6A SUNDAY, MAY 5, 2024 MARSHFIELD NEWS HERALD was happening in other states. Obviously, the situation has changed. As Jewish stu- dents are taunted on campus, as protes- ters shamelessly call for peace while chanting for intifada, as protesters harass students with visible Jewish clothing and symbols, I can no longer remain silent about what our students have been expe- riencing on campuses, and I can no longer accept the silence of uni- administrations. Students versity have to stage a sit-in or storm a residence to be heard. As the leader of the federation, which is charged with the safety and security of the Jewish community across Wisconsin, I have worked closely over the last seven months to de-escalate tensions between Milwaukee communities on and our campuses.
We have dissuaded staging counterprotests out of concern for the safety of our community members. We continue discussions with university ad- ministrations, and we have placed de- mands on the universities, most impor- tantly that they publicly and unequiv- ocally make it known that antisemitism and hate will not be tolerated. Along with the Holocaust Education Resource Center, leading Holocaust educators, we know the dan- gers of unchecked antisemitism and ha- tred and where they can lead. Like you, we believe in cornerstones of American democracy including freedom of speech. But hate speech directed towards any mi- nority, including Jews, has no place on our college campuses, and must not be- come normalized.
We are further dis- turbed by the weaponizing of the Holo- caust and the memory of its many vic- tims as a political and rhetorical strategy. Such invoking of the Holocaust is disre- spectful to the victims and survivors of the genocide, and further traumatizes members of the Jewish community. With this backdrop, and the context of our times, this piece stands as a com- memoration of Yom HaShoah. May we never forget. Before I continue, dispel the myth that any criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic.
Anyone can vehemently dis- agree with Israel, the war, leader- ship and the treatment of Palestinians without utilizing antisemitic tropes or ac- tions. Period. The new antisemitism: Hatred takes new form First, what is antisemitism? Simply put, the hatred of Jews because they are Jewish. It has commonalities with other forms of discrimination and hate, both blossom when society is divided. Yet, while most forms of discrimination are about making a group of people ap- pear less than, antisemitism dehumaniz- es by painting the Jews as secretly more powerful, conspiring, and to be feared.
Another distinguishing factor of anti- semitism is that it changes based on the core values, and the populist beliefs of each era, always a way to be normalized as As Noah Feldman, in his February 2024 Time Magazine article, The New Antisemitism, writes: has managed to rein- vent itself multiple times throughout his- tory, each time keeping some of the old tropes around while simultaneously cre- ating new ones adapted to present cir- c*mstances. In each iteration, antisemitism the ideological preoccupations of the mo- ment. In antisemitic discourse, Jews are always made to exemplify what a given group of people considers to be the worst feature of the social order in which they Jews across the nation and in Wisconsin are not safe The reason we mark the remembrance of the Holocaust is to remind us to never allow anything like this to happen again, to watch for signs that Jews safe. I have bad news: Jews safe. Accord- ing to a recent Pew Research study on re- ligiously motivated hate incidents in the U.S., more than of Jews here report feeling unsafe; of adult Jews in the U.S.
report experiencing serious antisem- itism, up from just in 2020. Our numbers locally this trend. From 2015-2022 incidents were up our 2023 estimate a increase from last year. This comes from the Mil- waukee Jewish Com- munity Relations Council Antisemitism Audit. Locally, stories of antisemitism abound, from swastikas and slurs drawn in the visitor locker room at a local high school game, to reported incidents of vandalism involving swastikas and slurs on playgrounds at area elementary schools.
How to spot when criticism becomes antisemitic What does this have to do with Israel? When campus protesters incorrectly accuse Israel of being white colonialists, they may provoke emotional responses, but the basis of their animosity is on both points. While an anti-Zionist would have you believe that Israel is a white dominant culture, more than half of Jewish Israelis have Eastern Jewish roots. Their families did not experience the Holocaust. Instead, over 820,000 were expelled or pushed out of their homes from Arab and Muslim countries after 1948, when Israel became a nation. And as we just celebrated Passover, commemorating the Israelites Egypt to return to their homeland, a good time to remind us that Jews are thus indigenous to the land, not colonizers.
The majority of Israelis are not European, after all. As I stated earlier, you can vehemently disagree with Israel, the war, and the treatment of Palestinians without anti- semitic tropes or actions. Here are a few signs to identify and avoid them: 1 Delegitimization. Israel is the only UN-recognized country people feel com- fortable suggesting is illegitimate despite its status as a nation. Understand the implication.
If Israel exist, where do all the Jews go? Instead, have a seri- ous conversation about how to achieve peace. 2 Distinguishing. Israel and Israelis should be held to the same standards as other countries. demonize Israel while celebrating Iran and Houthi at- tacks. 3 Demonizing.
Relying on antisemitic tropes; always casting Jews as the op- pressors and powerful conspirators. 4 Designating. This happens by blaming all Jews for the actions of the Is- raeli government. Conversely, it can hap- pen by blaming all Palestinians for Ha- mas. The point is not to do this to any group.
While American Jews are suppor- tive of the Jewish state, overwhelmingly, they have opinions on the spe- of the state, occupation, the gov- ernment and what it means to be a Jew- ish state. 5 Tokenizing. When your friend pro- claims a that they are anti-Zion- ist and believes Israel have a right to exist, understand she is not repre- sentative of all Jews, and may in fact rep- resent a very small minority. Finally, what do we do now? We all need to a bit of nuance. Look around and recognize the signs of antisemitic talk and actions.
And while on the lookout also call out Islamophobic rheto- ric as well. You have to be pro-Jew- ish or pro-Muslim, just be pro-American. One thing we all share, unless in- digenous to this land, our ancestors all came to here for a dream of a future where we can all live, disagree, and still prosper. be that America. Miryam Rosenzweig is CEO of the Mil- waukee Jewish Federation.
Rosenzweig Continued from Page 5A When the Germans bombed Warsaw on Sept. 20, 1939, life was shattered, erased. The building was shelled, blowing out the and guts of the apartments onto the population bolting in the streets. In an instant, my family joined the new refugees who in- stantly abandoned their lives, scrambling to exit the leveled city. A delay meant death, as Warsaw and its life was razed.
However. there was one complication to my to On the day the Germans bombed the city, my grandmother went into labor with her second child. He was born in col- lapsing hospital, overwhelmed by injured Polish civilians and soldiers. Leah and Duvid understood that their parents and siblings died during the shelling. Their small family with a newborn was forced into the Warsaw Ghetto.
At its height, 460,000 Jews were imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto with an area of less than 1.3 square miles. Try to imagine it. Those Jews who die in the bombing were to starve and were beaten into slave labor for the Nazi war machine. For a few, escaping through hand-dug tunnels was the only hope. Despite being hunted by Gestapo, my family escaped and survived Jews in the ghetto died from starva- tion, disease or were eventually forced on trains that took them to the Treblinka death camp, where they were all mur- dered.
Along with 250,000 Warsaw Jews, Romani and an additional 875,000 Jews from Nazi occupied territories were mur- dered at Treblinka. All of them. Unlike the fate of most Jews, my fam- ily survived and escaped the Warsaw Ghetto only to be hunted by the Gestapo (the Nazi secret police). The through woods and across war torn farm- lands of Eastern Europe. Their perilous journey violent antisemitism and SS death squads that unceremoniously executed Jews.
(The SS was an elite organization within the Nazi party that included police units and spe- cial forces that carried out mass killings of civilians and oversaw German concentra- tion camps.) As a second generation survivor of the Holocaust, keenly aware of my fam- fortitude and blessed objective to live to the next day. fortunate to be here and I know it. Unfortunately, the world has not learned much about avoiding wars and genocides. Just watch the nightly news or check the newspaper. As a young adult in the 1980s, I pressed my father and grandmother to detail their survival and share the family lessons of faith and determination that brought them beyond the Holocaust.
After three years of interviews, meeting three times a week, they shared the bitter truth of their survival. When my grandmother looked directly in my eyes and told me, took everything away from I felt our legacy passed to me and beyond. Three things learned interviewing survivors My father passed in 2018, but my mind still hears him asking simple requests of future generations: Tell people that as Jews in Warsaw, we were a large part of a vibrant community living with peaceful and religious tradi- tions. Share with them how the Nazis tortured and liquidated our families and while taking deliberate and extraordinary actions to spread their hate, massacring those who were merely Remind them that the savage extermina- tion of Jews and many others were documented and witnessed. The evidence and eye-witness testimonies are overwhelming.
Even the perpetrators deny the scope of the Holocaust, claiming that it their fault and they were just following orders. Despite the devastation of the Holo- caust, I embrace three truths learned from the survivors I have met: 1 Fundamentally, I still believe that more good than evil in people, but we must remember it, preserve it and never take it for granted; 2 Every family has a story of survival that should be told and recorded, be- cause somehow you are here; 3 Encourage people to live with hope and run to help others. May your family legacy be strong and meaningful. Before it is too late, start ask- ing and share it. N.
Gingold is the international- ly acclaimed and award-winning author of Smuggle, Collect: A Holocaust Gingold Continued from Page 5A My father and his brother in Russia near the end of World War II. PROVIDED BY JEFFREY N. GINGOLD the Gun project, including two I inter- viewed on that April 2023 trip. Photographer Mike De Sisti and I start- ed with Chuck Lovelace, owner of Essential Shooting Supplies in Park Falls. He spear- headed a program to educate himself and others on the signs of suicide and to take in guns for people who wanted them out of the house for any reason.
Over several hours, Chuck spoke of his love of and his own mental health challenges after serving as a soldier in Af- ghanistan. He was passionate to be avail- able to other gun owners and to get other gun stores to join the which now has spread to nearly 44 gun stores across Wis- consin. Back in Wausau, we sat down with Debi Traeder, a longtime educator and a pioneer in suicide prevention in Wisconsin who has been around guns her whole life. Here is Debi, in her own words in italics, explaining how she got into the work that has become a passion. It was almost by accident.
I took a job as an outreach person for a mental health unit in our hospital. As I learned more about the needs of people who deal with mental health diagnoses and those who deal with the loss of someone to suicide, the more I thought I had to be involved and be able to help build awareness and reduce stigma that surrounded mental illnesses and get- ting help! I heard and names from Jean Papalia, a retired Madison police who has dedicated her retirement to this issue. She was the one who pitched the gun shop project, which was going in other states, to Chuck. I was looking for someone who could speak to suicide prevention, from the cen- tral part of Wisconsin. Jean mentioned De- bi's name and as soon as I got I was dial- ing her.
Debi recalls it well: I remember when I got the call from you, I was nervous and excited, that a voice of those of us in northern Wisconsin was go- ing to be heard, especially when it comes to and suicide. I didn't want to mess up the During that interview, my conversation with Debi naturally and I casually mentioned the idea of an event. She jumped at it. It was as if she was mentally creating checklists, who she could invite, the venue, the snacks, even as we sat there. Debi has been integral to the planning of the event, and she will be speaking that night and so will Chuck.
I want people to come away with the idea that keeping out of reach and safe is no than keeping poisons and matches away from kids. Make it a common sense thing all around. It's not just for suicide prevention but for family safety. No one on this panel wants guns taken away or outlawed, we just want them stored safely. Debi and I have talked at length about the focus and tone of the event.
We have tried to be thoughtful about who the audi- ence will hear from that night. Following the project, I heard from several gun own- ers who have responded in a positive way. We thought of that as we formed this event. Debi has reminded me several times, The messenger is important. Gun owners will listen to other gun own- ers, vets will listen to vets, law enforcement will listen to other and so on.
There is camaraderie and trust. Our goals for the night are simply to start conversations, to make a space for people concerned about this issue and provide the the chance for some poeple to connect. For Debi, she said she thinks about the one person who might be changed: If we can change one mind, storage hab- it, prevent one suicide, that will make the whole evening worth it. Diedrich Continued from Page 5A.
