Awareness Wednesday :: Xenophobia, Part III — Never Again

xenophobia Jewish anti-Semitism - Mormon Women for Ethical Government

January 2020 marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the largest extermination and concentration camp run by the Nazis. It is the place where about 1.1 million Jewish people were murdered; others were used as slave labor. As the second World War ended in 1945, the Allied soldiers found stacks of naked corpses in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. The few survivors were emaciated prisoners that looked more like skeletons than human beings. At the time of liberation, the prisoners had no food, no fuel, and no water.

The Holocaust is one of the worst atrocities of humankind. It is a terrible reminder of our potential for evil. Sadly, the Holocaust was not the only anti-Semitism event in the last 2000 years. We often say, “never again,” as we should, but do we consider what actions “never again” requires so it doesn’t turn into “yet again”?

Shockingly, even as survivors, heads of states, and members of Jewish organizations gathered this year for the 75th commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz, a letter declaring that Jews are fake and part of the “Synagogue of Satan” was sent to synagogues in Seattle, Washington D.C., and Springfield, Va.

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “there were 1,879 attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions in the United States in 2018. . . . In addition to violent attacks, the last few years have also witnessed the vandalizing of hundreds of Jewish gravestones in Pennsylvania and Missouri and anti-Semitic graffiti painted on the walls of synagogues and other Jewish institutions.”

According to one recent article, “more than half of the hate crimes in New York City last year were attacks on Jewish people. Orthodox Jews are particularly at risk.” We saw overt anti-Semitism in Charlottesville, Virginia in August of 2017, where “white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and Jew haters chanted racist and anti-Semitic slogans, wore uniforms with swastikas, and killed a counter-protester.” In Pittsburgh, a man charged a synagogue and killed eleven Jewish patrons while they were worshiping. In April 2019, on the last day of a major Jewish holiday, a man armed with a rifle went to the Chabad synagogue near San Diego, injured three people, and killed one person. In December 2019 two shooters went to a kosher grocery store killing three shoppers and one police officer.

Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe and other parts of the world as well. France has recently had more than 500 anti-Semitic incidents in a year — a 74 percent increase. French President Emmanuel Macron called it “the worst level of anti-Semitism since World War II.” In Germany, on October 9, 2019 — on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism — there was a clear anti-Semitic attack on a synagogue in which two people were killed. The death toll would have been higher, but the attacker’s improvised weapons malfunctioned. Germany reported 1,646 crimes against Jews in 2018, and violent attacks rose by 60 percent in that country. The situation has become so concerning, “the German government’s anti-Semitism commissioner has urged Jews to avoid wearing skullcaps [kippas] in public.” Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, said this statement was basically “an admittance that, again, Jews are not safe on German soil.”

The recent increases of anti-Semitism in both Europe and the U.S. demonstrate that this ancient prejudice is still with us. Dr. Gunther Jikeli, an expert on European anti-Semitism at Indiana University, said increases of anti-Semitism follow a common pattern. When people’s world is seen as in bad shape, they look for something to blame; the Jews, being noticeably different, are portrayed as the ones causing the problem and blocking the solution. They become the evil to be conquered. For example, in Nazi Germany, anti-Semitism rose to their horrific height with the loss of World War I and the hardships of the Great Depression. Both of these hardships were blamed on the Jews.

As we are heading into stressful times with this pandemic and the economic trials that will surely accompany it, we must recognize the traps that lead to this kind of hatred toward any group of people:

Speech that is dehumanizing, such as referring to people in ways that are more commonly used in association with animals or insects (“hordes,” “swarms,” “vermin” or “infestations”). The Nazis commonly referred to the Jews as rats. Dehumanization is “what opens the door for cruelty and genocide.”
The need to find a group to be the scapegoat and to blame for misfortunes. This is often accompanied by conspiracy theories and condemning a minority to be “evil.” In the U.S., Jews are only 2 percent of the population. But they are “a convenient scapegoat for different kinds of haters, especially during hard times and periods of rapid change and social upheaval.”
Ostracizing a minority group that is different and not like the majority in the culture.
Unifying efforts of a majority group that focus on identifying a “common enemy” instead of focusing on a common good.

We need more public knowledge and education about the past and where anti-Semitism, or any prejudice, can lead and what happens when hate goes unchallenged. Education alone will not prevent attacks. It will take people recognizing current problems and speaking out against them.

Most important, it will take us, as a people, remembering a nearly universal religious teaching that we are made in the image of God. Rabbi Yogi Robkin said, “It is this singular, most powerful belief in the divinely inspired nature of man that beckons us to treat each other, all people, with love, respect and dignity. . . For when you see the divinity in one another you cannot dehumanize. When you come to recognize that God is a Father to us all, you cannot pick out or pick on any of His children.”

To read the other posts in our xenophobia series, click here.