Opinion

A MIX OF IDEAS

Editorials are posted and archived on JNonline.us .

Greenberg's View

The Swastika As A
General Hate Symbol

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s a hate symbol, the swastika

reigns supreme. It's typically the
symbol of choice for Jew-haters,
but also for haters of other minorities,
especially black people.
So we agree with the Anti-Defamation
League that painting or sketching a swas-
tika should no longer be automatically
considered an anti-Semitic act.
On July 27, the New York-based ADL
announced restructured guidelines for
recording attacks against Jews. The new
tracking in its annual survey will feature
a more conservative, more exacting
approach to classifying the motivation
behind a swastika-marred incident.
"We know that the swastika has, for
some, lost its meaning as the primary
symbol of Nazism and instead become
a more generalized symbol of hate
Abraham Foxman, the Mrs national
director, told the Jewish Week of New
York. "So we are being more careful to
include graffiti incidents that specifically
target Jews or Jewish institutions as we
continue the process of re-evaluating and
redefining how we measure anti-Jewish
incidents:'
That makes sense. Illustrations of Jew-

hating today take on many forms other
than merely the swastika, which was pop-
ularized by the Nazi Party during Hitler's
years as dictator and mass murderer.
Derisive illustrations specifically targeting
Jews may instead or also include kippot,
Stars of David or a Torah scroll.
As an example, the Jewish Week reported,
Deborah Lauter, the director of Mrs civil
rights division, said the Salem County, N.J.,
police recorded an incident last year of
swastikas on park benches as anti-Semitic
vandalism. An ADL investigation surmised
that because there was no significant
Jewish community in the area, it was more
likely an act of general hate and therefore
was not induded in the audit.
"If it appeared on a bench in Lakewood,
that would be a different thing',' said
Lauter, referring to the heavily Orthodox
town in New Jersey that is home to a
prominent yeshivah.
Lauter said the ADL has determined
via national education programs that
young people don't necessarily know that
the swastika is inextricably linked to the
Holocaust and that often it is being used
to intimidate non-Jews, including African
Americans.

Key to the change, of course, is staying
vigilant to assure anti-Semitic acts involv-
ing the haunting black angular symbol of
the Holocaust is correctly classified.
In 2009, the ADL logged 1,211 anti-
Semitic incidents across America. Had
the criteria remained the same, this year's
statistics would have shown a 10 percent
rise over the 1,352 incidents recorded in
2008. The new method shows a 10 per-
cent drop. The three primary categories
of ADL incidents continue to be assaults,
vandalism and harassment.
Michael Berenbaum, former project
director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum in Washington and now a consul-
tant, gave a convincing argument favoring

the ADL tactical shift surrounding the
swastika. He told JTA: "The presence of
swastikas in certain contexts is not suf-
ficient to prove anti-Semitism. Individual
judgments should be made — and ADL
has done as good a job as anyone over the
years in quantifying anti-Semitism."
The ADL, long a champion of religious
freedom, has recently come under fire
for its unconditional opposition to plans
to develop an Islamic community center
near the site of the 9 11 terrorist attacks
in New York City. But its record on
monitoring, analyzing condemning acts
of hatred against Jews indeed is time
tested. ❑

-

The Need For 'Followership'

Tulsa/JTA

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nother leadership development
program? Don't we already have
enough of them in the Jewish
world? What I think we need are some `fol-
lowership' programs. Go find me some of
those to fund.
When Charles Schusterman spoke those
words to me in 1999, he had a good point:
Back then, most Jewish organizations
and foundations seemed more interested
in producing leaders than in building
inspired communities.
Were Charles alive today, however, I
think he would feel otherwise.
The past decade has witnessed the
emergence of a new generation of pro-
grams in which the primary focus is on
those who participate, not on those who
lead.
While Taglit/Birthright Israel, Moishe
House, Hillel and Limmud are among the
most obvious examples of this shift, a host
of other organizations also have embraced

ers must now be prepared to
the concept of "followership"
listen as much as they speak
by making engagement of the
and learn as much as they
many a higher priority than the
Participants want to play
teach.
empowerment of the few.
an integral part in shaping their
Unsurprisingly, some of these
own experiences and building
organizations have had greater
their own communities. The
success than others. Why?
best followership programs
First and foremost, successful
encourage these behaviors.
followership programs place
The best followership pro-
the participant at the center of
Sanford R.
grams also recognize that it
the experience. For example,
Cardin
is their responsibility to sell
a recent marketing study of
Special
rather than the obligation of
a music festival showed that
Commentary
their
potential participants to
its peer-to-peer recruitment
buy. All too often, we in the
approach, where the consumers
shaped much of the message, was far more Jewish community bemoan the fact that
our young people just don't get it. This is
effective in reaching the target audience
where our thinking is faulty. We assume
than the more traditional, top-down cam-
their inability to recognize the wisdom of
paign they also pursued.
our position is a shortcoming on their part
Interactivity and openness to new ideas
rather than a reflection of our failure to
are two other keys to effective follower-
communicate effectively and persuasively.
ship programs. One of the most profound
We must remember, it's not about us; it's
impacts of the Internet is the degree to
about what is happening.
which it has "democratized" the flow of
Ultimately, however, and perhaps some-
information. As a result, program provid-

what ironically, the best followership pro-
grams are those that take all of the above
and sophisticatedly integrate them with
one other principle: leadership.
Though seemingly counterintuitive, I
strongly believe that one of the best places
to witness the effective use of the prin-
ciples of followership is within the ROI
Community, a leadership development
program established by our foundation
five years ago in partnership with Taglit/
Birthright Israel in order to introduce
young Jewish adults from around the
world to the crucial issues of the day and
to encourage their involvement in the
building of vibrant Jewish communities
globally and locally.
ROI recently celebrated its fifth anni-
versary by convening 120 young Jewish
innovators and activists, each of whom
has a personal vision about how to make
the Jewish world a better place. Over the
course of several days, I listened as these
young leaders explained how they have
helped hundreds of thousands of their

Followership on page 34

August 19 = 2010

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