What can you do to help your local JCC?

The answer: nothing.

There is nothing you can do to help your local JCC, at least not with bomb threats.

Kveller posted your fairly typical call to action.

None of which will identify anonymous callers. None of which will provide the FBI with useful leads. None of which will prevent the next call.

It will make you feel proactive, perhaps, which is important when we feel so impotent. So do those things, sure. There’s not really a singular narrative for the closing of so many of our JCCs, but they could use the memberships. Your financial support will help finance better security.

But take it one step further:

1. Affiliate with and join a synagogue.
2. Go to said synagogue weekly. Meet other Jews in that context. Make the synagogue your first rally point against anti-Semitism.
3. Learn Hebrew, if you don’t know it already, and learn liturgy.
4. Help people make a minyan.
5. Learn your traditions.
6. If you have the stomach for it, join the chevra kadisha.
7. Join committees at your new synagogue.

I think you see where I’m going. This is the opportunity to find the ultimate bulwark against anti-Semitism, which are our religious communities. Commiserating with Judith on adjacent ellipticals at the JCC (and posting it to Instagram) may feel like you’re fighting anti-Semitism, but seriously, no, it’s not.

The ADL published a great pamphlet a few years ago with 90 ways you can combat anti-Semitism. Kveller is doing a great job scratching the surface, but you must go deeper. It’s not just your JCC. It’s your houses of worship. It’s the cemeteries your loved ones, and eventually you, rest in.

We’re not going to stop the bomb threats with any individual action. We’re not going to stop the vandalism. We can gather the herd, though, and provide comfort and support to one another right now.