* Depraved minds at work…
A Jewish community center in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood was evacuated Monday after a bomb threat. The FBI is investigating.
The Hyde Park JCC at 5200-block of South Hyde Park Boulevard received a phone call Monday morning indicating a bomb threat. Following protocol, the center was evacuated and Chicago police arrived to investigate. Police gave the all-clear shortly before noon.
According to The JCC Association of North America, 11 Jewish community centers received called-in bomb threats Monday, all of which were eventually determined to be hoaxes. […]
A total of 54 Jewish Community Centers in the U.S. have received threats, sometimes multiple threats, since the beginning of January. The JCC in northwest suburban Lake Zurich was targeted last month.
* From the Atlantic…
The calls may be a novel form of intimidation, but the context around them is not. American Jews are victims of more reported hate crimes than any other group in the United States, and have been subject to the majority of religiously motivated offenses every year since 1995, when the FBI first started reporting these statistics. The phone calls may not result in violence, but they contribute to an atmosphere of anti-Semitism already well-established in the United States. […]
The calls seem to be connected: They are coordinated in timing and message, and often contain generic promises of violence. In one recording, posted by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the caller threatens, “In a short time, a large number of Jews are going to be slaughtered. Their heads are going to … blown off from the shrapnel.”
A recording of that January call is here.
* And across the Mississippi River in a St. Louis suburb…
As many as 200 headstones at a Jewish cemetery were toppled over the weekend here in a case that is making national headlines.
Anita Feigenbaum, executive director of the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery, said officials will be cataloging the damage Tuesday and notifying relatives whose families are affected. A monument company will decide which headstones need to be replaced and which need to be reset, she said.
* Mark Oppenheimer steps back a bit…
As bad as 2017 has been for anti-Semitic incidents, 2016 wasn’t great, either. Nor was 2015, when the Anti-Defamation League reported 90 anti-Semitic incidents on campuses, twice as many as the year before — a slow drip that has continued into this school year. […]
Recently, the Pew Research Center released a survey designed to gauge Americans’ “feeling thermometer” toward various religions. Pew asked more than 4,000 adults to say which religious groups they felt “warm” toward. The poll showed that Jews elicit the “warmest” feelings of any religious group. The finding was fairly consistent across all groups — Catholics like Jews; mainline Protestants like Jews; atheists like Jews; and members of all age groups within those religions like Jews (although among those touchy-feely millennials, Buddhists garnered warmer feelings than Jews did).
Poll results that ask about warm feelings are, in their way, as inadequate a gauge of a people’s safety as a few dozen empty bomb threats in a country of more than 300 million people. And Jews’ sense of well-being ultimately doesn’t come down to cold numbers, anyway. In Europe, what’s chilling about the position of Jews is not so much the recent murders of Jews and attacks on synagogues and Jewish businesses but the widespread public indifference. Here in the United States, anti-Semitism is very much with us, and always has been: According to FBI statistics for 2014, of religiously motivated hate crimes, Jews were targeted 57 percent of the time. Muslims were the victims 16 percent of the time, followed by Catholics, Protestants and atheists/agnostics.
That Pew survey is here. We shouldn’t let these lunatics divide us.
- Downstate - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 11:17 am:
I don’t get this. How many people do you know that have the hatred, inclination, or time to participate in this type of activity, or violent protests that we see cropping up? If someone were paying rioters to destroy downtown Springfield, wouldn’t we want to criminally pursue the organizer? Frankly, as part of the arrest process, we need to seriously consider the use of RICO to end the dollars that are paying to destroy our cities. As always, “follow the money.”
- Biscuit Head - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 11:19 am:
It’s an unfortunate reality that these fringe elements apparently feel more empowered - possibly as a result of the change of President. While I don’t recall Trump personally saying anything to embolden these nuts I also don’t recall him strongly and forcefully denouncing it either.
If the only criticism of this hate comes from the Left, I’m afraid it will continue and perhaps grow. Good people on the Right (Trump supporters and non-supporters, Evangelicals and non-religious conservatives, etc.) also need to take whatever steps are necessary to put a stop to it. We cannot allow this kind of extremism to hide within our ranks.
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 11:23 am:
Nor should we allow them to shiny themselves up with benign sounding descriptions such as alt-right, ethnic nationalists, America Firsters or cute little froggy mascots.
Or pretend to be respectable “conservative” campaigners against “political correctness” until they go a wee bit too far with the pro-pederasty.
The likes of The Daily Stormer and David Duke ain’t hearing dog whistles these days. The message is loud and clear. They’re online, see for yourselves how they dig it.
- Free Set of Steak Knives - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 11:50 am:
The alt-right website The Stormer, named for a Nazi newspaper Der Stermer, claims as many as 120,000 visits per day.
The site is an organizing tool directing anti-Jewish activity and promoting anti-Jewish talking points.
We are no longer dealing with a random assortment of fringe lunatics. We are dealing with a semi-organized brigade of fringe lunatics, and their numbers are much larger than most Americans want to admit.
To the post: while it’s true that these have been empty bomb threats, at least for now thankfully, there is no question that the threat of a bomb inflicts terror and ultimately emotional trauma on children, their families, and the staff of JCC’s.
- No Worries - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 12:08 pm:
As a Jew, I don’t worry about those who publicize threats. It’s the stealth operators that scare me.
- Put the fun in unfunded - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 12:23 pm:
“We are no longer dealing with a random assortment of fringe lunatics. We are dealing with a semi-organized brigade of fringe lunatics, and their numbers are much larger than most Americans want to admit.” We can include the BDS movement on many college campuses in that group.
- Grandson of Man - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 12:44 pm:
There’s an exchange at Trump’s recent press conference between a Jewish reporter and Trump, in which the reporter mentioned an increase in alleged anti-Semitic incidents. Trump didn’t let him finish talking and ordered him to sit down. Then Trump made it about himself, saying that he’s the least anti-Semitic person the reporter (or everyone) has ever known.
What’s more, the White House omitted mentioning Jews in its Holocaust Remembrance statements on its website and defended this action by saying many died in the Holocaust.
It’s disturbing that this is coming from the top. It’s also disturbing that Trump has scapegoated and demonized Muslims through words and deeds but says nothing or little about terrorism by white supremacists. He said little or nothing about the terrorism incident in the Canadian mosque last month, in which there were deaths and many injuries.
Trump may or may not be a racist, but I think his rhetoric–his popping off at the mouth–and choice for a top advisor (Steven Bannon) gives the silent green light to white supremacists, anti-Muslims and anti-Semites.
- Free Set of Steak Knives - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 12:47 pm:
Put the Fun:
BDS argues for sanctions against Israel to end the Palestinian occupation.
Der Stermer argued that Jews drink the blood of young children. The Daily Stormer likewise refers to Jewish people as “blood-sucking.”
Your comparison is absurd.
- molly maguire - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 1:03 pm:
Bannon, Trump, Breitbart.
- blue dog dem - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 2:08 pm:
I blame Obama.
- Just Observing - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 2:12 pm:
@Free Set of Steak Knives - Correction: The declared mission of the BDS movement is the “right of return” of all Palestinians, which they know, would lead to the destruction of the state of Israel.
Some BDSers are engaged, although often misguidedly, simply in waging criticism against Israeli policies, but BDS is a very anti-semetic, terrorist-sympathizing movement.
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/key-issues/bds/bds-and-antisemitism/
https://engageonline.wordpress.com/2016/06/01/why-bds-is-antisemitic-david-hirsh/
http://www.adl.org/israel-international/anti-israel-activity/c/faq-on-adl-and-bds.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/#.WKyeem_afcs
- mama - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 2:12 pm:
If Trump was not racist, he would not surround himself with people like Steven Bannon & Jeff Session.
- Downstate - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 2:15 pm:
Grandson of man,
So you believe that Trump, with a Jewish son-in-law, and grandchildren, is “green lighting” anit-Semetic rhetoric?
Really?
- Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 3:05 pm:
These types of intimidation and racial targeting aren’t being condemned as they were in the past, as younger generations talk amongst themselves about tolerance and acceptance among their peers.
I find this sickening and I’m disgusted that my country seems to be regressing back to an age of intolerance, but now it’s openly brazen at times with crowds cheering the “politically incorrect” but they seem to have no clue what that means and why they’re not doing anything but encouraging hate.
Either we as a country are what we want the world to see us as, the beacon for freedom, both at home or abroad, or we are failing in our own Grand Experiment, letting down all that fought and died so everyone enjoyed freedom and a place where you never fear your own race and religion, just to start there.
- Mama - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 3:17 pm:
=- Downstate - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 2:15 pm: =
“So you believe that Trump, with a Jewish son-in-law, and grandchildren, is “green lighting” anit-Semetic rhetoric?
Really? ”
Trumps cabinet is not condemning any racial targeting. Therefore, they are allowing their voters to believe what they are doing is ok.
- @MisterJayEm - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 4:23 pm:
“So you believe that Trump, with a Jewish son-in-law, and grandchildren, is ‘green lighting’ anit-Semetic (sic) rhetoric? Really?”
Did you seriously get old enough to type a comment without ever hearing the phrase “one of the good ones”?
Really?
– MrJM
- Mac - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 4:45 pm:
No Worries nailed it. The threats could be real,or just punks. The serious attackers or bombers are those that don’t warn, but act. But taking any direct verbal threat lightly is not an option.
- Grandson of Man - Tuesday, Feb 21, 17 @ 6:27 pm:
I don’t necessarily see Trump as a racist or anti-Semite. I see him as a user, an opportunist–someone who profits from and promotes himself off of people’s paranoia, hate, lack of information, etc.
Look at the way he ran his campaign. He let his supporters chant, “Build the wall” and “Lock her up.” He encouraged violence in at least one of his rallies, telling his supporter to punch a protester in the face. In his campaign Sen. McCain didn’t allow someone to call Obama an Arab, which was an insult to Arabs and Obama.
What kind of candidate lets his supporters repeatedly chant “Lock her up” about one of the most prominent American political figures, Hillary Clinton, who was not charged with or convicted of a crime.
Trump has been playing with fire, and with mentally ill people out there who take this stuff seriously and act on it, that’s dangerous.
- blue dog dem - Wednesday, Feb 22, 17 @ 12:48 am:
Grandson of Man. Paranoids? Hatemongers? The uninformed? 63,000,000 Americans fit that mold.