Rash of anti-Semitic vandalism and threats seen across Houston area

[IndianaGreen]

Commentary:

Stories about anti-Semitism in France and other countries are often posted in the I/P Forum in order to validate the view that no Jew is safe except in Israel, and to bash Islamic minorities in Europe. To add balance to that point of view, I am posting this story about anti-Semitism in the USA which was posted in LBN earlier.

The war in Iraq, the failure to settle the I/P question, the unholy alliance in America between the neocons, the Christian Right, and Jewish organizations, are factors that will fan the flames of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism can also be found among some elements of the Left that rivals the anti-Jewish rhetoric spewed by the Nation of Islam.

If Jews are not safe in the US, then we cannot be safe anywhere except in Israel. Our opposition to Israel's policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians must be tempered with the realization that we cannot support any peace scheme that will jeopardize the existence and survival of the Jewish State.

Rash of anti-Semitic vandalism and threats seen across Houston area

By PEGGY O'HARE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

A spike in anti-Semitic hate crimes and vandalism across Houston in recent months has alarmed police and set the Jewish community on edge, investigators and activists said today.

Since September, 14 such crimes have been reported in the Houston and Harris County area. Eight occurred in a three-week period in December, said Martin Cominsky, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. The last known incident occurred Dec. 30.

<snip>

In some cases, the words "Juden Raus" -- meaning "Jews Out" -- were painted on sidewalks and benches in southwest Houston. The slogan was the title of an infamous board game in Germany during the 1930s that capitalized on the Nazi era, but sold poorly.

Swastikas also were painted on eight of the large red domes decorating overpasses along the Southwest Freeway, and obscenities aimed at Jewish people were painted on a wall at a Montrose restaurant. Swastikas and slogans such as "Jews Die" were scratched into the doors of Congregation Brith Shalom in Bellaire and Congregation Emanu El.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/front/3054025

[Englander]

1. So is an attack..

on Jewish property the same as an assault on a Jewish
person? In all of the incidents in the article,no-one
was actually assaulted. There are incidents like these,
vandalism against Christian,Muslim,Jewish & other places
of worship almost every week in the UK,& Europe,and the US
and dozens of other countries. I personally feel that they
do not signify anything,other than there are hateful idiots
out there with easy access to spray-cans.

[IndianaGreen]

2. History teaches that attacks on symbols often lead to attacks on persons

The Nazis began by painting swastikas on Jewish shops and businesses. It was years later when they stripped German Jews of their citizenship and began to mass exterminate them.

Black Americans will not consider cross burning to be a crime against property, I assure you.

[Englander]

3. Lets try to keep Adolf &

the KKK out of this,shall we,since they are utterly
irrelevant to an article mentioning a dozen cases of
anonymous vandalism?

As I said,I feel that all these acts of vandalism
(& please feel free to assume that I know the diff. between
vandalism & serious violent criminal acts :-) )against places
of worship do not signify anything,neither are they part of
a wider pattern.

They're offensive & hateful,but there's no lesson to be learnt.

[Colorado Blue]

6. I disagree. This is occuring all over the place. Within a

mile or two of my house several synagogues and other Jewish organizations - social centers, for example - have been desecrated.

Antisemitism is definitely on the rise in America and in Europe, again, as well. When white supremacist groups take out billboards there is a serious problem and we must not be asleep.

The post that was deleted on the main discussion board thread about this topic, along with an apparently too fiery blowback by yours truly, suggested that these attacks on Jewish institutions in Houston were actually an attack on Republicans due to the fact that they support Israel which is running the US, and moreover that antisemitism is a boring topic. This is to the best of my recollection.

I submit that antisemitism is growing on the left to an alarming degree, as well as among the "aryan nation".

And, it is only a matter of time, under these circumstances, that people DO get hurt. The Holocaust started with whispers, a rumor here and there, a broken window, a little fire, a little graffiti.

The banality of evil, indeed.

[Englander]

7. The National Alliance ....

and others,I think are out of sync with the
zeitgeist;"blaming the Jews" is very last century.
The World,or at least UK/Europe/US has moved on to a different
ethic/religious grouping,there is a new scapegoat to persecute.

The two far-right political parties in the UK (UKIP/BNP) use anti-immigrant,
anti-Islam/muslim rhetoric;there is a Law currently going through the Commons
that would allow suspected "terrorists",British & foreign subjects, to be put
under extended house arrest,without being charged with any offence;
there have been dozens of arrests of suspects(all muslim)under anti-terror
laws & hardly any prosecutions;&tc,&tc.

So,while you are (rightly) concerned about the previously posted
incidents,I would suggest that the activities of the UK/US
governments are of greater concern,that anti-islam feeling is prevalent.

peace.

[Colorado Blue]

8. I understand what you are saying, about anti-Islamic...

prejudice. It's very real especially among those who have been terrified by Bushco and have lost all perspective. I've experienced it personally, being grabbed at the airport, publicly humiliated and felt-up, getting wanded with my feet up in the air in view of hundreds of people.

This happens to me because I look Semitic and am therefore threatening. The bus is beginning to look good, I'm telling you.

And of course far more sinister things occur as well as you state. With Gonzales being AG everybody I know is afraid, Jews and Muslims alike.

However, just because people now hate Muslims also doesn't mean they don't still hate Jews. In fact, a friend tells me that people who are sick about the warfare in Iraq and rally against the war are painting swastikas on the Israeli flag, defacing the Star of David with the symbol of Nazi evil in order to protest the deaths of Islamic innocents.

Huh?

Sometimes I feel like I am living in a funhouse mirror.

Fact is, there are an awful lot of people in the US and Europe who hate Jews AND Muslims. What makes me ill people saying it's OK to trash Jews BECAUSE THEY ARE UPSET ABOUT BIGOTRY TOWARD ISLAM.

That really ISN'T OK, is it?

And believe me, a Jew that gets killed in the 21st century is just as dead as a Jew who died in the 20th, even though antisemitism might be officially passe by your reckoning. And the pain of seeing ones synagogue ruined isn't lessened by the fact that it is now 2005.

Bigots hate ALL of us. That's why I desperately hope we can clasp hands, realize we are in this TOGETHER.

[Violet_Crumble]

11. Off on a tangent about airports here...

I've experienced it personally, being grabbed at the airport, publicly humiliated and felt-up, getting wanded with my feet up in the air in view of hundreds of people.

I think security in US airports must be incredibly nasty. Yours isn't the first story I've heard about being pulled up like that. The Iranian-Australian son-in-law of one of my work colleagues was treated pretty badly by airport security when they were in the US last year. Makes me glad this novice at air travel managed to accidently slip through security (they had to chase me to get me back through the machine I'd gotten past) here in Australia and not the US. The security guy who walked me back to where I needed to be told me I was lucky I hadn't done what I did in a US airport or the reaction would have been much less low-key :)

Back to what yr post was about:

What makes me ill people saying it's OK to trash Jews BECAUSE THEY ARE UPSET ABOUT BIGOTRY TOWARD ISLAM

I agree and it works both ways. Not that I see people actually come out and saying it's okay to trash one group for that reason, but more along the lines of making justifications for bigotry towards one group because that group is supposedly violent and full of hate. None of them seem to realise they're just as bad as what they rail against....

Violet...

[Colorado Blue]

17. OK, now this post makes sense. Thank you.

[Violet_Crumble]

10. That's not how the Holocaust started...

There was a lot more to it than what you said. If anti-Semitic sentiment in the general population that led to whispers, rumours, and sporadic vandalism had been enough to start it, then there would have been Holocausts happening in other European countries where the anti-Semitic sentiment was even more vitriolic than Germany. But it was Germany where the Holocaust started, and some of the things that started it were: a world war happening that would mask the deaths of millions of civilians, the election of a fascist German leadership that embraced and encouraged a form of vitriolic anti-Semitism and made laws that turned German Jews into invisible non-citizens, a need to find a scape-goat for Germanys economic woes, the obedience of the German people and their need to bow before authority, with the invasion of the USSR being the one thing that made the Holocaust inevitable. If there's one factor that stands out above all others for the Holocaust happening, it's the state itself persecuting Jewish citizens. Anti-Jewish laws started off reasonably slowly and picked up speed and viciousness as time went on...

I think it's a mistake to either claim that anti-Semitism doesn't exist or that every act of anti-Semitism is a warning of the coming of a second Holocaust. I understand the need by some to see everything as a sign of a new Holocaust - people were caught unawares by the Holocaust, and even now more than 60 years later, still find it hard to understand *why* it happened in a country that should have been a poster-child for the Englightenment. It's only natural that because the warning signs were missed, people would think to themselves that there's no way they'll miss a second one coming. The problem with that sort of approach is that pointing to every act of anti-Semitism and calling out 'The Holocaust II Is Coming!!!' is ignoring that none of the factors that brought about the Holocaust are happening, and it's also ignoring that unfortunately bigotry is something that happens to other groups and that as ugly and evil as it is, it's not a warning of the imminent slaughter of those groups. Anti-Semitism (mind you, I speak of anti-Semitism, not criticism of Israel for its policies towards the Palestinian people) should be fought against, but in a rational and effective way..

Violet...

[Colorado Blue]

12. Hi Violet, of course you are correct and there were other

factors involved. But the Holocaust - indeed - other genocides that flare up around the world - cannot happen if people aren't already predisposed to bigotry against a particular group of people. And in enlightened countries like Germany that very frequently is expressed in whispers for the very reason that it is really NOT acceptable on the polished, rational surface of things.

My in-laws are German, Opa having flown for the Luftwaffe. They're about 80 now and their civilized faces slip occasionally. Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry, for example, they are so mad at George Bush right now they have decided he a) looks Jewish and b) he has a Jewish grandparent.

I use this anecdote to illustrate a point which cuts 2 ways: even after all these years the worst insult they can think of is to say somebody is or looks Jewish. And secondly, anger at Bush is expressing itself in terms of antisemitism. I think this is happening elsewhere in the States, among people who would consider themselves liberal. Antisemitism - and I don't mean being upset at the policies of Israel - is definitely on the upsurge.

As to the aspect of the German state actively hunting Jews and other groups - one could argue that the War on Terror and the Patriot Act have already given the government cover to hunt people they don't like, or whom they fear. And in a time when people are scared and increasingly vocal about their underlying bigotry - no longer politely hidden - I think another bloodletting is altogether too possible.

Finally, one group who must take some credit for the Holocaust: liberals in Western countries who were stone antisemites and who failed not only to help the trapped Jews, but who merely shrugged when told of their agony. These ranged from people who had real political power to the intellectual elite. Two of my favorite authors, Henry Miller and Laurence Durrell, shared the same publisher - a man who published their shocking and innovative work when nobody else would touch it - and they called him, instead of "our publisher", "the Manchester Jew". These people, and others like them, with their eloquent voices, could have stopped this evil before it got off the ground. Stranger still, Durrell had two Jewish wives, one the model for Justine herself, heroine of The Alexandria Quartet. Yet antisemitism threads itself throughout his brilliant writing, particularly the works on the Greek islands. It's a disease of Western culture that is flaring anew.

Indeed, even after the War, after the extent of the Holocaust had become apparent - nobody wanted the Jews. It is impossible for a person to understand the history of Israel without understanding the bitter imperative embodied by the sad remnants of European Jewry, nor the beacon of hope she represented for the Sephardic Jews scattered throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Perhaps you need to be Jewish to understand the depth of our love for Israel - but I would hope an imaginative, intelligent American would be able to empathize at least to some extent. However, I know people, fellow DU'ers, who are afraid to visit this forum let alone post on it - because they are so hurt by what THEY feel is the antisemitism expressed hereon.

That's why we can't be quiet now when confronted with antisemitism, and it's why we must be extremely careful, when discussing Israel, to remember that "Israel" is not a THING. It is a nation of human beings, each of whom has a story and a right to be on this planet, each of whom has links to people here. Well-meant criticism of Israeli policy on the part of some thoughtful DUer's, other intellectuals and peace activists is slopping over into hostility against the Jewish people themselves, their houses of worship, and their children.

[Violet_Crumble]

13. We don't disagree on the predisposition thing...

..but without those other factors as well, the Holocaust wouldn't have happened. My understanding of Germany between the wars was that anti-Semitism wasn't a thing to be ashamed of and kept to whispers - it was an ingrained thing that the German population treated as a matter of fact. All but the most vitriolic of them would cringe at the vulgarity of the most extreme anti-Semites, but if laws were made that made the persecution of Jews 'above board', they were all for it...

Of course the Patriot Act is a really dangerous thing when we look back at Nazi Germany and what happened there, but Jews aren't being targetted by it as far as I'm aware...

I think using yr elderly German in-laws as an example of how US liberals think is a bit flawed. Elderly Germans who lived through WWII would be carrying heaps of guilt, shame, remnants of the anti-Semitism that thrived in that era, and denial that Americans and even younger generations of Germans wouldn't carry around...

As far as I'm concerned, Israel is a state with the same rights and obligations as every other state. It shouldn't get a free pass on things because people *love* it. So what? People everywhere feel nationalistic fervour towards countries of all kinds. That's fine up to the point that those same people support the oppression and mistreatment of another group of people in order to maintain their *love* of their beloved country of choice. As for those folk you claim are afraid to visit this forum cause of the anti-Semitism, I'm calling bullshit on them. While there are unfortunately some posters who arrive here and leave anti-Semitic posts (I notice those timid little DUers don't seem to be concerned about the anti-Arab/Muslim posts that also get dropped in this forum), the mods are quick and those folk don't last at DU. Of course I suspect that these timid folk classify criticism of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians as anti-Semitism, in which case their absense probably saves the collective IQ of this forum from dropping a shitload of points. For that I thank them :)

I'm not sure what you mean when you say well-meant criticism of Israel slops over into anti-Semitism. Maybe some examples would make it clearer, I think...

Violet...

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Colorado Blue]

16. Violet, apparently I am not even allowed to express what I

think and what I feel, without being blown off the board.

I stand by what I have observed. It is unfortunate that attempts to clarify and amplify my comments will not now be seen by others, so they can understand your response to MY response and judge for themselves the merits of what I am trying to express.

Again, I am STILL hoping for some discourse with you. But I do not enjoy being bullied because I mention A Certain Term. I believe A Certain Term was the TOPIC of this thread, and that incidents of A Certain Term are increasing and are troubling to the victims of A Certain Term.

[Coastie for Truth]

5. ALSO IN NEO LIBERAL SAN FRANCISCO AND BERKELEY

Cal State San Francisco - "Neo Liberal" (as distinguished from Liberals) attacked and beat up Pro-Israel Demonstrators after Pro-Israeli and Pro-Palestinian demonstrations degenerated into a shouting match, and then into pushing and shoving, and then into punching. Cal State SF Administration only took disciplinary action against the Pro-Israel demonstrators.

UC Berkeley - Students leaving Seder at the Chabad House after a Seder were attacked. Neither UC Berkeley nor the Berkeley PD took action.

This was not graffiti. This was "assault and battery" - a violation of the California Criminal Code. A FELONY.

I am a Californian by choice, I live in the SF Bay Area by choice, I am a liberal, I am an ACLUer, I tithe to the Democratic Party, I am a member of Amnesty International< as an under-employed and under-payed PhD engineer I would not even interview armaments and munitions makers. I voted for Ira Ruskin, not Tex Poizner. - I am not a neo-con.[/ul>

[Igel]

4. It doesn't say if the 8 red "domes" being swastikaed were

among the 14. (I have to keep a lookout for the things ... then again, I'd probably just run into another car if I did.)

If they weren't, the problem's worse than the headline says. If they were, well, while swastikaing the red balls is certainly offensive, I'm not sure it's specifically anti-Jewish. Could be anti- all kinds of folk.

This actually made news this morning on the NPR station, but no further info was given.

[IndianaGreen]

9. Update: An Illinois DUer has posted an incident of anti-Semitism

We are not discussing political theory here, and we are not speculating about a phony claim of anti-Semitism by a French rabbi.

Anti-Semites could care less that your last name is Sharon or Rabin. The mere fact one is Jewish condemns you in their eyes.

This is happening in our own backyard!

Here is the link to in_cog_ni_to's post in GD:

Help? My son was called a "Dirty Jew" at PUBLIC school yesterday and

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3176593