by Emily Kay
Ever since the vermin that infested the White House stepped into the Oval Office in 2016, my wife and I have regularly discussed the possibility that we might have to leave this country.
Early in the last century, the Russian and Polish pogroms — organized and sanctioned massacres of ethnic and religious groups, especially Jews — forced my grandparents to leave their homelands and emigrate to the U.S. My father’s dad, Samuel Kantrowitz, was 17 on a Saturday night in 1906 when he bade his family goodbye and undertook the arduous journey from Pinsk to New York, and then to Hartford, CT. He had brothers and sisters in the U.S. but he traveled by himself, with 12 cents in his pocket and nothing but the clothes he wore and a samovar strapped to his back.
“I left Russia because at that particular time… it was very miserable for a young fellow to be around,” my grandfather, in his typically understated way, told an interviewer for the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford in 1968. “At that time there was a raid of Cossacks [who] came into our yard and they cut people, they beat them up.”
Sam married Gussie Cooper — who had also come here from Russia. My father’s folks survived the Eastern European genocide that presaged Hitler’s so-called Final Solution by some 20 years. Not so fortunate were 60,000 other Jews murdered in Eastern Europe before Hitler slaughtered six million more.
The history of my people is always with me and drives the fear that we may not get out of this country before the white nationalist domestic terrorists, who have gained a nauseating and terrifying foothold in the U.S., barge into our homes and murder us or haul us off to a concentration camp.
Celebrity Antisemites
The passing of survivors, liberators, and witnesses of Hitler’s horrors coincides with increasing attacks on Israel and the alarming surge of antisemitism in this country and elsewhere. As loathing toward Jewish people mounts throughout the world, athletes and other prominent figures seek to normalize antisemitism and incite violence against the Jewish community.
These include the seriously deranged hip-hop mogul Kanye West (aka Ye), NBA star Kyrie Irving, comedian Dave Chapelle, the mango MAGAt from Mar-A-Lago, and members of Congress like Marjorie Taylor Green on the right and Ilhan Omar on the left, to name just a few. Before the ex-president broke bread with a Holocaust-denying Nazi who equated cremated Jews with “cookies in an oven,” West vowed to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”
New Twitter tsar Elon Musk deleted some of West’s recent incitements to violence but did not suspend the account until West posted an image of a swastika inside a Star of David, a symbol long associated with Judaism. Meanwhile, Irving promoted an antisemitic film on Twitter, and Chapelle got laughs on SNL with a “joke” about Jews running Hollywood (wink, wink).
Antisemitism is racism.
Make no mistake: antisemitism is racism, and it’s just as dangerous and pervasive as other expressions of hatred toward any group of people. When haters denigrate a minority group, they often go after Jews as well, using centuries-old tropes about Jews seeking world domination. It’s impossible to forget Nazis chanting “Jews will not replace us” during the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA, in August 2017. The myths also involve Jews displaying loyalty only to other Jews and whatever the “Jewish agenda” is supposed to be.
For sure, antisemitism, which predates Christianity, existed long before Hitler attempted to exterminate all Jews based on the evil doctrine that Germans and other northern European “Aryans” were superior to all other races, especially Jews.
“Jews are centered in a lot of conspiracy theories, especially around economy or power or greed or whatever,” says Emily Snider of the Anti-Defamation League. “Those are core antisemitic tropes. So when we start to see unrest, we tend to see antisemitic incidents climb.”
Though antisemitism has never disappeared, public expressions of contempt for Jews ebbed after the world learned of the atrocities of the Holocaust. But it is rising rapidly again — along with skepticism that the Holocaust even happened.
Fearing for Our Safety
I am hardly alone among my fellow Jews in fearing for our safety. The Anti-Defamation League reported that more documented reports of “harassment, vandalism and violence directed against Jews” occurred in 2021 than in any previous year. Just last week, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning about the potential for increased attacks against Jews, along with the LGBTQ+ community.
In addition, Douglas Emhoff — VP Kamala Harris’ Jewish husband and the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president — plans to convene a round table with Jewish leaders to discuss how to battle the onslaught of anti-Jewish hate.
Closer to home, members of my family and many of my friends have started researching other countries where we might live. None of us wants to leave. But we remain fearful and on guard. Chances are you, or people you know, are fearful too.
All of which leads me to ask: What did we ever do to incite such contempt? And why do we not receive support from folks who generally stand up against racism in all its other forms?
With the mid-terms behind us, it’s time to step up the fight against antisemitism on its many fronts. When you see or hear something, say something. Then please urge members of Congress to support several government initiatives the Anti-Defamation League has proposed.
This is my country. I love it and I’d like to stay.
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