The domestic terrorism perpetrated in Charlottesville, Virginia, by neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the KKK has left so many of us incensed and distraught. It was particularly jarring to those of us who live in northwest Ohio to learn that the driver of the car that plowed into a crowd of protestors, killing one and injuring many others, lives in Maumee, Ohio.
Part of the mission of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Toledo is to foster constructive relationships within the Jewish community and among people of all faiths and cultures in order to promote a just, democratic, and pluralistic American society. We join with the many who have already condemned these acts of hatred and violence. We will work relentlessly with other community organizations to keep hatred and bigotry out of northwest Ohio and our nation.
Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer began this relentless work when he spoke out against the rally and attended a candlelight vigil the following night. He was almost immediately assaulted on Twitter. The tweets accosting Signer, who is Jewish, were explicitly anti-Semitic. Equally anti-Semitic and racist were the chants of the torchbearers, “Blut and Boden” (Blood and Soil), a German phrase prominently used during the rise of the Third Reich.
History teaches us that discrimination and marginalization of ethnic and racial minorities leads to the destruction of the fabric of democracy and worse–much worse.
In the words of Elie Wiesel: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
Signed,
Eric Dubow, President,
Sue Ann Hochberg, JFGT JCRC Chair
