I’ve lived in Texas all my life, and there is a phrase I’ve never ever heard spoken, not by my neighbors in the Dallas suburbs and East Texas or my family from rural Oklahoma. That phrase is “dirty Jews.” As I think about it, I never heard anyone in school or church say the word ‘Jew’—and if so only in biblical references and with certain respect such as “Jews are God’s only chosen people” or a reminder “Jews didn’t kill Jesus; the Romans did.” That is my background. On the flip side, I can’t say I’ve never heard anything derogatory against blacks, Mexicans and even women but not a word of disrespect or animosity (or even acknowledgement really) about people who happen to be Jewish.
Having lived many decades now, I’ve sadly come to realize there are parts of my own country where hatred against Jews is commonly spoken in jest or contempt by mostly white people in families and communities where emotions are enraged by the thought of a Jew living next door or attending school with their Christian children.
And now after the largest massacre of Jews on U.S. soil, all of us who call ourselves American must never forget the many enclaves throughout our homeland where anti-Jewish sentiment festers and boils. We must always be aware of those whose family and acquaintances are hostile toward Jews, wishing them dead, insisting they control the mass media, writing and talking online about their hatred of this particular group of people.
I cannot comprehend the world’s perpetual hatred of Jews, of all people, still today given their history and the Holocaust—which did occur and was proudly chronicled and methodically recorded by Germans during Hitler’s reign. The only anti-Semite acts I recall growing up around Dallas was synagogues vandalized with swastikas, probably the work of teens, wannabe Nazis who more than likely by now have lived long enough to regret what they did.
Faster than the speed of speech
Americans have always wrestled with our constitutional right of free speech. This is why and how we’ve come to this point in our political and social history: the internet and our insistence to leave uncensored what others say and believe, no matter how offensive, prejudiced and untrue. Even the American Civil Liberties Union, which members include a number of Jewish people, would support the right of everyone to say whatever he or she wants, short of pranking “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Therefore, responsible speech was the key to maintaining our free society.
But because of free speech in the Information Age, we’ve created an era of ugliness. Those white communities throughout our nation, the ones who collectively hate Jews enough to kill them or wish them harm, have discovered a brotherhood of sorts on the internet. White Nationalist websites are worldwide with memberships growing wildly since the dawn of the internet. These are sites filled with jokes and sensationalized stories about blacks and every race and ethnicity on the planet, of course including Jews. After Trump was elected president, our own crop of white Nationalists and neo-Nazis felt they could finally come out in public and proclaim their ideals, chanting in their march on Charlottesville “The Jews will not replace us!!!”
Shocking—to someone like me, raised without ever hearing an unkind sentiment against Jews. I grew up on ’60s & ’70s TV, watching plenty of comedians comfortably make fun of their Jewish heritage, their people and the stereotypes. In the privacy of our homes, we laughed because the comedians, actors, singers, writers and shows made us think it was all right to laugh at what was ludicrous. No harm done because in the heart of TV land, we held no animosity toward Jews as a people or a culture. We were entertained, never seeing a hint of sadness in those who made us smile. We had nothing to fear from each other, audience and entertainer.
Too, we were horrified when watching movies about real-life stories during the Holocaust, of degradation and for a few survival. We cried at depictions of a stark reality, what European Jews had to go through during Hitler’s reign. We wept because of our shared humanity, never for a moment thinking deep resentment and hatred toward these people still exists, not all these years after the last world war.
Like the Nazis, white Nationalists are more often Christian than atheist, surely celebrating Christmas and Easter especially if they have children. That is most incomprehensible: Christians hating Jews. The Jews would tell us the hatred started long ago, an animosity, a tribal fear, a social and cultural jealousy that goes back in time thousands of years, way before Christ. Jewish history is not the history of everyone else. That is because many communities would not allow Jews as residents. Then television and movies brought Jews right into our homes, like virtual neighbors. Turns out, Jewish people, whether through humor or historical fact, can teach the rest of us quite a lot: about spiritual faith, common decency, empathy, justice, assimilation, wisdom, humor, cooperation, communication, and acceptance of those who hate them … and always will.