If you're Jewish, how afraid should you be of being a victim of a violent anti-Semitic hate crime? In the wake of the Pittsburgh and Poway synagogue shootings in the last year, many American Jews remain afraid. The specter of white-supremacist hate that fueled those and other mass shootings has become the primary focus of those tasked with fighting and monitoring anti-Semitism. But while the slaughter in Pittsburgh remains the worst act of anti-Semitic violence in American history—with 11 Jewish worshippers shot and killed during Shabbat-morning services—and the scary imagery of the August 2017 torch-lit march of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Va., has become a symbol of the rise of extremism, the odds of the average American Jew personally encountering violent Jew-hatred remains extremely small.
Except, that is, if you are Orthodox and living in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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