10 | OCTOBER 22 • 2020 

VIEWS

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Any action is justified when 
you believe the other side is 
evil. 
Their extreme voices are 
being amplified on social 
media, where we are all siloing 
ourselves inside increasingly 
extreme echo chambers (watch 
the new Netflix documentary 
The Social Dilemma for more). 
But they’
re also being embold-
ened by current political dis-
course — loaded phrases like 
“Liberate Michigan” can be 
just as intimidating as loaded 
weapons in public spaces. 
And, unsurprisingly, more 
and more of these strands lead 
back to antisemitism. 
To take just one example: 
the QAnon conspiracy theory, 
a series of incoherent beliefs 
about President Trump waging 
a secret war on the “deep state,” 
has found a wide audience via 

social media. A recent story 
in the New York Times reports 
that QAnon has found a toe-
hold in Germany — where 
Attila Hildmann, a far-right 
YouTuber (who is also a celeb-
rity vegan chef), attaches Q to 
his own beliefs that German 
Chancellor Angela Merkel is a 
“Zionist Jew” who has aligned 
with the Rothschilds to estab-
lish a “new world order.”
Here’
s another example: 
During the racial justice pro-
tests this summer, mobs of 
people in Los Angeles van-
dalized synagogues, Jewish-
owned businesses and a 
statue of Raoul Wallenberg, 
the diplomat and University 
of Michigan alum who saved 
thousands of Jews during the 
Holocaust.
Just like in 1939, none of this 
needs to make perfect sense to 

the people who believe it. The 
theories just need to promote a 
broader atmosphere of fear and 
distrust and unite their follow-
ers against a common enemy 
(and the Jews are always a con-
venient common enemy). 
Such mindsets also convince 
people that any other news 
source is “biased,” deceitful or 
just outright making things 
up. They push their followers 
to go further and further into 
their own filter bubbles to find 
the “real” answers — just as 
Coughlin did to his followers.
There is clearly an undercur-
rent of anger and hostility here, 
and it’
s bubbling over in terri-
fying ways during an already 
inflamed election cycle. When 
I read about these new militias, 
I can feel my sense of time col-
lapsing. Very little of the argu-
ments have changed. But that is 

also what makes this moment 
slightly more bearable: the 
knowledge that we have been 
here before.
I don’
t know what’
s coming 
for us on Election Day or the 
weeks after. But I do know 
that the JN strives to remain, 
as always, a source of strength 
and support for our commu-
nity, to hold the line against 
misinformation and violent 
outbursts while championing 
our shared Jewish values. We 
know that fear and paranoia do 
more harm than good, and that 
we need to take such violent 
incursions into our lives with 
the utmost seriousness. 
We are walking a path our 
people have walked many 
times before. As long as we can 
see that path, and trust each 
other as we venture through it, 
we can see the way out. 

essay
JCC Memories
I 

was truly caught off guard by 
the emotion that overcame 
me as I cleaned out my lock-
er of the JCC Health Club. I 
never really thought of myself as 
a writer, but there were so many 
memories I just 
had to set them 
all on paper.
My life has 
revolved around 
the JCC (mostly 
because of the 
gym) and while I 
am sad to see this 
part of the building go, I know 
that we will experience new and 
just as meaningful memories 
with all that the JCC still has to 
offer. 
The closing of the fitness 
portion of the JCC has had a 
profound impact on anyone 
who ever stepped foot into that 

part of the building. Decades of 
memories fill every wall, floor 
and hallway. And while it is sad 
that the footprint of the JCC 
may be changing, there will still 
be so much that the JCC will 
have to offer. 
As we move ahead through 
these challenging times, the 
JCC will soon be a place to 
meet with friends and make 
new ones, take our kids to pre-
school and camp, learn and be 
entertained, celebrate simchahs 
and community. Our memories 
of what we have experienced in 
the gyms and the locker rooms, 
will only be enhanced by what 
will be to come.
Back in the early or mid-’
70s 
I remember walking through 
the halls of the massive Jewish 
Community Center on Maple 
and Drake still under construc-

tion. My parents and I were 
on a tour of the new facility. I 
distinctly remember stopping to 
(try and) take a drink at a dusty 
water fountain, but it was not 
yet operational. It was the foun-
tain near the windows to the 
gym. Looking down from that 
spot was the coolest vantage 
point to a gym I had ever seen. 
There was just so much to see 
from there. Who would have 
thought that years later, that 
gym would play such a huge 
role in my life? 
I spent hours at the JCC. 
In the gym. In the pool. 
Wandering around the build-
ing. I would patiently wait until 
1 p.m. on Saturday to get in. 
Chatted with Mildred and Fritz, 
well, he didn’
t chat much … Ate 
french fries at Sperbers. Hung 
out in Room 333. BBYO events 

in Shiffman Hall. 
Oddly, I pride myself on 
the ability to have been able 
to sneak into not only the 
Health Club, but also most 
other parts of the building. 
I have been in the stairwells 
to the roof. The backroom of 
Building Services where you 
could smell the stench of stale 
cigarettes long before you got 
there. Meandered up and down 
through different elevators on 
a wheelchair just to get to the 
pool. I have been in the build-
ing by myself at 3 a.m. I was a 
camper … a counselor … bus 
duty. I gave my first pint (of 
many) of blood at a JCC Red 
Cross event in 1984. I would 
play in the gym while my par-
ents worked out in the Health 
Club. We’
d meet for dinner in 
the HC dining room. Does any-

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Karen 

Gordon

