Seventy three years ago, the Nazis systematically murdered over half of the world’s Jewish population, killing six million innocent people. The Jewish people were considered subhuman and were believed to be a threat to Hitler’s “master race”. When they were liberated from the concentration camps, ghettos, and extermination centers, many of them left Europe in hopes of finding a better life in America, but when they arrived they were welcomed with another wave of anti-semitism.
Like many cultures, the Jewish people have flourished in America with newfound freedoms and opportunities, however many anti-semitic ideas from Europe were carried to the States. Hate groups such as the American Nazi Party and Ku Klux Klan spread their beliefs and hatred for Jewish people.
Recently, the neo-nazi group Atomwaffen has taken credit for the senseless of murder of the Blaze Bernstein. The 19-year-old returned to his home in Orange County, California over winter break; during this time, he was fatally stabbed by Samuel Woodward, a member of Atomwaffen. Following his death, more than 250,000 messages were uncovered that show members of Atomwaffen celebrating Bernstein’s death.
Advocate
In the same county, Temple Beth Jacob, an orthodox Jewish synagogue, was vandalized with the phrase “F*ck Jews” on the side of the building. The Ku Klux Klan dropped dozens of antisemitic flyers at homes in Cherry Hill, a highly populated Jewish township in New Jersey. A mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history, claimed the lives of 11 innocent people attending Shabbat services on a Saturday morning. In Baltimore, a man yelled “Heil Hitler, Heil Trump” at a performance of Fiddler on the Roof, a musical about a Jewish family. At SUNY, on the last day of Hanukkah in 2018, Nazi-themed posters were distributed across the college campus. While the majority of these are isolated incidents, they are unfortunately not uncommon and many others like these can be found throughout U.S history.
Because Jews are an invisible minority, the acts of hate against them often go unreported in the news. Rumors and myths about Jews only fuel the hate. Rumors that Jewish people are lazy, rich, and greedy were started hundreds of years ago, but still affect the perception of them to this day. The rumors were, and are, used as excuses to treat Jewish people poorly and a reason to use them as a scapegoat. Jews have had blame placed on them since ancient times and that has yet to change.
James Wales
Although antisemitism is a growing problem in America, there are many organizations combating this issue. The Anti Defamation League (ADL) is the world’s leading organization fighting antisemitism. The ADL not only fights antisemitism, but other forms of hatred as well. In order to do this, the ADL explains that they “provide law enforcement and communities with the information they need to stay safe from extremist threats of every kind.” In addition, the “ADL pursues fair treatment for all through legislatures, the courts and the public square—both federally and at the grassroots.” To help the ADL combat hate, you can submit a report of an anti-Semitic, bias or discriminatory incident on their website, https://www.adl.org, and they will do their best to investigate the situation.
I hope that my future children will grow up in a world where hate and violence doesn’t exist, but we all know that is easier said than done. While this issue will likely not be resolved in their lifetime, I will tell them what my mother has always told me, a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.: “hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.”