Alarm sounded against rising antisemitism

(The Center Square) – Eighty years after the last Jews were liberated from Nazi camps in Europe, Pennsylvania continues to honor the survivors and lives lost during the Holocaust.

“Never again,” intoned speaker after speaker in the Governor’s Reception room at the Capitol on Wednesday, sounding the alarm against rising antisemitism and calling on everyday people to speak up in the face of injustice.

It was a particularly poignant event following the attack on the governor’s residence after his family’s Passover Seder just 10 days prior. Gov. Josh Shapiro is the third governor of Jewish faith to serve as the state’s governor.

While details on the nature of the case remain with investigators, the event sent shockwaves through the state’s Jewish community.

In this way, trauma echoes through time since 6 million Jews were murdered by Hitler’s Nazi regime. The arson triggered images like those of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, during which windows were shattered and Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues burned.

There are few survivors still living today, and for this reason, members of the Pennsylvania Jewish Coalition called upon future generations to carry their memory forward. They’ve seen success with an updated curriculum made available to Pennsylvania teachers strengthening education around the Holocaust.

“We must understand our world history, remember the atrocities of the past and be vigilant to make sure they never happen again,” said coalition Chairman Jonathan Scott Goldman.

Holocaust survivor Esther Bratt, 96, attended the event, briefly taking the microphone to say thank you. Her great-granddaughter, Leah Leisawitz of Wyomissing Junior High School, told her great-grandparents’ stories as part of her bat mitzvah work, a coming of age rite that calls on Jewish children to commit acts of service as they move toward adulthood.

“The Holocaust teaches us about human dignity, the importance of standing up against hatred, and the resilience of the human spirit,” said Leisawitz, who said that Bratt had just a 1.5% chance of surviving the Vilna ghetto in Poland.

Additional speakers included Shapiro, Rabbi Carl Choper, and several legislators including Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Pittsburgh, Sen. Devlin Robinson, R-Pittsburgh, Sen. Judy Schwank, D-Reading, Rep. Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia, and Rep. Jesse Topper, R-Bedford.

Several more lawmakers filled the room as guests.

Schwank recalled learning about the Holocaust from a survivor herself, visiting an elderly neighbor to learn about what happened.

“Looking back, it’s striking to me that the Holocaust was never discussed in my religious school and certainly not in public school,” she said. “So much has changed.”

Despite these changes, Holocaust denial is persistent, as are fear, hatred, and conspiracies about the Jewish people. Schwank cited a report from the Anti-Defamation League released Tuesday that showed an increase in antisemitic acts for the third year in a row.

The ADL has long been a trusted source for monitoring the prevalence of antisemitism in the United States. Critics, including ADL employees, however, say the organization conflates antisemitism and political opposition to the Israeli government.

Many worry that tying Jewish identity to Israel as a nation has done harm to the Jewish diaspora around the world, with negative perceptions and accusations of human rights violations contributing to the fresh wave of antisemitism. Jews who have interpreted honoring the call of “never again” to speak out against U.S. and Israeli policy on Palestine have found themselves in an uncomfortable position as protests have frequently been characterized as antisemitic.

Yet, there was no direct mention of Palestine nor of the far-right shadows that have grown in American politics during this year’s commemoration. Speakers invoked the memory of the Holocaust to call for protection of other communities, including Muslims, threatened by the kind of hatred that has befallen the Jewish people.

They specifically celebrated the legislature’s support for nonprofit security grants that protect places of worship throughout the commonwealth. Additionally, they called on a bill which would adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism to use in determining hate crimes, or ethnic intimidation, in Pennsylvania.

“We guard against the forces of dehumanization and fascism that threaten us this very day,” said Frankel, who represents the Squirrel Hill community in Pittsburgh where 11 people were killed and six wounded in a mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue.

Ben Smithers, a young violinist from Harrisburg, played Hirsh Glik’s “Zog Nit Keynmol,” a rallying song inspired by the Warsaw ghetto uprising, which saw freedom fighters resist the Nazis who had cordoned them into unlivable quarters and subjected them to incessant violence and, ultimately, death.

Spoken by Goldman and printed on the day’s program were the words of Lutheran pastor Martin Niemӧller who famously warned us of the danger of staying silent in the face of violence, in which the speaker is silent as successive groups are targeted by the fascist power.

It read, “Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”