for centuries. These aren’t isolated incidents, they are pieces of the same larger hatred. Yet we are told over and over that we are imagining it, that we are exaggerating, that this is about politics. We are told we have to prove, again and again, that “from the river to the sea” is a genocidal slogan.
The resident went on to say: “We won’t convince them. We won’t convince them that this feels like Kristallnacht to us. We won’t convince them that ‘from the river to the sea’ is a genocidal slogan. We won’t convince them that these protests would have happened anyway, because they hate us regardless. But we need to say it out loud anyway. Even if it’s just for us. Because it’s the truth. And so we can strengthen each other and know we’re not alone.”
So here I am, saying it out loud again. These protests are not about Israeli policies or resolutions. They are not about civil rights. They certainly are not peaceful. They are about antisemitism. They target synagogues because they are synagogues. They target Jews because we are Jews.
To our neighbors, allies, and leaders: if this isn’t your fight, what is? Antisemitism doesn’t stop with the Jewish community. It threatens the safety and dignity of all people. We need you to speak out. Silence is not an option. History shows us where silence leads.
To my fellow Jews: I know this feels relentless. I know this feels endless. Remember this, they didn’t break us at Keter Torah. They didn’t break us at Bnei Yeshurun. And they will not break us at Oheb Shalom.
As we honor the six million murdered, let us remember why never again matters. It is not just a slogan. It is a call to action. It is not about the past. It is about right now.
Never again is now.
Hillary Goldberg, a lifelong resident of Teaneck and founder and editor-in-chief of the Teaneck Tomorrow email newsletter, was elected to her hometown’s Township Council in 2022. After October 7, she wrote a resolution condemning Hamas and supporting Israel that council adopted unanimously.
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