Guest opinion: We must stand together and fight hate

Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, is the day we spend fasting, soul-searching, and reflecting on ways to make ourselves better human beings and our world a better place. It is the day on which the largest number of Jews gather together in prayer.

Last week, during Yom Kippur, an individual climbed the roof of the Temple Beth Shalom building and painted a swastika on the interior courtyard wall. It is likely that it took place in the middle of the night when the building was empty, but it was placed in such a way that the people inside would see it first.  

This was a well-thought-out act of hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism.  And, in fact, members of our community did see it first – parents with young children who were playing in the courtyard as the daylong worship came to its conclusion in the early evening.  The parents reacted strongly, of course, necessitating an explanation to our children, most of whom – thankfully up until now – have had no understanding of the idea that you can hate someone for their ethnicity, their race or their beliefs.  

Anti-Semitism contains elements of all of these forms of hatred.  And it is alive and well here in Spokane, as well as in many other places all over the globe and in the United States. In the last month, there were ugly incidents on the campus of the University of California-Santa Barbara, Emory University in Atlanta, and a restaurant in Jackson, Mississippi, where a rabbi was first offered a “Jewish size,” which was small because Jews are cheap, and then kicked out of the restaurant.  

Blatant anti-Semitism exemplified by the swastika is just a larger manifestation of stereotypes that pervade many an American home: Jews are cheap, Jews are rich, Jews control the media, Jews control the government.  

These stereotypes, as well as overt hatred, don’t hurt just Jews, they hurt us all.  As Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, wrote in a recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal, “Anti-Semitism has always been, historically, the inability to make space for differences among people, which is the essential foundation of a free society. That is why the politics of hate now assaults Christians, Bahai, Yazidis and many others … as well as Jews. To fight it, we must stand together, people of all faiths and of none. The future of freedom is at stake.” 

The best way to ensure the future of freedom, and not a terrible descent into the past, is to get to know one another as human beings, and to teach our children to respect diversity, so that none of Spokane’s children has to be told that they are hated on the basis of their ethnicity, their race or their faith.

To that end, we invited people of all faiths and backgrounds to join us this past Friday evening for a Special Sabbath service of welcome and solidarity at Temple Beth Shalom.

Let’s stand together against anti-Semitism and hate in Spokane.