Posted on December 24, 2018

The plan was to take this week off and rerun a breezy, Christmas-worthy edition of The Monday Minute (or two).  Something heartwarming, uplifiting, life-affirming.  Something happy.  Something emphasizing our vast goodness, our compassion for others and our shared humanity.

Then this happened.

On December 13, 37 headstones and a monument to Holocaust victims were defaced in Herrlisheim Cemetery near the French city of Strasbourg.  This is noteworthy, in part, because France is home to the largest Jewish population in Europe.  According to U.S. News & World Report (November 9, 2018), there have been 69% more anti-Semitic acts in France in the first 9 months of 2018 when compared to the same period in 2017.  In the two previous years, the number of acts of hatred were on the decline.

To say that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe is an understatement.  It’s an epidemic.

It is not isolated to Europe.  As you will recall, vandals in Irvine, California recently spray-painted ‘F**king Jews’ on Beth Jacob Synagogue just 4 days after the October 27 massacre of 11 in Pittsburgh. Swastikas were also found scrawled on homes in Brooklyn Heights, New York, on Navy property in Bucks County near Philadelphia, and in a high school in a suburb of Denver.  In Baltimore, during an intermission of a November performance of Fiddler on the Roof, a story of a Jewish family facing persecution in Tsarist Russia, a man yelled ‘Heil Hitler! Heil Trump!’ from the balcony (He has since apologized, saying ‘it came out wrong.’)  Also last month, a prom photo taken in May of juniors at Baraboo High School in Wisconsin giving the Sieg Heil salute was released, with the school and school district administrations disclaiming any responsibility. Later last month, anti-LGBTQ and anti-Semitic graffiti was written on a residence hall door at UMass Amherst, Nazi symbols were found in the boys’ bathrooms in Maconomet Regional High School in Boxford, Mass, and racist graffiti was spray-painted on the doors of a predominantly African-American school in South Boston.  For the second time in 18 months, the Jewish community Center of Northern Virginia in Fairfax was defaced, this time with 19 swastikas painted on its walls and doors.

What drives someone to leave the warmth and comfort of their home, buy paint, travel to a cemetery, risk identification and the police to defile headstones of the dead?  To attack a monument to the Holocaust?   To spray-paint swastikas on the walls of a community center?  To write ‘F**king Jews’ on a synagogue?

What have the Jews of these communities done to deserve this hatred?  Die?  Be among the 6 million murdered during World War II?  Attend synagogue on the Sabbath?  Be Jewish?

According to the Anti-Defamation League’s annual report (https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/anti-semitic-incidents-surged-nearly-60-in-2017-according-to-new-adl-report), anti-Semitic activity in the United States increased by 57% last year.  The category with the most disturbing increase:  vandalism.  In 2017 there were 952 incidents of anti-Semitic vandalism in this country, up a staggering 86% over the previous year.  Sadly, we’ll likely blow through those numbers this year.  France is not alone.  It’s an epidemic here, too.  And to think that Jews make up just 2% of the U.S. population, yet account for 50% of the hate crimes in this country.

This should be a time of family, of warmth, of joy.  A time where we overlook our differences and, instead, focus on the many wonderful qualities and values we share. A time when we go out of our way to give to those less fortunate, to those in need, to those without hope.  A season of lights and of sharing.  A season of love, actually.

If that is our intent, if that is truly what this season is about, it is vital to include everyone, especially those under siege.  Jews, Muslims, African Americans, Native Americans, the LGBTQIA community, the homeless, immigrants.  They need our compassion, our support, our respect.  They need to know that they do not stand alone, that we are with them and will continue to be with them long after the holiday season ends.  That a crime of hatred against anyone, anywhere is a crime of hatred against each of us.  That their fear, their pain is our fear and our pain.  That only together can we move beyond hatred and create a vibrant, cohesive community in which we all matter.  That, I suggest, is the true purpose and essence of this season.

Merry Christmas.