Two days ago people around the world marked the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi orgy of public antisemitic violence and property that alerted the world to the horrors of that regime and foreshadowed the events to come.
Now it seems that the current rash of antisemitic incidents rumbling through the world has come to the most unlikely of places - one of the most heavily Jewish areas on the planet.
For those not familiar with Midwood, Brooklyn, it is a fascinating and unique neighbordhood. Its long blocks are lined with large, immaculately kept single family homes, while the main thoroghfares such as Ocean Parkway are lined with equally immaculate apartment and condo buildings. Much of the population is Jewish, but unlike perhaps more famous Brooklyn neighborhoods, the Jewish population of Midwood is not predominantly ultra-Orthodox, but a combination of Modern Orthodox, Conservative, and Secular, with many immigrants from the former Soviet Union and even Israel joining families that have lived in the neighborhood for generations. Some residents are quite wealthy while others are solidly middle class.
Having lived on its border a decade ago, my main impression was that Midwood is the New York City version of middle America. It seems that even the most middle American of Jewish neighborhoods cannot escape antisemitism.
Bigots fueled by hatred and beer terrorized a heavily-Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood Friday, torching three cars, vandalizing a van and defacing other property with anti-Semitic messages.
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Eight nearby benches were spray-painted with Nazi swastikas and “SS” — the initials of Hitler’s brutal Gestapo — and “f--k the Jews” was scrawled on a sidewalk. The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating.
The suspects are still at large, although another perpetrator of a different antisemitic incident on the same day in Queens was caught
Meanwhile, a 40-year-old man was arrested about noon Friday for spray-painting swastikas on libraries, a synagogue and a Catholic church — all in Queens.
Police don’t believe the suspect, Franco Rodriguez, is connected to the Midwood hate crimes.
Thank G-d nobody was hurt in Midwood, and only property was damaged. Still, it is unsettling to have this happen not in the Middle East, not in Europe, not in the backwoods, but in one of the most heavily Jewish yet assimilated neighborhoods in America.
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If it can happen in Midwood it can happen anywhere, and in fact it is happening everywhere.
In 2010 in the US, according to statistics compiled by the ADL, there were
22 physical assaults on Jewish individuals;
900 cases of anti-Semitic harassment, threats and events;
317 cases of anti-Semitic vandalism.
But America is the tip of the iceberg. A survey of worldwide antisemitic incidents in just the past few weeks is a chilling reminder of how this hatred thrives. From Lithuania, where officials deny the Holocaust and the government has brought charges against Holocaust survivors for being liberated by the Russians, to Libya which apparently refuses to allow Jews into the country at all, to Lebanon where the name "Spielberg" had to be blocked out of all movie posters, to Egypt where a martial arts competitor had to forfeit a match rather than have to touch a Jewish opponent and where that country's supreme court decided to close the pyramids because of a supposed secret Jewish plot, to England where a prominent travel reporter has resurrected an old hoax blaming Jews themselves for the Holocaust, to Palestine where the chater of Hamas blames Jewish conspiracies for historical events such as the French Revolution and quotes from the Elders of Zion antisemitic forgery, to Sweden where Jews have had to abandon a town, and of course Iran, where the Holocaust denying government has now produced an antisemitic propaganda movie.
And that is only recent weeks. Recent years have seen these type of happenings repeated over and over, as well as the return of the blood libel - the idea that Jews murder children to make matzoh - to many countries, and the targeting of Jewish individuals for mutilation and death because of their ethnicity, among many other disturbing trends.
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Antisemitism has been called "the old disease" because it has infected all human societies for hundreds of years, from the Spanish Inquisition, to the Russian Pogroms, to the mass violence against Jews in Syria, Egypt, and Iraq, to the incidents of today, antisemitic violence seems to be a mainstay of countries where Jewish people live.
Antisemitic incidents, violent and otherwise, feed on antisemitic propaganda, which demonizes the Jewish people. Lately antisemitic propaganda is allowed to thrive under the cover of the passions invoked against Israel.
As a fully assimilated liberal Atheist Jew, my reading of the current situation is that the efforts all good people will be needed to fight against the old disease. Please stand up for your Jewish friends, neighbors, and countrymen. Stand up against antisemitic propaganda of all kinds, whether wrapped in the banner of anti-Israelism or not. A good introduction to the forms that contemporary antisemitic propaganda takes is presented here.
