Even as I go to Temple on the Jewish High Holidays each year, with a police officer or security guard outside protecting us while we pray, I had not been frightened that anti-Semitism would rise to those horrific proportions again. Only once in my life was I called a “dirty Jew.” Yet, recently, as we heard about Jews being targeted and murdered in both France and Denmark, a fear rose inside me. After all, it is only 70 years after Auschwitz, and I still have living relatives who have been in concentration camps.
Blog
March 23, 2015 - 10:00am
Outspoken comedian W. Kamau Bell, who just signed a deal for a new CNN series, stood outside a Berkeley, CA cafe showing some books he just purchased to his wife and her friends, who were sitting at tables. Kamau is black and his wife and her friends are white. An employee inside the cafe tapped on the window and gestured for Kamau to “move along” as there was “no selling.” He wrote about the experience of yet again being a black man standing, and the cafe owner, who was mortified, invited him to a discussion.
March 18, 2015 - 4:26pm
Swastikas appeared on a Jewish fraternity several weeks ago, reminding the University of California, Davis community of the dangers of ongoing anti-Semitism and hate. NIOT is working with a group of Davis residents who want to change the atmosphere in town.
March 17, 2015 - 4:21pm
Last week began with an estimated 70,000 people gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma to commemorate the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” a reminder of the violence that black people and their supporters met even as they adhered to nonviolent resistance. President Obama’s speech at the event was clear and inspiring, a call to meet the many challenges we still face today.
March 12, 2015 - 2:09pm
After several members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon frat were caught on video taking part in a racist chant last week, the University of Oklahoma moved decisively Monday, cutting ties with the national fraternity, ordering that its on-campus chapter be shut down, and expelling two students involved in the incident.