Here is my column as it appeared in today"s LDR:
In his eulogy for Missouri State Auditor Thomas Schweich on March 3, Senator John Danforth looked out over the large crowd attending the funeral service, which included many politicians, and stated bluntly, “Politics as it now exists must end. We are fed up.”
Earlier in the eulogy, Danforth, who had been Schweich’s mentor, blamed the auditors’ death on ”a low point in politics that have gone so hideously wrong”.
He was referring to the rumors and innuendos that had been swirling around the halls of the State Capitol Building in Jefferson City for weeks that Schweich was a Jew and therefore could not win a gubernatorial election. Schweich had become very disturbed about what he called a “whispering campaign” to that effect, including an anonymous third-party TV commercial that mocked the Auditor, who had recently announced his candidacy for the office of Governor of Missouri.
Schweich died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound on February 26.
In a report on KMBC.com, Danforth was quoted as saying that Schwiech, who attended an Episcopal church and was not a Jew, felt “righteous indignation against what he saw as a terrible wrong”. His grandfather was Jewish and he was very proud of his Jewish heritage.
On April 13, 2014, white supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller fatally shot three people at two different locations in Overland Park, Kansas, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community.
Last week on March 5, 2015, District Court Judge Kelly Ryan of Kansas ruled that there was sufficient evidence for Miller to stand trial for the three murders. Miller told the Kansas City Star from his jail cell in November that he drove from his home in Aurora, Missouri to Overland Park, Kansas with “one thing on his mind, to kill some Jews.” None of the three victims of his shooting spree were Jewish.
The Kansas murders and the tragedy of the Missouri Auditor’s death, although being very different in nature and circumstances, have only served to highlight what appears to be a revival of anti-Semitism in America.
According to an article in the Huffington Post written by John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science at LaGrange College, Gallup pollsters have been asking voters on a regular basis how they felt about a variety of candidates based on their education, race, religion, and so on.
In 1937 only 46% said they would vote for a Jewish candidate. By 1958 it was 63%, and in 1978 82% of respondents said they would vote for a well qualified candidate nominated by their party. In 2012, that number was up to 91% of those who participated in the Gallup poll.
But do these numbers translate into the reality of actual attitudes held by Americans today? Is anti-Semitic behavior becoming more widespread?
If we look at many college campuses, the answer appears to be in the positive. In South Africa a student group last month called on all Jews to leave the Durban University of Technology. Could this happen here in the U.S.? A survey released just this week shows that significant hostility has been directed to Jewish students on U.S. campuses, too.
The National Demographic Survey of American Jewish College students found that 54% of Jewish students experienced incidents of anti-Semitism on campus in the first six months of the 2013-2014 academic year. And this survey was taken before the hostilities between Israel and Gaza last summer. There has been much more anti-Israel sentiment even since that time.
Laura B. Regan, writing in the “American Thinker” says that from NYU and Harvard to the University of Michigan and UC Berkeley, “it is not uncommon for Jewish students to receive death threats ...while administrators remain silent”. The Anti-Defamation League and the David Horowitz Freedom Center have been documenting and fighting the growing anti-Israel movements on colleges across the nation.
But it is not only on college campuses. Regan tells of loud protests she has often heard in her office forty floors above ground level in downtown Manhattan - shouts of “Free Free Palestine”, and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and sometimes the even more chilling chant of “Death to Israel”.
In San Francisco 300 anti-Israel protesters calling for violent uprisings against Israelis surrounded and threatened 30 peaceful pro-Israel demonstrators.
In July 2014 what began as a peaceful pro-Israel event in Los Angeles escalated when pro-Palestinians attacked the demonstrators and Federal Homeland Security officers were brought in.
About the same time there were protests in Seattle reflecting a general hatred of Jews. In Philadelphia and in Boston similar protests and demonstrations have taken place in the last eighteen months or so.
Not all demonstrators and protesters are content to shout hateful speech but actually encourage violence. The “knock out” games reported on television news casts involving black youths beating people until they are knocked unconscious have targeted Jews in numerous cities across the country.
Many observers believe this increase in hatred of and violence toward the Jews is another consequence of the rising influence of extremist Muslims throughout the entire world and even now reaching the shores of America.
If so, the words of warning from Senator Danforth given at the Schweich funeral ring out even more forcefully, “Anti-Semitism is always wrong and we can never let it creep into politics. Words do hurt. Words can kill. That has been proven right here in our home state.”
Obviously, his warning applies not only to the political arena, but into every area of our lives and culture.
In his eulogy for Missouri State Auditor Thomas Schweich on March 3, Senator John Danforth looked out over the large crowd attending the funeral service, which included many politicians, and stated bluntly, “Politics as it now exists must end. We are fed up.”
Earlier in the eulogy, Danforth, who had been Schweich’s mentor, blamed the auditors’ death on ”a low point in politics that have gone so hideously wrong”.
He was referring to the rumors and innuendos that had been swirling around the halls of the State Capitol Building in Jefferson City for weeks that Schweich was a Jew and therefore could not win a gubernatorial election. Schweich had become very disturbed about what he called a “whispering campaign” to that effect, including an anonymous third-party TV commercial that mocked the Auditor, who had recently announced his candidacy for the office of Governor of Missouri.
Schweich died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound on February 26.
In a report on KMBC.com, Danforth was quoted as saying that Schwiech, who attended an Episcopal church and was not a Jew, felt “righteous indignation against what he saw as a terrible wrong”. His grandfather was Jewish and he was very proud of his Jewish heritage.
On April 13, 2014, white supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller fatally shot three people at two different locations in Overland Park, Kansas, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community.
Last week on March 5, 2015, District Court Judge Kelly Ryan of Kansas ruled that there was sufficient evidence for Miller to stand trial for the three murders. Miller told the Kansas City Star from his jail cell in November that he drove from his home in Aurora, Missouri to Overland Park, Kansas with “one thing on his mind, to kill some Jews.” None of the three victims of his shooting spree were Jewish.
The Kansas murders and the tragedy of the Missouri Auditor’s death, although being very different in nature and circumstances, have only served to highlight what appears to be a revival of anti-Semitism in America.
According to an article in the Huffington Post written by John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science at LaGrange College, Gallup pollsters have been asking voters on a regular basis how they felt about a variety of candidates based on their education, race, religion, and so on.
In 1937 only 46% said they would vote for a Jewish candidate. By 1958 it was 63%, and in 1978 82% of respondents said they would vote for a well qualified candidate nominated by their party. In 2012, that number was up to 91% of those who participated in the Gallup poll.
But do these numbers translate into the reality of actual attitudes held by Americans today? Is anti-Semitic behavior becoming more widespread?
If we look at many college campuses, the answer appears to be in the positive. In South Africa a student group last month called on all Jews to leave the Durban University of Technology. Could this happen here in the U.S.? A survey released just this week shows that significant hostility has been directed to Jewish students on U.S. campuses, too.
The National Demographic Survey of American Jewish College students found that 54% of Jewish students experienced incidents of anti-Semitism on campus in the first six months of the 2013-2014 academic year. And this survey was taken before the hostilities between Israel and Gaza last summer. There has been much more anti-Israel sentiment even since that time.
Laura B. Regan, writing in the “American Thinker” says that from NYU and Harvard to the University of Michigan and UC Berkeley, “it is not uncommon for Jewish students to receive death threats ...while administrators remain silent”. The Anti-Defamation League and the David Horowitz Freedom Center have been documenting and fighting the growing anti-Israel movements on colleges across the nation.
But it is not only on college campuses. Regan tells of loud protests she has often heard in her office forty floors above ground level in downtown Manhattan - shouts of “Free Free Palestine”, and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and sometimes the even more chilling chant of “Death to Israel”.
In San Francisco 300 anti-Israel protesters calling for violent uprisings against Israelis surrounded and threatened 30 peaceful pro-Israel demonstrators.
In July 2014 what began as a peaceful pro-Israel event in Los Angeles escalated when pro-Palestinians attacked the demonstrators and Federal Homeland Security officers were brought in.
About the same time there were protests in Seattle reflecting a general hatred of Jews. In Philadelphia and in Boston similar protests and demonstrations have taken place in the last eighteen months or so.
Not all demonstrators and protesters are content to shout hateful speech but actually encourage violence. The “knock out” games reported on television news casts involving black youths beating people until they are knocked unconscious have targeted Jews in numerous cities across the country.
Many observers believe this increase in hatred of and violence toward the Jews is another consequence of the rising influence of extremist Muslims throughout the entire world and even now reaching the shores of America.
If so, the words of warning from Senator Danforth given at the Schweich funeral ring out even more forcefully, “Anti-Semitism is always wrong and we can never let it creep into politics. Words do hurt. Words can kill. That has been proven right here in our home state.”
Obviously, his warning applies not only to the political arena, but into every area of our lives and culture.
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