The flag waver quickly was removed from the Phoenix rally for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has since dropped out of the presidential race. Still, such flagrant display of a symbol of hatred was a disturbing reminder of continued antisemitic sentiment in the United States and globally. The incident also provided even more evidence of the need to increase efforts to reverse hatred through education about the horrible impact of racism and anti-Semitism.
The Arizona incident is far from the most serious episode illustrating continued and increasing US antisemitism fueled by social media and President Donald Trump’s vitriol. A survey published on April 21 by the New York City-based Anti-Defamation League found more than half of American Jews witnessed or directly experienced antisemitism in the past five years. The survey also found that 63 percent of American Jews said they feel less safe now than they did a decade ago.
Numerous attacks justify this fear. In October 2018, a man stormed a synagogue outside Pittsburgh, fatally shooting 11 worshipers. Six months later, one person was killed and three injured when another man with a gun fired inside a synagogue near San Diego. In December 2019, three were killed in a kosher market in Jersey City, New Jersey and at least five stabbed in Monsey, New York by a machete-wielding man who burst into a Hanukkah party at a rabbi’s house.
The coronavirus pandemic also has fueled a significant increase in conspiracy theories and accusations by far-right individuals and groups seeking to link Jews to the spread of the virus.
Amidst such disturbing facts, the need to fight to reverse this trend is evident. I’m proud of such efforts in my small corner of Connecticut, where the Jewish Federation of Eastern Connecticut’s Holocaust Resource Center runs two important programs. Encountering Survivors and Encountering Differences bring high school and middle school students face-to-face with Holocaust survivors or survivors’ children, or with African Americans who have experienced racism.
These conversations between students and people whose lives have been informed and shaped by racist encounters or the terrors of the Holocaust, bring history to life and serve as an antidote to hatred. It’s less likely to deny historic events or spew hatred after hearing heart-wrenching stories from those who lived them. Some 340 students have participated over three years.
The Federation’s work also spurred an exhibition now on display at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in my hometown of New London, Connecticut. The exhibit features numerous city residents’ stories about surviving racism. These include a retired female minister who remembers the power and pain of the fire hoses turned on her and fellow civil rights protesters in her native South Carolina, an attorney who repeatedly was mistaken as a defendant when entering court houses during his career, and a board member of a local corporation who recalls the challenges of traveling by car through a still-segregated US in the 1950s when her family was moving to Connecticut.
As important as are these incidents from past decades, however, more telling was the reaction panelists had to a question posed by recently retired Federation Executive Director Jerry Fischer during an event celebrating the exhibition’s opening: Have you encountered racism recently? The panelists were quick to recount numerous experiences including being targeted by police or being offered racially insensitive advice by strangers.
Such incidents are neither as serious nor as life-threatening as the Nazis’ systematic plan for extermination or the centuries-long denial of legal rights to African Americans in the US. But insensitive remarks and bullying based on race, ethnicity or religion still can be deeply hurtful and life-altering.
While small and personalized programs such as those run by the local Jewish Federation may not have the reach of social media nor the power of legislation, educating young people about racism’s emotional scars is worthwhile.
We should recall Nelson Mandela’s words to grasp the power of education: “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
The writer is a member of the journalism faculty at the University of Connecticut and resident of New London, Connecticut