DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Anti-Semitic attacks are rattling members of a DeKalb County Jewish community. The community is now operating with a heightened sense of security.
They said they have off-duty police officers standing guard at synagogues and they’re reporting anything suspicious they see.
"My entire life I’ve had very, very, few anti-Semitic incidents and then we ended up with two in one week, said Rabbi Chaim Neiditch, Executive Director of the Jewish Student Union.
Over the past week, he said he and about a dozen others in his DeKalb County community have been hit with anti-Semitism.
"It was multiple different people who chose to drive through our Jewish neighborhood and yell things ranging from 'free Palestine to kill the Jews,'" said Rabbi Neiditch.
And the same week, Neiditch said a rideshare driver went on a 30-minute tirade about Jewish people after seeing his yarmulke. He said he reported the incident to the company.
"I really thought that anti-Semitism for the most part was going away and from what I’m seeing it looks like it’s on the rise," he said.
And he’s right. The Anti-Defamation League said attacks against Jewish people have doubled since conflict broke out in Israel. And according to their analysis, Twitter showed more than 17,000 tweets referencing a variation of “Hitler was right”.
It’s forcing some Jewish parents, like Leslie, who asked 11Alive not to share her last name, to have difficult conversations with their kids.
"My 10-year-old especially was like why do they hate us and there’s no reason," she said.
Neiditch said seeing the attacks across the country and now in his neighborhood is alarming. He thinks awareness needs to be spread to get people to stand up against the hate.
Leslie said this only makes her community stronger.
"These people who are rolling down their windows, they’re cowards. They’re bored people who don’t have what to do with their lives and I’m not going to let those people keep me from living my life."
Neiditch said members of his community reported those incidents to the off-duty officers at the synagogue.