Hate crimes on rise

Hate crimes are rising and roughly half target Jews. The 11 murdered at a synagogue last weekend come on the heels of a pipe bomb mailed to Holocaust survivor George Soros from a Floridian known for peddling anti-Semitic rants online. Last spring, a self-described white nationalist calling for a United States “free of Jews” drew 89,000 votes in preliminaries to California’s Republican primary, while assorted neo-Confederates, white supremacists, and other fascists marched in Charlottesville last year chanting “Jews will not replace us.”

This is becoming a nation that most of us no longer recognize, where vile ideologies once lurking in the shadows are pushing to the forefront of political rallies. We must not allow these distortions of American values to enter the mainstream. As our parents’ generation fought the Nazis, we must fight bigotry in our own time, standing in solidarity with our Jewish sisters and brothers, with our LGBTQ sons and daughters, with blacks, immigrants and every other minority that has become a scapegoat to channel the unfocused anger of an empire in decline.

In words attributed to pastor Martin Neimoller, “In Germany, first they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time, there was no one left to speak up.” Speak up and act up!

THE REV. GARY KOWALSKI Co-Minister, Unitarian Congregation of Taos