By Jessica Russak-Hoffman
They blow the conch shell. We blow the shofar.”
That’s how Rabbi Rachel Short, a rabbi on Hawaii’s Big Island, put it in a conversation the day after JNS reported that Jews, who make up about 0.69% of Hawaii’s population, were the targets of 75% of the religion-based hate crimes in the state in 2025 and, per official data, were targeted in 4.3% of all hate crimes in Hawaii since 2023.
“The word for priest in Hebrew is kohen, and the word for priest in Hawaiian is kahuna,” says Short, an independent rabbi and a yoga instructor. “To me, that is the coolest thing about being a rabbi in Hawaii.”
The 39-year-old opened the conversation with “Shaloha,” combining “Shalom” and “Aloha.”
She says that Hawaii’s close-knit communities and open-minded attitudes can make the state feel safe.
But her perspective shifted when she experienced anti-Semitism after Oct. 7.
She received threats on social media and a phone message inviting her to go “pig hunting.” The latter is a local expression that implies that someone will not return alive.
“That was very scary for me,” she recalls.
The rabbi, who once hosted a Passover seder for 275 people, stopped leading public group events after Oct. 7.
“I only do lifecycle events right now and work one-on-one,” she says.
Short has counseled Jewish residents who are afraid and recently spoke with someone after a swastika was drawn on a desk at the private school that the person’s child attends.
“I didn’t ever think that I would live in a time in my life where I know people that were scared to be Jewish, or that I was scared to be Jewish.”
Despite those experiences, Short, who grew up in Kansas City, says that Hawaii has given her opportunities to introduce herself as a Jew to people who have little knowledge of Jewish life.
“That’s how we combat anti-Semitism. We let people see who we are and what we do, and that it is based in love and unity and goodness and oneness.”
She was planning to visit her eight-year-old daughter’s school on Sept. 18 to talk to the students about the Jewish holidays.
“I’m taking apples and honey, and we’re talking about Rosh Hashanah and the week between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Short is concerned that her daughter, who has always been proud to be a rabbi’s child, may have picked up some of her new fears. But her daughter was set to blow a shofar at school for her classmates at Short’s presentation.
“She’s much better at it than I am,” Short says.
Rabbi CJ Mays, who began leading Temple Emanu-El, a Reform temple, in Honolulu in 2025, says that most of the hostility of which he is aware is blaming Jews for Israeli actions.
“Jewish individuals and institutions can sometimes find themselves treated as representatives of, or blamed for, decisions being made thousands of miles away, regardless of their own views or relationship to Israel,” he says.
Students in his synagogue’s religious school have reported encountering anti-Semitic comments from classmates.
“Sometimes those comments are connected to Israel, while others take more familiar forms, such as someone drawing a swastika or repeating an anti-Semitic joke,” he says.
“I think much of this, particularly among this age group, reflects a lack of education about anti-Semitism, Jewish history and events such as the Holocaust, alongside some of the thoughtless behavior that unfortunately comes with middle school.”
Mays said a mobile Museum of Tolerance is expected to come to Oahu later this year through the efforts of a community member. The museum will address Jew-hatred, the Holocaust, prejudice and Japanese internment.
“My hope is that it will become an important traveling educational resource for students and the wider community.”
Mays cautions against treating all pro-Palestinian advocacy or criticism of Israel as inherently anti-Semitic.
“There are certainly circumstances in which rhetoric about Israel or Palestine crosses into anti-Semitism, and those incidents should be named clearly when they occur,” he said. “But collapsing those categories does a disservice both to the seriousness of anti-Semitism and to the complexity of our community.”
Mays said that Hawaii remains a welcoming place to live openly as a Jew.
“I wear a kippah everywhere I go, and I do not move through daily life here in fear. More often than hostility, I encounter curiosity, which makes sense in a state with a relatively small Jewish population.”
The former political science teacher, who moved to Hawaii from Los Angeles, has “come to appreciate even more the opportunity to help build those kinds of learning experiences in a place where Jewish resources are more limited.”
