Commentary: The US has never been quite the haven Jews assumed it would be
The Latin inscription that graces Leo M. Frank's tombstone at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Queens, N.Y., declares: "Semper Idem" (Always the same).
The words link Frank's lynching, just outside Atlanta in 1915, to the persecution of Jews in Europe and Russia during previous millenniums. The words also speak to the future: Always the same.
That future arrived at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue late last month, when a shooter mowed down 11 congregants with an AR-15. Upon his arrest, 46-year-old Robert Bowers told the police, "All these Jews need to die."
For American Jews, the slaughter in Pittsburgh seemed to have come out of
