Jewish community discusses effort to combat antisemitism in Indianapolis

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Jewish community is denouncing hatred of Jewish people in Indianapolis.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis tells News 8 there has been a rise of antisemitism and that enough is enough.

“Whenever there’s an increase, whenever there’s an incident, it’s time to call out,” the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis, Jacob Markey, said.

The organization ADL Midwest says last year, the Jewish community saw the highest number of antisemitic incidents since they started tracking in 1979.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis says they’ve seen vandalism, antisemitic flyers in neighborhoods, and antisemitic and bigoted remarks made by politicians.

For example, in September, a group of people marched through downtown spewing hate speech.

“Sometimes it’s the casual antisemitism that people hear at school (or) at work, and so the numbers that we see, the reported numbers, are surely a vast, vast undercount,” Markey said.

Now the organization is looking at taking further steps to address these threats.

They want more discussions with community members to bring change.

“I feel so sad. We all feel so sad when we hear about someone that doesn’t wear their kippah, their yamaka, that doesn’t wear their star of David, their Chai, and isn’t showing their display that they normally would because of how they are fearful,” Markey said.

According to the organization, the Jewish community spends half a million dollars for security on their campus and worship spaces.

Safety measures include security cameras that are installed across campus as well as armed security and officers in plain clothing.

“When I went to a synagogue here we had to go through a metal detector, we had to go through security and wanded to go in that’s because we understand there are people out in the world who do not like us,” Markey said.

“I’m thankful that we do have a good relationship with the Jewish community and that we have an open lines of communication and that they’re able to share their concerns and that we’re able to respond based upon any actionable events or threats that are taking place,” Lt. Shane Foley with IMPD Public Affairs said.

“We try to spread a positive message and create an environment for people that they’re OK that they can live their Jewish lives as they want,” Markey said. “We want to be proud and live our lives and with our identity how we want to live it and we don’t want to feel that external forces are pushing down on us that we have to hide it.”