The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Lamont, Blumenthal speak at Holocaust memorial event
Governor at CT capitol: ‘When you see wrong, stand up’
HARTFORD — The specter of Oct. 7, Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza and ongoing anti-war protests on college campuses hung over an annual Holocaust remembrance event at Connecticut’s state capitol Friday, which featured remarks from Gov. Ned Lamont, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and an 87-year-old survivor of the Budapest ghetto.
Some speakers mentioned current events directly, decrying antisemitism in public discourse, while others alluded to them more obliquely. Blumenthal asserted the relevance of Holocaust remembrance at “this moment,” before warning against all forms of hate or bigotry.
“We are here with solemnity and dignity, but we are also here to stand up and speak out against antisemitism, against hatred however it’s manifested — Islamophobia, white supremacy,” Blumenthal said. “That is not America.”
Similarly, Lamont declared that “if you don’t learn from the past, bad things happen.”
“When you see evil, when you see injustice, you can see antisemitism, you see hate speech, when you see wrong, stand up,” the governor said.
Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing hundreds of civilians and taking as many as 199 people, including children, hostage into Gaza. The Israeli military swiftly responded, killing tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, many who were also civilians and children. Jews on various sides of public debate have invoked the Holocaust frequently. Those defending Israel and fearful of a rise in antisemitism have recalled what Jews endured during the Nazi genocide, while those who oppose the war have held signs with messages such as “never again to any people.”
With that backdrop, the state’s 42nd annual Holocaust commemoration ceremony, whose official theme was “the power of words,” felt more political than usual, with repeated references to the war and to campus protests that have broken out nationwide, including in Connecticut.
Stephen Liebowitz, chair of the commemoration ceremony, used his speech Friday to criticize “inflammatory language that seeks to demonize individuals or groups,” arguing that protesters have “weaponized” terms and phrases such as “from the river to the sea, ceasefire, genocide, apartheid and colonialism.”
Jason Deck, a graduate student at the University of Connecticut, said in his remarks that he objects to fellow students displaying “Free Palestine” stickers, saying “such rhetoric has no place in a medical educational facility dedicated to saving human life.”
Student protesters in Connecticut and elsewhere have urged universities to divest from Israel in response to the war with Hamas in Gaza over the past seven months, as well as its occupation of the West Bank and treatment of millions of Palestinians living under its authority. Opponents have called out antisemitic remarks at certain protests or argued the entire protest movement is inherently antisemitic.
During a benediction toward the end of Friday’s ceremony, Rabbi Joshua Hammerman of Temple Beth El in Stamford, expressed sorrow for the Jews killed and taken hostage on Oct. 7 but added he was “saddened by the loss of all innocent life, including many who have died in Gaza these past several months.”
The event’s keynote speaker, a New Haven man, Endre Sarkany, largely avoided references to the ongoing war and protests. Instead, he shared stories of life as a Jew in Budapest during the Nazi occupation, where the building his family lived in became an orphanage for more than 150 Jewish children.
Sarkany described hearing comments on the street about how Jews were destroying society, how his father was eventually taken to a forced-labor camp and how all Jews in Budapest were forced into a designated area of the city, known as the ghetto.
He recalled, decades later, watching the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., “seeing the same slogans which I heard as a sevenyear-old,” and urged against use of the word “hate.”
“It is a devastating word,” Sarkany said. “It caused all the evil in the past, it causes evil today, and it will cause the evil in the future if we don’t eliminate it.”