A must read by Steve Terrell ->”On the 75th anniversary of the arrest of Anne Frank and her family by Nazis in Amsterdam, hundreds gathered at James A. Little Theater in Santa Fe Sunday to hear a lecture by an expert in anti-Semitism. But there was an all-too-familiar cloud hanging over the event.
Reverberations from the mass shooting in El Paso on Saturday, followed several hours later by another in Dayton, Ohio, were inescapable as author Deborah Lipstadt began her lecture.
Rob Lennick, executive director of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico, said the shootings illustrate the relevance of Anne Frank in the modern world where hate crimes and violence are on the rise.
“Anne Frank, even in the midst of the darkness of her time was a beacon of hope,” Lennick said of the Jewish teenager who died in Nazi concentration camp. The Diary of Anne Frank, Lennick said, “gives the message that we always have to be vigilant in favor of goodness and never become hopeless in the face of hatred.
“And here we are once again, facing this reality of abject hatred, Lennick said. “When this kind of hatred occurs we have a choice of how to react. We can hide, we can change our lifestyles, we can have terror infiltrate our freedom, or we can stand up to hatred in all forms — anti-Semitism, racism. … We can do that in our daily lives and become educated about the nature of it, and we can remain steadfast when looking hate in the face.”
The full article is here → www.santafenewmexican.com/…