Swastikas, Kikes and Anti-Semitism
Anti-semitism rears its ugly head again.
Last Sunday, swastikas were found spray painted on the AEPi fraternity house at Emory University. AEPi is a Jewish fraternity and the incident occurred right after the end of Yom Kippur, the holiest of Jewish holidays.
To find out more about this, here's the original story, written by Peter Jacobs, in the Business Insider. Thanks to my former classmate Mindy Gardner Levy for finding this.
As shocking as this is, it's not surprising. In the 1 1/2 years I've written this blog, this is the fifth time I've published something about anti-semitism. That's a lot for a blog where the main focus is health/wellness.
We've seen this type of behavior worldwide recently. There have been incidents in England and France. There were rumors that Jews were forced to to register as Jews, in the Ukraine.
Let's face it anti-semitism is on the rise.
I grew up in a Chicago suburb called Skokie. It had a very large Jewish population.
On my block there were two non-Jewish families. One was my friend John and his parents. The other was a man in his early 30's and his wife.
One day the neighborhood kids were out playing baseball. A wild throw had the ball landing on this man's lawn. It's a common occurrence in every neighborhood where there are children. John went to get the ball.
"Hey kike...keep your fucking kike ball ball off my grass. And keep your kike ass off my lawn."
We laughed as we ran off because he picked the one non-Jewish kid on the block to call that name. I didn't take the incident too seriously. I just wrote it off to ignorance.
My parents didn't think the same way. I told them what happened and I could see the hurt and anger in their eyes.
This was less than twenty years after the end of World War 2. My father was in the Army, in Europe, during the war. Not enough time had passed for him to let this go as strictly ignorance.
He calmly walked down to the end of the block and had a visit with our neighbor. He never told me what was said but there never was another problem.
There's nothing worse than a "keep off my grass" guy...every neighborhood has them...and add in racism to that and you have an asshole to the first degree. My Dads visit solved two problems. WTG Dad!!
In the years since then there have been other incidents. Neo-nazi groups have tried to organize marches in Skokie, twice. They wanted to rile up the many holocaust survivors that were living there. Nobody backed down.
Those incidents didn't bother me. I again wrote them off to ignorance. To quote John Belushi, "I hate Illinois Nazis."
I'm not sure when and why my feelings on this changed. I'm not very religious. I'm more culturally Jewish. I'm comfortable with that.
A year ago I visited the Ilinois Holocaust Museum. Exhibits and photos that shake you down to your soul. It takes about ten minutes to feel depressed. It takes about five minutes to feel that you're Jewish. It takes a long time after your visit to feel like a whole human being again.
As a child I remember hearing the expression "Never Forget." It meant get on with your life but never forget what happened and beware.
I didn't get it then but I get it now. Never Forget!! One thing about all these incidents is they are not letting you forget.