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Shabbat Shalom
Feb. 3rd, 2024 06:30 pmWell, I'm posting about this here because I don't want the attention it would bring to post about it on Tumblr, but I feel like I need to get my thoughts out about it. Someone snuck into our synagogue today to disrupt services and it was a pretty minor thing, Baruch Hashem, but the thought that someone could come in with ill intent and sit among us undetected and throughout the entire torah service is, of course, unsettling.
As we sat down after the torah was lifted and one of the twin bar mitzvah boys prepared to read his dvar torah, the chazzan approached an older woman sitting in the middle of a pew a few rows back from the very front and and asked her to come with him, and she stood up and started shouting about how she "can't stand you people" and something about all the yelling and shouting? I later talked with a friend about it at kiddush and we both said that we had assumed she was having some kind of issue and was overwhelmed by the unusually boisterous services. Since it was a bar mitzvah it was very, very crowded and a lot louder than it normally is. As someone who lived for a few years with a relative suffering from dementia, this could make a lot of sense? But maybe I just wanted it to be that. I don't know.
She tried to yell more from the aisle as she was led out but someone started singing a nigun and everyone started singing along very loudly until she was taken into the lobby, where she yelled about Jesus for a bit. I don't know what happened after that. We sang a prayer I'm not super familiar with and then continued with the service. At announcements the rabbi said that we take mental health very seriously at our shul and thanked the people involved for handling it so smoothly and with compassion and that was all. I don't know if she was actually mentally ill. Ultimately it kind of doesn't matter, I guess.
All in all, not a huge deal. I feel badly for the bar mitzvah kids and their parents above all, because I know it can be even years of study and work to get to that point, and to have someone come in and try to disrupt it is a bummer, to say the least.
But despite this being pretty mild in terms of security issues/antisemitic displays, I'm not sure what the effects are going to be. The fact that she came in like any other congregant is concerning. The fact that she sat there the whole time and we didn't know is concerning. (She had a bag with her. Is it weird to have noticed that? Everyone has bags with them, but not everyone yells about Jesus in the middle of a bar mitzvah.)
Another friend expressed sympathy for the security team because this is going to feel like a failure to them, but really, at a bar mitzvah with loads of new faces, who is going to question an old woman who comes in and sits in the sanctuary with everyone else? Nobody. Except probably now, even just in the back of our minds, we will. And I hate that.
On the other hand, the fact that someone obviously noticed something was up before she made the disruption (because someone was already asking her to leave as she started yelling) is comforting. The fact that even not knowing why she was there or what was going on, the staff and security team handled it so calmly and easily is good. The fact that instead of allowing the disruption to continue, the entire congregation was like "eh, nope" and snatched all the wind out of her sails and she didn't get to make whatever bullshit Jesus statement she was trying to make is good.
The fact that she was a (possibly mentally ill) old woman who wanted to yell at a bunch of Jews about Jesus, and that was all she was, is very good. Baruch Hashem. And she didn't even really get to! We didn't let her!
I still can't shake it, though. I feel silly and dramatic for being so unsettled because in the grand scheme of things, nothing really significant happened. Nothing at all. We got put behind for like three minutes and if "you people" is the worst thing any of us get called as Jews this week, it'll be a good week. But she was in there with us that whole time...
...And I think more than anything that's what's bothering me. She was with us that whole time, and she heard us sing, and saw us pray together, and saw all the people who got aliyot and received mi sheberach from the rabbi, and heard the beautiful speeches the bar mitzvah twins' parents gave about their sons, and saw and heard us singing as they carried the torah around the synagogue and heard these two boys read torah in front of the synagogue for the first time -- a sacred and special milestone for them, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Not one of these things made her think she shouldn't do what she was hoping to do... and I guess that doesn't surprise me that much. But I hate that she saw all of that. I hate that she intruded on that. I hate that her presence there is now going to leave people questioning if our security, already so much more than any church ever needs in this country, so much more than we should have to have, is going to be enough.
I've been a Jew-in-progress long enough to not be surprised by or find the security needs of a synagogue (or any Jewish building) unexpected. I know why we have an armed guard at our door every shabbat. I know why we have a security team. I know why you have to register to go to any events we hold, and I know why they don't give out location information for those events until you have. I know why we have "in case of emergency" information in the pockets of the pews next to our siddurim, and it's not because there might be an accident.
It just feels pretty unfair, sometimes.
As we sat down after the torah was lifted and one of the twin bar mitzvah boys prepared to read his dvar torah, the chazzan approached an older woman sitting in the middle of a pew a few rows back from the very front and and asked her to come with him, and she stood up and started shouting about how she "can't stand you people" and something about all the yelling and shouting? I later talked with a friend about it at kiddush and we both said that we had assumed she was having some kind of issue and was overwhelmed by the unusually boisterous services. Since it was a bar mitzvah it was very, very crowded and a lot louder than it normally is. As someone who lived for a few years with a relative suffering from dementia, this could make a lot of sense? But maybe I just wanted it to be that. I don't know.
She tried to yell more from the aisle as she was led out but someone started singing a nigun and everyone started singing along very loudly until she was taken into the lobby, where she yelled about Jesus for a bit. I don't know what happened after that. We sang a prayer I'm not super familiar with and then continued with the service. At announcements the rabbi said that we take mental health very seriously at our shul and thanked the people involved for handling it so smoothly and with compassion and that was all. I don't know if she was actually mentally ill. Ultimately it kind of doesn't matter, I guess.
All in all, not a huge deal. I feel badly for the bar mitzvah kids and their parents above all, because I know it can be even years of study and work to get to that point, and to have someone come in and try to disrupt it is a bummer, to say the least.
But despite this being pretty mild in terms of security issues/antisemitic displays, I'm not sure what the effects are going to be. The fact that she came in like any other congregant is concerning. The fact that she sat there the whole time and we didn't know is concerning. (She had a bag with her. Is it weird to have noticed that? Everyone has bags with them, but not everyone yells about Jesus in the middle of a bar mitzvah.)
Another friend expressed sympathy for the security team because this is going to feel like a failure to them, but really, at a bar mitzvah with loads of new faces, who is going to question an old woman who comes in and sits in the sanctuary with everyone else? Nobody. Except probably now, even just in the back of our minds, we will. And I hate that.
On the other hand, the fact that someone obviously noticed something was up before she made the disruption (because someone was already asking her to leave as she started yelling) is comforting. The fact that even not knowing why she was there or what was going on, the staff and security team handled it so calmly and easily is good. The fact that instead of allowing the disruption to continue, the entire congregation was like "eh, nope" and snatched all the wind out of her sails and she didn't get to make whatever bullshit Jesus statement she was trying to make is good.
The fact that she was a (possibly mentally ill) old woman who wanted to yell at a bunch of Jews about Jesus, and that was all she was, is very good. Baruch Hashem. And she didn't even really get to! We didn't let her!
I still can't shake it, though. I feel silly and dramatic for being so unsettled because in the grand scheme of things, nothing really significant happened. Nothing at all. We got put behind for like three minutes and if "you people" is the worst thing any of us get called as Jews this week, it'll be a good week. But she was in there with us that whole time...
...And I think more than anything that's what's bothering me. She was with us that whole time, and she heard us sing, and saw us pray together, and saw all the people who got aliyot and received mi sheberach from the rabbi, and heard the beautiful speeches the bar mitzvah twins' parents gave about their sons, and saw and heard us singing as they carried the torah around the synagogue and heard these two boys read torah in front of the synagogue for the first time -- a sacred and special milestone for them, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Not one of these things made her think she shouldn't do what she was hoping to do... and I guess that doesn't surprise me that much. But I hate that she saw all of that. I hate that she intruded on that. I hate that her presence there is now going to leave people questioning if our security, already so much more than any church ever needs in this country, so much more than we should have to have, is going to be enough.
I've been a Jew-in-progress long enough to not be surprised by or find the security needs of a synagogue (or any Jewish building) unexpected. I know why we have an armed guard at our door every shabbat. I know why we have a security team. I know why you have to register to go to any events we hold, and I know why they don't give out location information for those events until you have. I know why we have "in case of emergency" information in the pockets of the pews next to our siddurim, and it's not because there might be an accident.
It just feels pretty unfair, sometimes.