The Relentless School Nurse: Antisemitism and the Shifting Shape of Safety

Author’s Note:
This reflection explores how rising antisemitism is reshaping what safety feels like for Jewish children, families, and communities, and why bearing witness, out loud, is now part of protecting them.

There are moments when something shifts, not all at once, but in ways that become impossible to ignore. I have felt that shift recently, and it has brought me back to something as ordinary and as sacred as preschool.

I think about the small backpacks lined up along a wall, the familiar rhythm of drop-off, the way a child walks through a door, and a caregiver lets go just enough, trusting that what waits on the other side is safe. These are the moments that define early childhood, built on routine, connection, and an unspoken belief that the spaces we create for our youngest children will hold and protect them.

My granddaughter attends a preschool housed in a synagogue. It is a place rooted in community, in tradition, and in care. It is also a place I never thought of as vulnerable until recently.

That has changed.

The recent attack on a synagogue in Michigan, one that included a preschool, did not feel distant to me. It felt close in a way that is difficult to fully explain, because it requires very little imagination to see how easily it could be another building, another classroom, another set of small shoes lined up by a door.

It is one thing to read about rising antisemitism. It is another to feel it enter the spaces where children learn and grow. When that happens, safety begins to feel different, not absent, but altered. More fragile. More conditional.

I am writing this as a Jewish woman, a mother, and a grandmother who has lived long enough to recognize patterns. I have seen how, during times of uncertainty and unrest, antisemitism has a way of resurfacing, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly, but always with consequences that extend far beyond words. What we are witnessing now feels familiar in deeply unsettling ways.

The shifts we are living through are not happening all at once, but neither are they quiet. What feels most unsettling is not only what is being said or done, but what is missing around it, the absence of outrage, the hesitation to respond, the silence from people and organizations who would once have spoken clearly.

I have heard conversations that I never expected to hear in my lifetime. Jewish families are being advised not to wear visible symbols of their faith. Mezuzahs quietly removed from doorposts. Decisions made, not out of choice, but out of safety concern. The idea that one might need to hide their Judaism to move through the world without fear is not abstract to me. It is present, and it is happening now.

Having lived through many decades, I cannot ignore how familiar this feels. History does not repeat itself in identical ways, but patterns emerge, especially in times of uncertainty and unrest. The early stages are often marked not only by acts of hate but also by the normalization of those acts and the silence that surrounds them.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum makes clear that the Holocaust did not begin with violence. It unfolded over time, beginning with words, with exclusion, and with the willingness of others to look away. It was made possible not only by those who acted, but by those who did not.

That truth is not distant history. It is a warning about what happens when silence becomes part of the environment in which harm is allowed to grow.

That truth stays with me.

Part of what makes this moment even more difficult is the way blame is being assigned.

A troubling pattern is becoming more visible, where Jewish people are being held responsible for the actions of a government many of us do not control and may not agree with. We would never accept that kind of thinking applied to ourselves, nor should we accept it here. We do not expect individuals to answer for every decision made by our own national leadership, especially when those decisions are contested, debated, and deeply personal in their impact.

Blame does not clarify. It distorts. When it is directed at entire groups of people, it moves us from disagreement into something far more dangerous. History has shown us where that path can lead, and it is not theoretical. It is real, and it can be deadly.

As a school nurse, I have spent decades thinking about safety in practical terms. We plan, we prepare, we anticipate. We create systems designed to protect children so that they can focus on the work of growing up. But there is something about this moment that extends beyond protocols and planning. It asks us to reckon with a broader truth: that hate, when it is allowed to persist, does not remain abstract. It finds its way into real places, into communities, into schools, and into the daily lives of families.

This is not something I can observe from a distance. It is woven into my family’s life, into the experiences of my daughters, and into the world my granddaughter is growing up in. That proximity changes how I move through the world. It sharpens my awareness and makes it impossible to dismiss what is happening as something separate from my own reality.

I find myself thinking about what it means for families who carry this awareness every day, who navigate routines like drop-off and pick-up while holding an undercurrent of concern that should not belong in spaces designed for young children. I think about the quiet calculations, the conversations, and the resilience that often goes unseen.

There is a tendency to look away from things that feel uncomfortable or to convince ourselves that they are isolated, that they will pass. But what we are witnessing is not isolated, and it will not resolve on its own without attention, acknowledgment, and a willingness to name it clearly.

Safety, at its core, is a public health issue. It is about creating conditions where children can learn, grow, and thrive without fear. When that sense of safety is compromised, even subtly, it affects not only individual families but the broader fabric of our communities.

We are living in a time when that fabric feels strained.

And yet, every day, families continue to show up. Children walk through those doors. Teachers welcome them. Communities gather. There is a quiet strength in that continuity, a refusal to let fear define what these spaces will be.

Still, we cannot ignore what has changed.

I do not have the words to make this feel safer, and I would not pretend that there is an easy way to do so. But I do know that naming what we are experiencing matters. Bearing witness matters. Refusing silence matters.

Because when something as fundamental as a child’s sense of safety begins to shift, we are called, not to retreat, but to pay attention, to speak, and to stand with one another with clarity, courage, and care.