8 | OCTOBER 22 • 2020
Thanks For Making
Holidays Awe-some
The Jewish holidays which
occur in the first 10 days
of the month of Tishri are
called the Days of Awe.
Similarly, I, and I am sure
this is how most of us in
the Jewish community feel,
am in awe at the hard work,
dedication and creativity of
our religious leaders to make
a bad situation, the worst in
memory, as palatable and
meaningful as possible.
I experienced it in my
own B’
nai Israel of West
Bloomfield congregation,
but I know it took place all
over our Metro Detroit area
and actually all over the
country. To them all I say
wholeheartedly: yishar koach,
it is appreciated beyond
words.
— Rachel Kapen
West Bloomfield
Corrections:
In “A Place of their Own,
(Oct. 8, page 22), Melanie
Cohn, Jonathan Reinheimer
and Reed McAlpin’
s names
were misspelled.
In “Lawsuits Target White
Supremacists,” (Oct. 8, page
24) the sentence about two
defendants facing civil arrest
should have said that this is
“fairly unheard of in a civil
suit.” Also, Integrity First for
America does not claim that
the defendants hid weapons
around Charlottesville but
had weapons with them for
their rallies in the city.
letters
VIEWS
continued on page 10
editor’s note
Then And Now
I
n 1939, the FBI infiltrated
a violent militia plotting to
overthrow the U.S. govern-
ment.
This group was called the
Christian Front. They and their
even more extreme offshoot,
the Christian
Mobilizers, met
secretly to dis-
cuss what they
believed was the
hostile takeover
of America
by radical,
anti-Christian
left-wing groups.
By this description, they
were really referring to Jews.
They blamed Jews both for
Communism in Europe and
the unchecked capitalism that
led to the Great Depression
they were only just recovering
from. This was incoherent, but
it didn’
t have to make sense. It
just had to unite them against a
common enemy.
The Christian Front consid-
ered Hitler and fascism, and
its potential to destroy Jewry,
to be the true torchbearers of
American values. And they
believed President Roosevelt
was opposing this new world
order because he was a puppet
of the Jews (or maybe secretly a
Jew himself).
So, they trained new recruits
in firearms in preparation that,
one day, they would take their
country back.
The Christian Front exist-
ed far outside the political
two-party system. But they
were taking advantage of a cer-
tain hostile climate in America
— a time of extreme polar-
ization and division as people
struggled under the Great
Depression — to push their
hateful agenda.
And they were egged on by
prominent figures in politics
and the media — most signifi-
cantly, Detroit’
s own Father
Charles Coughlin at the Shrine
of the Little Flower Catholic
church in Royal Oak.
The “radio priest,” with an
audience of millions, went all-
in on the Christian Front and
devoted many episodes of his
national broadcasts to them.
He praised them for standing
up to the far-left Communist
sympathizers he said were
roaming our streets. When the
FBI arrested and charged them
with sedition, Coughlin used
his show in the weeks leading
up to their trial to defend them
as protectors of American
values. The jury returned no
verdict, and all charges were
eventually dropped.
Still, American attitudes
were beginning to shift away
from the far-right ideologues
that had run rampant across
the airwaves in the years prior.
A semi-united front was being
presented against fascism.
Coughlin had at one point
been the most powerful voice
in the country, but he was fall-
ing out of mainstream favor
the more he chose to embrace
the paranoid right-wing fringe
that constituted his “base.”
But this fringe, though
small in number, was still
large enough to fill rallies at
Madison Square Garden and
violent enough to do serious
damage to the country.
And these American fascists
(for that is exactly what they
were) hung on their hero’
s
every word. They didn’
t trust
other media; only Father
Coughlin told “the truth.” He
was their filter bubble.
In those secret meetings
the FBI witnessed, Coughlin’
s
followers would play his show
and cheer, delivering “sieg
heils” all the while.
“We will fight shoulder to
shoulder and be content to use
your weapons,” Coughlin said
on one episode. “Rest assured
we will fight, and we will win.”
RETRACING OUR STEPS
I often hear that we are living
in “unprecedented” times. But
I disagree.
Recently, the FBI arrested
members of a new antigov-
ernment militia right here
in Michigan. They called
themselves the “Wolverine
Watchmen,” and they were
plotting to kidnap Gov.
Gretchen Whitmer because
they believed her COVID-19
lockdown protocols were an
affront to American values.
Very little separates these
new extremists from those of
Father Coughlin’
s time, except
for 81 years.
Like the Christian Front,
these men do not fit neatly into
our Democratic-Republican
orthodoxy. Their politics are
unmoored from the main-
stream. A Detroit Free Press
investigation found that some
are vocal Trump supporters,
while at least one called the
president a “tyrant.”
However, also like the
Christian Front, our new gen-
eration of domestic extremists
are plainly taking advantage of
an already violent, heightened
climate in America. This is a
time when half of the country
so deeply distrusts and despises
the other half that there is an
opening for this kind of terror.
Andrew
Lapin
Editor