Opinion by Ron Kokish
Adolph Hitler was interviewed on the radio. “I’m going to kill 6 million Jews and 5 clowns”, he announced. “Why Clowns?” the interviewer asked. “See,” Hitler replied, “Nobody cares about Jews.” Lately, I’ve been feeling that Hitler had a point.
Racism is treating a racial, cultural or ethnic group differently than you treat your own group, or having different rules for them. When the group is Jewish, it’s called antisemitism. Lately, I’ve seen antisemitism, right here, in Carbondale.
Arab countries declared war on Israel the day it was founded, May 14, 1948, with an announced goal of driving every Jew they didn’t kill out of the region.
Mostly, an uneasy ceasefire exists. Iran has not declared war but its relationship to Israel is openly hostile. It funds Hamas, a relative newcomer whose charter (constitution) contains: “: “Israel will exist . . . until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
On Oct. 7, Hamas soldiers raped, beheaded, murdered, and burned alive Jewish civilians, took others hostage for display, torture and execution, and filmed their carnage to proudly post on the internet. Whatever one’s opinions about Israel’s behavior over the past 75 years, it makes sense for Israel to put Hamas out of business permanently. Israel is, after all, involved in a declared war with an enemy whose raison d’être is to kill you; negotiation is not an available option.
On Nov. 11, the leader of a peaceful demonstration demanding that Israel halt its military campaign spoke to the Aspen Daily News. He was “aghast and horrified at Israel’s indiscriminate bombing and assault on 2.3 million innocent Palestinians.” Indiscriminate? Israel was bombing military targets identified by their intelligence, targets that Hamas had purposely placed adjacent to or under apartments, hospitals and schools. This is a standard part of Hamas’ playbook. Where was his outrage at Hamas for using 2.3 million innocent people as human shields? Where were demands that Hamas release innocent hostages in return for a ceasefire?
In a Nov. 11 letter to the Post Independent, a former Carbondale trustee wrote about Israel “raining hellfire and revenge on a locked people,” and taking “a close look at Jewish cloistered society.” Hellfire, yes. But revenge? Israeli hellfire had military objectives and is ending as those objectives are achieved.
“Cloistered Jewish Society?” We sailed with ancient Phoenician traders and have lived all over the world for 3500 years. Marco Polo noted the presence of Jewish communities in various parts of Asia, including at the court of Kublai Khan in China. When Israel declared its existence, we didn’t even have a common language except for prayer. We speak the languages of the countless countries we live in and when allowed (which is most of the time in most countries), we become professionals, teachers, business people, soldiers, and politicians. There has never been a more worldly people than the Jews.
“In the Kibbutz, education rarely strays from religious parameters . . .” the former trustee wrote. Sorry, but the original Kibbutzniks were mostly atheists and socialists. Now they’re businesspeople and professionals whose work spans the globe. The security on your computer probably originates from an Israeli Kibbutz. This matters because disinformation about a targeted group is a well-established method for justifying subsequent persecution.
There’s been evidence of antisemitism at Roaring Fork High School too. A year ago, swastikas were penciled on bathroom walls. The school followed its protocols and moved on without informing the larger community. No one was apprehended. But the Jewish Community thought we should have been informed because we cannot defend ourselves from what we don’t know. Jewish leader Niki Delson met with principal Baiardo, Mayor Bohmfalk and school board member Kenny Teitler to explain that for us, swastikas are an active existential threat. We want to be informed whenever antisemitic incidents occur, and we would love to be a part of programs to promote intercultural understanding. Delson was assured that the school board would take it up and try to develop an expanded protocol that included community leaders when there were racist incidents in a school.
Last month there were two more incidents of swastikas on school walls. Again, internal protocols were followed and again, the Jewish Community was not informed. Delson contacted Baiardo and the Mayor. “Hey, what happened? I thought we were going to be in the loop?” Mayor Ben and the chief communications officer for Roaring Fork School District acknowledged they’d dropped the ball. They promised to pick it up. A meeting between Jewish leaders and RE1 leaders is being worked on for early December. Then, Delson followed up with Carbondale Police Chief Kirk Wilson. Surprised, Wilson said he hadn’t heard about the antisemitic incident but would follow up and get back to her. The next day, Chief Wilson told Delson that this time, the school did not make a police report or even inform School Resource Officer Paul Lazzo about the incident.
What are we to think? Maybe this is just the ordinary bureaucratic tendency to sweep disruptive events under the rug because it keeps daily work running more smoothly. If so, it’s also much more than that, because keeping this quiet allows antisemitism “privacy” to grow strong, until eventually, it erupts into overt persecution.
I’m not claiming that antisemitism is rampant in Carbondale. It isn’t. The people I’m calling out will probably be shocked and sincerely profess innocence. That’s because antisemitism can be institutional; historically designed into Western thinking to be insidiously obscured from conscious awareness. Until Oct. 7, I didn’t know it was there either. Now I do. I know most of these people personally and I ask them and every reader to consider long and hard because I’d like to remain friends. But, I won’t remain silent.
Ron Kokish is married to Niki Delson. Mature Content is a monthly feature from Age-Friendly Carbondale.