The creepage of hate in our nation
This is not going to be an easy year.
The months leading to the November election will draw endless calls for unity, even as the fissures in American society widen.
That’s not a bold prediction. Passions are always heightened in a presidential election year, and this one is poised as a showdown between two distinct visions of America.
The issue that deserves to draw universal opposition on the campaign trail is the recent rise in public demonstrations of antiSemitism. But hate is easy to identity, yet simultaneously opaque.
We need to clearly recognize the rise of bias in 2019. This is not a faraway problem. Consider the 30 antiSemitic incidents documented in Connecticut in the last 12 months. The fatal attack at a kosher market in New Jersey and the stabbings of five people at a Hanukkah celebration in Monsey, N.Y., in recent weeks drew headlines, but were foreshadowed by quieter incidents such as swastikas appearing at Amity High School and a West Haven park, antiSemitic slurs chanted at a Westport lacrosse game, Trumbull fliers edited to read “Roast a Jew.”
A roundtable meeting of Connecticut lawmakers and Jewish leaders in Woodbridge Thursday explored solutions. The sobering call for security funding underscores the depth of this societal tragedy. A bigger shield is never a solution, but some Stamford congregations have had no choice but to add what amounts to a security tax to membership fees. Parents who take their children to preschool at Chabad Lubavitch of Greenwich are asking for extra security.
A security consultant hired by the Federation of Jewish Philanthropy of Upper Fairfield County recognized that more cameras and alarms and locks aren’t enough, and need to be augmented by human resources.
These incidents also put additional strain on police departments boosting patrols at houses of worship that should be sanctuaries from hate and violence.
If there is a hopeful side to this, it is that it continues to draw together different faiths.
Rabbi Michael Farbman of Orange’s Temple
Emanuel expressed the wisest, timeless solution for quelling hate: “Get the kids, or grownups, for that matter, in small enough groups into the room, and really engage them in the conversation ... then you begin to get somewhere.”
We often decry fading history lessons around the time of Memorial Day or Veterans Day, as the nation’s heroes draw less and less attention from the youngest generations. Perhaps there need to be more lesson plans on the horrors that led to such heroism.
It is difficult to acknowledge that children can harbor hate, but everyone carries childhood memories of expressions of misguided emotions.
There should be more roundtable discussions by our leaders, but we hope the unfortunate call for defensive actions is balanced by education at all ages of the true perils of bias.
We are just a few days into 2020, but our mission is clear: We all need to contribute to halting the spread of hate.
The issue that deserves to draw universal opposition on the campaign trail is the recent rise in public demonstrations of antiSemitism. But hate is easy to identity, yet simultaneously opaque.