Conflicted #173 By Hank Silverberg I wanted to avoid this topic, but I can't. There has been a distinct rise in anti-Semitism across the United States in the last few weeks as war broke out once again between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza strip. As a Jew, my connection to Israel is spiritual. It is not MY country. I am an American. But Israel is the only place in the world where Jews can practice their religion without the threat of discrimination just because they are Jews, and that makes it important to every Jewish person. There are about 6.7 million Jews in the United States, only about 2.6% of the total population. Ironically, that's just about a hundred thousand less than the Jewish population of Israel. (About 2.4 million non-Jews do live in Israel.) Israel is the only real democracy in the middle east and has been the USA's political and military ally ever since Israel's founding in 1948. (The United States was the first