America 2017: Where two Jewish day schools in the Washington, DC area received bomb threats Monday morning, and in the last two months where approximately 70 Jewish community centers have received bomb threats—the latest also being Monday morning in Asheville, North Carolina.
Nothing says America like worrying about the safety of minority children because someone has threatened to bomb the building they are studying, playing or worshipping in.
Unfortunately, this is not new.
Kind of reminds you of this, doesn’t it?
Jewish cemeteries around the country have also been vandalized in the last week, with more than 100 gravestones found overturned in a cemetery in Philadelphia over the weekend. None of this is coincidence and is very much linked to who is in the White House right now.
The Anti-Defamation League has reported an uptick in anti-Semitic incidents since last November’s presidential election. The civil-rights organization has also chided President Trump for evading questions about rising anti-Semitism. After consecutive press conferences in which he responded to questions on the topic with brags about his electoral-vote total and rebukes of reporters for broaching the issue, Trump finally condemned anti-Semitic incidents last week during a visit to the Smithsonian.
Condemning these hateful crimes and defensively reminding the world that he has Jews by marriage in his family, after repeatedly dodging the issue, is not nearly enough. Especially when Steve Bannon has a history of fostering anti-Semitic sentiment over at Breitbart. Especially when Trump’s administration has plans to solely focus on countering violent radical Islamic extremism at the expense of targeting white supremacist groups who carry out bombings and shootings in the US. Where’s the law and order Trump and company so vigorously touted throughout the campaign? We don’t exactly know who is responsible for all the recent threats and vandalism (though we could take a guess), what we do know is that Donald Trump, with his hate speech and relationships with white supremacists who are now making policy, has put vulnerable groups at increased risk.
Just in case we mistakenly thought that America had gotten slightly better and less racist, we are reminded that hate and bigotry are still here, were supported by 60 million Americans and are, now, completely emboldened by this president.