It took the Allies nearly six years to destroy Nazi Germany. Donald Trump managed to resurrect it in this country in a single day.
The horror of being targeted for hatred by an unabashed Nazi sympathizer with the power to motivate hordes of neo-Nazis to action has finally sunk in to “mainstream" Americans, not just ones of “different” colors and faiths, but its historical significance is resonating most of all with this country’s Jewish community, all too familiar with the unbridled anti-Semitism that Trump has gleefully unleashed.
Nathan Englander writes in the New York Times this morning about his experience with anti-Semitism growing up in Long Island, and what this moment in time feels like for him and for millions of Jews, specifically Jewish children, in this country. In an op-ed titled “What Jewish Children Learned From Charlottesville,” he gives us the heartbreaking context to what is happening right now before our eyes:
This dirty Jew remembers every penny thrown at him.
The ones thrown from above, as we waited to be picked up from the public pool in my hometown on Long Island, our yarmulkes pinned to wet hair. By then, I was big enough to feel shame for the younger kids, who knew no better than to scurry around, as our local anti-Semites laughed.
I remember walking home from synagogue at my father’s side, in our suits and ties, and seeing a neighbor boy crawling on his hands and knees, surrounded by bullies, this time picking up pennies by force. I remember my father rushing in and righting the boy, and sending those kids scattering.
Even as the nation begins to recoil in collective horror at what Trump has resurrected, Englander sees the same familiar patterns emerging, patterns which began to appear during Trump’s campaign as anti-Semitic incidents began to spike throughout the country. Since the election, these incidents have grown exponentially:
New data suggests incidents of anti-Semitic hatred have spiked compared to this time last year, an ominous shift that advocates say signals a multi-year increase of vitriol directed at American Jews.
According to a report published on Monday by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 541 anti-Semitic incidents have occurred so far this year — an 86 percent increase compared to the same period in 2016.
The morbid specter of Trump-supporting neo-Nazis marching in the streets of Charlottesville, shouting such things like “Jews will not replace us" and "Heil Trump" is bringing the nightmare of the past home to a new generation being told they are not welcome:
I’ll never forget the shame of it. Nor any of the other affronts, from the swastika shaving-creamed on our front door on Halloween to the kid on his bike yelling, “Hitler should have finished you all.” I remember every fistfight, every broken window, every catcall and curse. I remember them because each made me — a fifth-generation American — feel unsafe and unwelcome in my own home, just as was intended.
The tragedy of this moment is made even more painful by the shocking realization that so much of the progress made over the years in extinguishing this type of latent hatred has all been suddenly and brutally cast aside in the space of a single day’s encouragement by one monstrous president:
[I]n seven months of this presidency, in one single day in Charlottesville, Va., all of that is lost. A generation, and so much more, stolen away. There is the trauma of those assaulted by Nazis on American soil and the tragedy that is Heather Heyer’s murder that belongs to her and her family alone. And then there is what all the rest of us share — the pain and violence and the lessons we draw from them. Because the children who witness a day like that, and a president like this, will not forget the fear and disrespect tailored to the black child, the Muslim child, the Jewish child.
The incredible damage that Trump and his accomplices have managed to inflict on the country this week may be impossible to undo. Even after the torches are extinguished and the shouts fade away, their presence will continue to smolder in the nightmares of American children forced to endure yet again this unwanted, unprovoked, menace of ignorance and hatred intruding into their lives.
Only the shared resistance by decent Americans of good conscience is going to be powerful enough to get us through this cruelty and ugliness.