Hello, America?

Although history has given us many such examples, it's still difficult me to understand why someone would be killed simply for being Jewish. I'm saddened -- and a bit frightened -- by Saturday's murder of a young Jewish man. But what infuriates me is that the American media hasn't even picked up the story. Israeli media picked up the story right away. A dear family friend in Israel even emailed me to suggest that I might want to reconsider wearing my Magen David necklace that I recently bought in Israel after she read the news story. (I've already made the difficult decision to stop wearing it: safety trumps ideology in my book.)

But come on, America, where are you? Why are you not the least bit interested? The mainstream press seems to care about world Jewry. Case in point: the Wall Street Journal recently ran an expose on the Chabad movement in Russia. So there has to be some interest, right? Is it because a 22-year-old's murder doesn't represent hundreds of thousands of dollars? Or is it because hate crimes in Russia are no longer shocking? Or is it a trend to simply ignore what's going on here, like the US press did when Russia and Estonia went head-to-head over the relocation of a war monument? (CNN was the only US media outlet that covered that story.)

Regardless, I am terribly saddened and angered by the silence of the American press. Didn't we say "never again" to responding to tragedy with silence? According to Jewish tradition, when does one murder not count for an entire world?