Love Lives Here
May. 21st, 2019 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexLast night we went to a vigil in Arlington in response to a couple of the recent hate crimes. News here: https://www.masslive.com/news/2019/05/joint-terrorism-task-force-investigating-suspicious-fires-set-at-jewish-institutions-in-arlington-needham.html
I hate that I have to write "a couple of the..." because there isn't just one. There were two local, and at the time this was happening, a similar attempted firebombing happened in the Chicago area. The targets there were friends-of-friends; the people targeted in Arlington were people we know. People who taught the kids for their b'nei mitzvot. I have ALL the feels and no idea what to do about any of it.
No persons were harmed and property damage was much less than it might have been. Still, a hate crime not just directed at my marginal group but at people I specifically know is a qualitative step change in the atmosphere.
Last night's vigil/rally of support was well-attended. We essentially filled Arlington Town Hall (moved indoors by last-minute rain). Lots of officials turned out in support (*) and the acting Chief of Police spoke. Everyone thanked the police, who have apparently been diligent in pursuit of the attackers so far. As noted, this is also a qualitative difference. Nobody in Arlington is claiming that the bombers are "fine people", and you can't underrate having public support from government and law enforcement.
"Love Lives Here" as a slogan to complement "Hate Has No Home Here" is an invention and artistry from a friend of ours. I don't think she has a DW or site I can link to; she's helped with art and production work on several Arisias. The slogan is available on postcards and signs, in English and Hebrew. She got at least general acknowledgement from the podium, along with several of the hand-crafted signs students had made. One of those signs said "Please don't bomb my rabbi" which hit me RIGHT in the feels.
After the vigil we got to go out with her and much of her family, which was a nice social for the adults even if the teens were largely anti-social.
I've been trying to find good coherent words about this since last week when I heard about the attack. I don't have any. At the vigil the Rabbi said that his response to "what can I do" was "do a mitzvah". (**) I appreciate that sentiment and I can't help thinking that the greatest mitzvah would be to defeat the Hater in Chief so we don't have four more years of this kind of filth feeling it's OK to show themselves in the daylight.
Hair Furor didn't create these monsters, and yet he is still their great champion. I don't imagine that this is a "cut the head off the snake and the body will die" moment, but I can't think of anything more nationally effective right now.
(*) There was also an unscheduled appearance by a consular official from Israel, whose verbal hypocrisy caused me to grind my teeth rather a lot. Talking about how Israel stands against hate is not very convincing when you represent a government that is actively harming refugees and Jews of color, while perpetuating a discriminatory national system, and an occupation with no end in sight. I consider myself a Zionist, and see hate crimes like these and worse worldwide as a reason for Israel to exist and to be supported. But I hate that a movement I grew up associating with egalitarian socialism has been taken over by fascistic religious fundamentalists and perverted to their ends.
(**) Literally, following a commandment. More generally, doing a good deed. It's a very Jewish form of "pay it forward" because we believe that putting out goodness into the world is its own reward. Jews don't follow the commandments - do mitzvot - because we're afraid we'll go to (Christian style) Hell if we don't. We do it because fixing the world begins with fixing oneself, and fixing oneself is both a personal reward - you're a better person - and a global good because you get to live in a world with more healthy better people.
I hate that I have to write "a couple of the..." because there isn't just one. There were two local, and at the time this was happening, a similar attempted firebombing happened in the Chicago area. The targets there were friends-of-friends; the people targeted in Arlington were people we know. People who taught the kids for their b'nei mitzvot. I have ALL the feels and no idea what to do about any of it.
No persons were harmed and property damage was much less than it might have been. Still, a hate crime not just directed at my marginal group but at people I specifically know is a qualitative step change in the atmosphere.
Last night's vigil/rally of support was well-attended. We essentially filled Arlington Town Hall (moved indoors by last-minute rain). Lots of officials turned out in support (*) and the acting Chief of Police spoke. Everyone thanked the police, who have apparently been diligent in pursuit of the attackers so far. As noted, this is also a qualitative difference. Nobody in Arlington is claiming that the bombers are "fine people", and you can't underrate having public support from government and law enforcement.
"Love Lives Here" as a slogan to complement "Hate Has No Home Here" is an invention and artistry from a friend of ours. I don't think she has a DW or site I can link to; she's helped with art and production work on several Arisias. The slogan is available on postcards and signs, in English and Hebrew. She got at least general acknowledgement from the podium, along with several of the hand-crafted signs students had made. One of those signs said "Please don't bomb my rabbi" which hit me RIGHT in the feels.
After the vigil we got to go out with her and much of her family, which was a nice social for the adults even if the teens were largely anti-social.
I've been trying to find good coherent words about this since last week when I heard about the attack. I don't have any. At the vigil the Rabbi said that his response to "what can I do" was "do a mitzvah". (**) I appreciate that sentiment and I can't help thinking that the greatest mitzvah would be to defeat the Hater in Chief so we don't have four more years of this kind of filth feeling it's OK to show themselves in the daylight.
Hair Furor didn't create these monsters, and yet he is still their great champion. I don't imagine that this is a "cut the head off the snake and the body will die" moment, but I can't think of anything more nationally effective right now.
(*) There was also an unscheduled appearance by a consular official from Israel, whose verbal hypocrisy caused me to grind my teeth rather a lot. Talking about how Israel stands against hate is not very convincing when you represent a government that is actively harming refugees and Jews of color, while perpetuating a discriminatory national system, and an occupation with no end in sight. I consider myself a Zionist, and see hate crimes like these and worse worldwide as a reason for Israel to exist and to be supported. But I hate that a movement I grew up associating with egalitarian socialism has been taken over by fascistic religious fundamentalists and perverted to their ends.
(**) Literally, following a commandment. More generally, doing a good deed. It's a very Jewish form of "pay it forward" because we believe that putting out goodness into the world is its own reward. Jews don't follow the commandments - do mitzvot - because we're afraid we'll go to (Christian style) Hell if we don't. We do it because fixing the world begins with fixing oneself, and fixing oneself is both a personal reward - you're a better person - and a global good because you get to live in a world with more healthy better people.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-21 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-21 04:55 pm (UTC)I didn't know that was happening. I'm glad it did; I'm glad that people came. I don't know the people in Arlington personally, but that doesn't stop it from feeling very close to home for me, both geographically and emotionally.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-22 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-21 04:57 pm (UTC)Also, re your first footnote, I totally agree. I describe Israel as "that relative you simultaneously love and are hurt by and can't talk about."
no subject
Date: 2019-05-21 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-22 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-22 02:04 pm (UTC)It's awful for it to happen anywhere, but it's positively chilling that it's happened in Arlington. ARLINGTON! If Jews aren't safe in Massachusetts, things are even worse than I'd realized.
I'm so, so sorry that you have this to deal with. *hug* I'm glad no one was physically harmed.
All bigotry is bad, of course, but anti-Semitism has always seemed to me to be a particularly insane idea. While I've certainly met a few individual Jews who I found dislikable, it's completely clear that Jews as a people are a force for good in this world. Let's go hate people whose culture advocates scholarship and good works? That's just ... totally insane.
Norman was telling me about a friend of his whose son was trying to do something the father disapproved of, and the father admonished him with, "We're Jews. We don't show off; we STUDY." And I laughed and said, "No wonder so many of the people I like are Jews!"
I'm sorry, I'm babbling. I'm just really upset right now. But you don't need my upset adding to your own, so I'll shut up now.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-22 02:35 pm (UTC)Jews (at least, the Ashkenazi, European-descended ones I grew up with and associate with mostly) have always known it could happen here. For any value of "here". The history of every country in which we've sheltered includes a passage from welcome to hatred. There's a reason I have a "Resisting Tyrants Since Pharoah" tee shirt (which I wore to the vigil). Much of what I've been reading in the two years since Hair Furor came to power has been about the conditional whiteness of Jews.
We also know that Jews of color share backgrounds that include being subjected to imperialism, slavery, and other ills inflicted on people of color on top of Jewish identities. (I'm also trying to learn more about intersectionality, particularly as it expresses in this population of my people.)
Bigotry is based on distortions and exaggerations, not on any actual facts. But you know that...