In less than 2 months, over 190 bomb threats have been called in to Jewish institutions in the United States.
Anyone who thinks that anti-Semitism died with the Holocaust, could not be more mistaken.
The hateful groups who cowardly hide behind anonymity did not invent anti-Semitism. Â Not even Hitler, may his name be erased, invented anti-Semitism.
Nor did the White Supremacists, the KKK, or any of the neo-Nazi groups that are on the rise, hijacking social media to advance their agenda and pollute young impressionable minds to mimic their hatred.
Haman of the Purim story is a descendant of Amalek. It is their ideological descendants who are alive and well today.
Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin guides us in identifying Amalek. He says that the identifying characteristic of Amalek is its unique ideology that it is in the world’s best interests to rid the Jews wherever they are, no matter how the Jew is “packaged”, i.e., young or old, religious or secular. In chameleon-like fashion, it changes its appearance and resurfaces anywhere where the environment is fertile for its ideology to incubate and infest a society, enjoining it to partner with them in wiping out the Jewish people.
The United States has become the most recent breeding ground for Amalek. Fanned by the flames of racism, it now seeks to target the Jews wherever they may be – in their schools, synagogues, Jewish community centers, restaurants, etc. It is irrelevant to the modern-day Amalekites if gentiles will be part of the collateral damage when the bullet takes aim or the bomb explodes.  The hatred is so thick, so pervasive, and so blind to reason that a few gentile deaths are worth the price if some Jews can die along the way too.
As a child in Nazi occupied Europe, I witnessed this hatred first hand and in the most brutal way as my father and brothers and then my sisters and lastly my mother were killed by the Nazis and their cohorts.
My mother’s words – “Live, remember, tell the world” – is a message that I pray everyone today will embrace as we look around the world and see what is happening today. As our Torah teaches us:  “There will be Amalek in every generation.”
What is it about the Jews that so incites Amalek?
Amalek is fighting spirituality, sanctity and the belief that God runs the world and orchestrates every single event that takes place. Nothing happens “by chance”. This idea is antithetical to Amalek who represent human control “My might and the force of my hands”.
The Torah obligates us to fight Amalek and obliterate them. Every time something happens and we say “it didn’t just happen, God caused this to happen”, we have fulfilled the command to wipe out Amalek.
Wishing all of you a Purim Sameach – a Happy and Joyous Purim!