Earlier this week, Jewish centers and schools across the nation coped with another wave of threats that seem to be aligned with a growing trend of anti-Semitism.
In Philadelphia, police investigated what they called an “abominable crime” after several hundred headstones were toppled during the weekend at Mount Carmel Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery dating back to the late 1800s.
The damage comes less than a week after a Jewish cemetery in suburban St. Louis reported more than 150 headstones vandalized, many of them tipped over, and only hours after bomb threats were reported in schools across Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
“This is the fifth round of bomb threats and vandalism against Jewish institutions since January, prompting outrage and exasperation among Jewish leaders as well as calls for an aggressive federal response to put a stop to it,” said David Posner, an official with JCC Association of North America. “The Justice Department, Homeland Security, the FBI, and the White House, alongside Congress and local officials, must speak out — and speak out forcefully — against this scourge of anti-Semitism impacting communities across the country.”
That was a sentiment that seemed to resonate differently for locals across the Bradford area -— though most tied the situation back to politics.
“I think these things ebb and flow,” explained Bradford resident Richard Weinberg. “I would say right now we are in an upswing of hate. It seems that throughout history, when times are uneasy, the U.S. government interprets past activities and even laws differently. Internment camps during World War II, Lincoln suspending Habeas Corpus. Now in our tumultuous time, we have a travel ban instituted from certain Muslim countries. We certainly live in trying times.”
University of Pittsburgh at Bradford graduate Shane Close commented his belief that the incidents, while tied back to the government, were carried out for different means.
“I can’t say whether the elements involved are the work of a coalition or individual actors, but I’m convinced that the root of the problem isn’t a rise in anti-Semitism at all,” said Close. “It’s backlash from an otherwise unpopular presidential election.”
Close said there “has always been” anti-Semitic behavior. The recent upswing of it compared to the national average of the past, he attributes, is “agenda-driven” beyond what may appear on the surface.
“Individuals or groups want to perpetuate and legitimize their agenda that’s based on calling Trump a fascist Nazi,” Close elaborated. “An agenda that’s otherwise entirely unfounded. So they create their own victims and add fuel to the political fire in the name of religion.”
Phoenix Humbert of Olean, N.Y., pointed to a similar agenda behind the outrage over the anti-Semitic actions of what he calls “an overreactive few.”
“I think this has everything to do with the political upset against President Trump,” Humbert told The Era. “But people have to understand that he’s doing what he’s doing for a reason — and that reason isn’t to delegitimize their religion.”
Others found the actions “a troubling sign” that is reflective of “a negative attitude” toward religious practice.
“It’s getting harder for people of different religious beliefs to praise and worship without fear of hostility or judgment — despite the fact that they supposedly live in a place abound with religious freedom,” said Taryn Pfeifer of Lewis Run.
University of Pittsburgh at Bradford Sociology professor Dr. Helene Lawson, together with her husband, Harry, pointed to perhaps an explanation that incorporated both sentiments to a somewhat, and ironically “positive,” end.
“We live in a strange time in which a great national political division seems to be fostering new unities,” Lawson suggested. “For example, the desecration of these Jewish monuments was, indeed, horrific. However, in Philadelphia, Muslims are working to restore the Jewish cemetery. This is both exciting and perplexing.”
The incident also serves as an opportunity to define and develop the discussion of what classifies as a “hate crime.”
“Since ‘hate crime’ is a statutory entity, not all crimes committed out of hate qualify,” Lawson described. “When ten years ago vandals wrote ‘Juden Raus’ on our synagogue, broke the sconce lamps on the building, tore off the shingles and even pulled out the plumbing vent pipe, we learned that this was not a hate crime.”
Since there is no statistical meter that measures hate, the law requires a specific pattern of destruction for hate crimes. It turns out that currently knocking over gravestones, no matter how much hate is behind it, is not legally a hate crime, Lawson continued. It is, at most, a misdemeanor.
“I’m not complaining though,” Lawson noted. “I think that catching culprits and learning about their motivation would do more good than escalating penalties. There are enough penalties in life already. As for anti-Semitism, I still chuckle over a remark made years ago by a radical Palestinian nationalist Arab to the effect that: ‘I am not anti-Semitic. We are Semites, too. I am anti-Jew!’ I think confusion over the meaning of words holds great significance in battles of faith.”
Lawson went on to describe these incidents of vandalism at the Temple Beth El in Bradford with that of concurrent vandalism at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Oil City.
“The pattern was the same,” Lawson said. “It seemed that the vandals in both cases knew exactly what they could get away with and not risk being charged with anything like a serious offense. These incidents bring that discussion to light — however unfavorably.”
And, as Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro released in a statement earlier this week, the incidents stand to be met by a unified front.
“These acts are cowardly,” Shapiro stated. “Their perpetrators aim to spread fear, but we will stand together to ensure they fail. Intimidation and threats against the people of any one faith are an affront to us all.”
Perhaps one of the most appropriate responses, according to Weinberg, is a quote by Ghandi.
“Be the change you want to see in the world,” Weinberg encouraged. “I am not sure if Martin Luther King said this quote or not but the next 19 words are true: ‘Darkness cannot destroy darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot destroy hate. Only love can do that.’ We people of faith, in a time when church pews are thin on Sundays, and Jews stay home on Friday nights and not all Muslims pray five times a day, we need to spread love and light exponentially.”
Violence, he added, is never the answer.
