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Updated: May 4, 2024 @ 6:58 am
The persecution of a people simply for who they are or how they worship is unacceptable and must be rejected and confronted. During Hanukkah, it seems important to be reminded that, for reasons hard to fathom, Jewish people are consistently singled out for persecution, prejudice and violence.
The examples are too many to count, but here are a few important moments.
Remember that on Oct. 27, 2018, a gunman massacred 11 people in Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue. They were just worshiping. The shooter was an avowed anti-Semite and white supremacist who trucked in outrageous conspiracies about Jews.
Then, earlier this month, a man and woman opened fire on a Kosher market in Jersey City, N.J., after murdering a police officer. Their motivation? Pure anti-Semitism. The main shooter in this case was not a white supremacist but a member of the Black Hebrew Israelites, a hate group with a worldview that holds Jewish people are impostors.
We single out these two events not because they are unique but because it is so plain that the shooters in Pittsburgh and Jersey City would find little in common beyond one thing — hatred of Jewish people.
This is what is so insidious about anti-Semitism — it seems to flow into every sort of dark ideology, binding conspiracies so outlandish and stupid as to be laughable if it weren't for the violence they generate.
Such conspiracies aren't hard to find in the broader culture, and anti-Semitism manifests much more commonly in indirect intimidation — the scrawling of swastikas or the appearance of fliers. Or it curls into political discourse in frightening ways, often underpinning the worst elements of populist and nationalist rhetoric.
Anti-Semitism's pernicious role in European politics traces back too many generations to count. But it is alive and even thriving, now. Britain's Labour Party has faced complaints from its own Jewish members for prejudice.
But Europe is not alone. On the left and the right in our own country, we are reminded of this simmering and perpetual prejudice.
In Jersey City, after the murders in the Kosher market, a school board member used social media to call Jewish people "brutes," leading to the city's mayor and New Jersey's governor to call for her resignation.
On the right, there is no shortage of examples. The Rockland County (N.Y.) Republican Party recently came under fire for producing a video with anti-Semitic themes and tropes.
On certain college campuses, meanwhile, it is increasingly hard to parse out anti-Israel sentiment from straight up anti-Semitism.
No people should endure this sort of prejudice without the firmest statement from society that it is unacceptable. Prejudice leads to hate, and hate leads to dehumanization and, ultimately, destruction.
Hanukkah is a festival of lights. We need more light in our lives as people. We need it to shine more brightly than the ignorance and cruelty of prejudice and hatred.
Dallas Morning News
This article originally appeared on Times-News: Editorial: Stamp out anti-Semitism
