Everyday Racism: 84 years ago and today

As Edmund Burke once said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”  For the past 7 months in NJ, we have seen a lot of good people saying nothing — as hatred and animosity towards the (((others))) came to the fore.

When a Mahwah Council-member (he has since resigned) mocked a Holocaust survivor and pointed to the “money-trail”, the good people were silent.

Racism isn’t new and hating people because they are different will never go out of style.  But between the violent outbursts we learn about in civil rights battles, there was always an everyday racism.  It’s the story of average, everyday people.  People that didn’t seem to be expressing active hatred.  People that seemed to just want to continue going about their daily lives the way they always had been.

It’s the everyday attitude that lets hatred proliferate when it ceases to be the muffled noise, and moves to the streets.

Eighty-four years ago, silence by good and decent people in Europe let evil triumph, as people took to the streets to advocate the destruction of the Jewish eruv and threw stones through windows of the Jewish community president’s home.

I have seen similar comments of those who threaten to tear it down today.  Not in Europe, but here in New Jersey.

Perhaps, those that don’t learn from history ARE doomed to repeat it.  What lessons are you learning?


Jewish Rite Nearly Starts Rumania Riot

Police Force Brought Out When Gentiles Protest Community Action

(Jewish Telepgraphic Agency)

BUCHAREST, Feb. 13. — The combined efforts of all the members of the police force of Dej. Transylvania were required today to quiet disturbances which arose when the Christian population of the town protested against the execution of a Sabbath duty by the Jewish community of Dej.

When the members of the Jewish community appeared in the streets carrying wire to be used in partitioning toff a part of the town for the purpose of establishing an “eyrev” for the Sabbath, the Christian population began a demonstration, inisting that the “eyrev” symbolizes Jewish possession of the township.  The demonstrators marched through the streets of the Jewish quarters, breaking windows and damaging the house of the Jewish community president.

Although the police of the town, which is predominantly Jewish succeeded in establishing order, excitement still continues in the atmosphere.

(According to Jewish custom, which prohibits the carrying of articles on the Sabbath, except in one’s own home, an “eyrev” — or wire surrounding a district where things may be carried — can be fixed to poles surrounding the district.)

Source [JTA]:

Jewish Daily Bulletin 1934-02-14

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