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17 Jewish Centers Were Just Evacuated Across The Country After Neo-Nazi Bomb Threats

17 Jewish Centers Were Just Evacuated Across The Country After Neo-Nazi Bomb Threats

In yet another horrifying display of targeted threats against Jewish community organizations, hundreds were evacuated from seventeen different Jewish centers – including preschools – across the country as neo-Nazis pummeled phone lines with bomb threats and other promises of anti-Semitic violence. Centers were targeted in places as varied as New York, New Jersey, Milwaukee, San Diego and Salt Lake City.

This is the third time a wave of bomb threats have hit multiple Jewish centers across the country. 16 centers were threatened on January 9th; 28 more were targeted on January 18th. The calls are a sharp reminder to America’s Jewish citizens that the ghosts of the Holocaust still walk among us and that even here, they are not safe from the pernicious malignancy of anti-Semitism.

Empowered by the elevation of prominent neo-Nazi Stephen Bannon to a senior White House role and eagerly responding to the dog whistles being issued by the Trump administration, neo-Nazis and white supremacists have never been so bold. The White House’s decision to omit any mention of the millions of innocent Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust from their Holocaust Memorial Day statement was a clear signal to anti-Semitic elements that this kind of behavior will be acceptable in Trump’s America – and we know this because they themselves celebrated it as such.

“There is no way this was accidental, but all in all it was basically a subtle nod to us. But something much more incredible is now happening; the White House staff, under attack by the Jews, are doubling down and saying it was completely intentional, and don’t regret it!” crows “Zeiger” at the neo-Nazi hate rag Daily Stormer. 

It was absolutely appalling to see the Trump administration single out Muslims based on their religion and bar their entry into our country on the very same day we remember the eleven million innocents that died at the hands of the Nazi Party. For the very next week to begin with yet another wave of bomb threats against Jewish centers is even more terrifying – we’ve seen where this road leads before, and to see those actions being played out again is beyond comprehension. We must stand together against the fascist machinations of Bannon and his puppet Trump; we must make sure every person of every religon, race, or nationality is welcome and protected in the United States. This isn’t who we are.

Our grandfathers did not travel across the world to stamp out Nazism only to have it resurface in our own nation. Nearly half a million Americans didn’t sacrifice their lives during the Second World War only for some spoiled idiot racist to turn our nation into an autocracy seven decades later. We must stand together against the fascist machinations of Bannon and his puppet Trump; we must make sure every person of every religion, race, or nationality is welcome and protected in the United States. This isn’t who we are, and it is what we cannot allow ourselves to become.

 

 

Colin Taylor
Opinion columnist and former editor-in-chief of Occupy Democrats. He graduated from Bennington College with a Bachelor's degree in history and political science. He now focuses on advancing the cause of social justice and equality in America.

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