Editor's Notebook

Heightening Our Awareness
To Burning Of Black Churches

A Crippler
Returns To Politics

PHIL JACOBS EDITOR

SHERWIN T. WINE SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

Last month, when
the Hamas suicide
bombers dominat-
ed the thoughts
and concerns of
most Jews, the
phones were ring.-
ing, the fax ma-
chines were
whirring and the
E-Mail was crowded with relat-
ed discussion. It was a busy time
to be in our Jewish News editor-
ial office.
Among the many phone calls,
there was one that stopped me.
It was different from the others.
It was from an African-Amer-
ican reader. He courteously ex-
pressed his condolences to me
over the loss of life in Israel. Then
he asked me a question.
"Are you aware of the black
churches that are being burned
and vandalized in the southern
United States?"
My answer was: "I've read
news articles, but that is the ex-
tent of my knowledge."
His next question was: 'What
do you suppose the Jewish com-
munity would do if synagogues
were being burned by hate
groups?"
He .didn't ask this question
with any threat in his voice at all.
He was trying to make a point.
His last question was: "Do you
think the Jewish community has
a moral obligation to reach out or
to respond to this hatred?"
First some facts, as supplied by
the Atlanta-based Center for De-
mocratic Renewal. Since 1990,
there have been at least 47
churches in the South burned or
vandalized, more than half since
January 1995. Most of them are
black churches, though there
have been a handful of racially
mixed houses of worship burned
down as well.
"Good God, if a dozen Jewish
synagogues had been desecrated,
you can imagine the resolution
from the House floor," said Sher-
ry Frank, executive director of the
American Jewish Committee's
Southeast Region, based in At-
lanta. "Where is the heart and
soul of the Jewish community
that would have screamed out
earlier?"
Some of the burnings have re-
sulted in arrests and convictions
of Klan members. Unfortunate-
ly, the hate activity has outdis-
tanced any arrests. The arrests
have numbered 24 — all white
males. Some were arrested in con-
nection with the same crime.
The names of some of the re-
ligious institutions burned to the
ground are: Friendship Mission-
ary Baptist in Columbia, Tenn;
Springhill Freewill Baptist and
Rocky Point Missionary Baptist
in McComb, Miss; Liberty Bap-
tist in Tyler, Ala.
Many of these churches were

small structures in comparison
with richer churches in the area
with white memberships. Ms.
Frank tells of how, in response to
a question of whether these
crimes were hate motivated, she
responded: "You had to drive pass
three beautiful white churches to
get to this small black church.
The three white churches were
not touched."
Daniel Levitas, an Atlanta-
based expert on right-wing hate
groups, said it is important for the
Jewish community to join with
the African-American communi-
ty to push the U.S. Justice De-
partment to provide answers:
"Clearly this a very concrete
opportunity for the Jewish com-
munity to get involved at a vari-
ety of levels, arm and arm with
the African-American congrega-
tions. If six synagogues were
torched and all the people ar-
rested were white Christian
males, and the investigators said
these weren't anti-Semitic acts,
the Jewish community would be
enraged.
`The Jewish community needs
to lend its voice morally as well
as politically to name these
crimes for what they are: crimes
motivated by bigotry.
"There are a lot of program-
ming opportunities here. And this
is an opportunity to form some al-
liances between blacks and Jews
from the ground up."
Ms. Frank said, with compas-
sion in her voice, that the Atlanta
Jewish community might hold a

An opportunity to
form some alliances
between blacks and
Jews from the
ground up.

candlelight vigil as a sign of sol-
idarity. But then she asked, with
accurate irony, 'Why have a vig-
il? What they need is a million-
dollar check to rebuild."
But rebuilding a relationship
between Jews and blacks is
equally important. Ms. Frank
said that most Jews, even in At-
lanta, are oblivious to the church
burnings. Maybe, she suggests,
they are numbed to the black
community because of the ongo-
ing rift over Nation of Islam
leader Louis Farrakhan.
But Noah Chandler, a
spokesman for the Center for De-
mocratic Renewal, said that be-
ing numb and quiet is perhaps
the worst reaction the Jewish
community could have.
"Both communities have been
victimized in extreme ways," said
Mr. Chandler. 'The worst thing
that can happen is for the Jewish

community and the black com-
munity to pit themselves against
one another to see who gets vic-
timized the most. Instead, we
need a pro-active approach.
"I think the Jewish communi-
ty should react to the fact that
this hate is happening. I mean,
who's next? The far right is tak-
ing us one by one, plucking us one
by one. Lesbians, gays, Jews,
blacks. It is all of us, and we need
to emphasize that the burning of
these churches is at a magnitude
that impacts every American."
Atlanta is certainly no stranger
to hate crimes against Jewish
buildings. In 1958, the bombing
of the Temple, an important sym-
bol of Reform Judaism in the
Southeast, shook the foundations
of Jewish relations with the en-
tire Georgia Christian communi-
ty-
It was the bomb that "healed"-
Atlanta, according to Ms. Frank,
who added that "the entire com-
munity came together to express
outrage over the bombing."
Part of that outrage came from
black church leaders, according
to Daniel Levitas.
Richard Lobenthal, executive
director of the Michigan chapter
of the Anti-Defamation League,
remembers when the Trenton
Synagogue was burned to the
ground by neo-Nazi arsonists in
the mid-1960s.
He said that it is the duty of
American Jews to respond to the
church burnings on several dif-
ferent levels.
"There should be horror and
outrage at the bigotry," he said.
`There should be compassion. We
need to show an outpouring of af-
firmation of unity and support
from the surrounding communi-
ties to ensure these people that
they are not vulnerable, and that
what they're dealing with are de-
viants, not those of a mainstream
ideology.
"I think," he continued, "we
should have a fourth level of con-
cern, and that is an anxiety for
own institutions."
These black churches burning
to the ground are houses of wor-
ship —with pulpits, choirs sec-
tions, pews, memorial plaques
and holy books.
Even though their bibles are
different, their hymns and prac-
tices foreign, nobody should be
afraid to worship the Lord or to
practice his or her faith.
And we should be sensitive to
the plight of these churches. Their
clergy, their member families are
taught to fear God.
Not their fellow men. ❑

To respond to this Editor's
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.

HoloCaust Day
has a special sig-
nificance in this
election year.
Political anti-
Semitism is
abroad in the Re-
publican Party.
Modern anti-
Semitism is dif-
ferent from traditional anti-
Judaism. Traditional hostility to
the Jews is primarily directed to
the religion of the Jews. Eco-
nomic and racial themes are sec-
ondary.
Modern anti-Semitism is pri-
marily directed to the "race" and
economic role of the Jews. Reli-
gious ideas are secondary. Nei-
ther Hitler nor Coughlin was
interested in Judaism. They
were obsessed by Jews.
Capitalism is the most popu-
lar of available economic sys-
tems. It is responsible for wealth,
technological development and
rising standards of living. But it
also produces decaying families,
violent cities and unemploy-
ment.
Relentless competition pro-
duces both winners and losers.
For the winners, the
system is the best of
all possible worlds.
For the losers, the
system appears un-
caring and heartless.
It takes only a little
paranoia to turn that
accusation into anti-
Semitism. The world
of money becomes
the world of the Jews,
and the world of
money is the evil op-
pressor of the inno-
cent patriot.
Hitler did not in-
vent modem anti-Semitism. The
change, uncertainty, expecta-
tions and trauma of capitalism
did. The very system that fos-
tered the prosperity and the lib-
eration of the Jews also spawned
their most vicious enemy.
Anti-Semitism will not go
away so long as economic anxi-
ety remains. It is a chronic dis-
ease of an urban, anonymous,
detribalized and money-centered
world. When the economy is
strong, it is tolerable. When the
economy goes bad, it becomes in-
tolerable.
Right now technology, au-
tomation and thinking machines
are wreaking havoc with the
lives and employment of millions
of workers and middle-class peo-
ple. Most young people are pes-
simistic, not optimistic, about
their economic future. Indus-
trial workers, blacks and His-
panics are feeling abandoned
and resentful. Jews become the

Sherwin Wine is rabbi of the
Birmingham Temple.

personification of all the forces
they fear and do not control.
Modem anti-Semitism comes
in two forms. The mild form is
social anti-Semitism. This hos-
tility excludes Jews from social
intercourse with non-Jews, es-
pecially the power elite. While
social anti-Semitism is morally
deplorable, it is easily handled.
Jews simply create and perpet- .
uate the familiar institutions
which enable them to socialize
with each other.
The virulent form is political
anti-Semitism. This antagonism
seeks to seize political power and
to use that power to deprive
Jews of their status, property
and lives. Political anti-Semi-
tism is what the deadly virus of
European Jew-hatred was all
about. From Dreyfus to the
Holocaust, it was driven by a vi-
sion of the "Jewish peril" that
justified expulsion and extermi-
nation.
Often political anti-Semitism
starts off with mild rebukes and
develops, through economic tur-
moil, to broad programs of op-
pression.
Political anti-Semitism fea-
tures political lead-
- ers, politicians eager
to use hostility to
Jews as a vehicle to
power. Many Euro-
pean leaders chose
this path. In Ameri-
ca, there was very
little political anti-
Semitism until the
First World War. In
the '20s, Henry Ford
publicized the vi-
cious Protocols of the
Elders of Zion. In the
Depression '30s,
Charles Coughlin
preached a message of hate for
capitalism, communism and
Jews. World War II and eco-
nomic prosperity terminated this
threat.
But, of course, the troubled
'90s revived it. Pat Buchanan
has arrived on the Republican
stage to denounce Wall Street,
the brokers of the money world,
foreign exploiters, corporate
greed and the inordinate power
of Israel and the Jews over
American life.
Of course, his voice is a mi-
nority voice. Of course, he will
not be the Republican nominee.
But it is also true that the Re-
publican leadership has not
openly repudiated him for his
public hostility to Jewish influ-
ence.
His position is very much the.
same as that of Louis Farrakhan
in the black world. He dispar-
ages the Jews. He courts racist
supporters. And he knows that
he is immune to expulsion. He
has too many powerful devotees.
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