Trial by fire brought Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to the forefront of America’s antisemitism frenzy. Asleep following a Passover event he hosted at the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg in April, police security awakened Shapiro and his family after an attacker set fire to their state home.
Police say alleged arsonist Cody Balmer confessed he hated Shapiro and lashed out angered by Shapiro’s public support for Israel’s attacks on Gaza. As a result, Shapiro now reigns as the darling of liberal Democrats because they claim he was targeted as a Jew.
Indeed Shapiro is Jewish. But no evidence shows the defendant attacked because Shapiro is Jewish. The New York Times in a recent editorial and the Washington Post in a recent news story recklessly connected violent religious prejudice to a crime that lacked any evidence of religious bigotry. No proof in the defendant’s statements to police or physical evidence elsewhere shows that antisemitism drove the accused firebomber’s actions.
If strong disagreement with public policy focused on Israeli war crimes is antisemitic, I guess I’m antisemitic too.
Forget about the day I stood in solidarity on the Orthodox synagogue steps across from my apartment in Wilkes-Barre while elderly Jewish volunteers washed painted swastikas off the huge wooden front doors. Forget when I visited rabbis to side with Jewish teenagers from New York City who sought refuge in my town and faced drunken Wilkes University thugs firing off Nazi salutes while partying on a rooftop across the street from the Jewish students’ classrooms.
Forget the day my little Hassidic neighbor Rachel cried on her mother’s lap as 4-year-olds often do and I gave her a tiny stuffed toy raccoon to help stop her tears, forging a heartfelt friendship that resulted in the beautiful child calling out my name every subsequent time I saw her. Forget answering the knocks on the door at night and walking across the street with Rachel’s sisters who asked me to turn on their family’s stove when their strict religious commitment prohibited them from doing so.
Ignore my wearing a yarmulke at a co-worker’s Orthodox wedding near Boston to which my wife and I traveled or donning another yarmulke for another Jewish co-worker’s daughter’s Bat Mitzvah.
Disregard the third yarmulke I wore as I sat alone for a service at the Hassidic synagogue near my home because my neighbor invited me to attend. Overlook the excitement and laughter on another soft night when I stood in that same neighbor’s kitchen and casually mentioned to several women that my mother’s mother’s side of the family has Jews in the lineage.
I always considered myself Pennsylvania Dutch German and Irish. But maybe Shapiro has another long lost non-practicing Jewish cousin, a radical left wing Zen atheist living in Scranton who cares not at all about the governor’s personal faith.
Like alleged governor’s mansion arsonist Balmer, I, too, despise Shapiro, not because he’s a Jew but because of his unswerving support of Israeli genocide. Balmer reportedly is mentally ill and in dire need of help not condemnation. I’m of clear sound mind and will defend myself and others who fight for Palestinian freedom and human rights despite Shapiro’s supporters’ devious defamation.
Anti-Israelism is not Jew hatred.
I reject any and all twisted attempts of biased “scholars” who redefine religious hatred to meet their own fanatical political goals. Claiming self-defense, Israeli government killers carry out their final solution. With full support from the United States government this Fourth Reich bombs, starves, assassinates and otherwise ethnically cleanses Gaza of Palestinians where innocent men, women and children of all ages struggle to simply survive.
Genuine antisemitism crushes hopes, dreams and humanity.
Make-believe hatred only increases the pain.
