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May 01, 2008
Never Again?
In South Florida, it's here we go again...
Last week, a Chabad Synagogue in Miami Beach was burned to the ground, and last nght, a Chabad Synagogue in Parkland was defaced with swastikas.
On Wednesday, a Jewish schoolboy was the first to see three swastikas spray-painted on the Chabad of Parkland synagogue building at 7170 Loxahatchee Road. Someone also had spray painted "4 Hitler" on a nearby stop sign.
Last week, the Chabad of Miami Beach in South Beach burned to the ground.
Both incidents occurred during or just before significant dates in the Jewish calendar. The Miami Beach synagogue burned down during Passover. Vandals struck in Parkland just before Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day.
I've been to Chabad of Parkland, although it has been several years, and I was in Parkland just last June, to attend services for Pfc. Daniel Agami, who was killed while patrolling Iraq. Daniel's family were members of Chabad of Parkland.
To its credit, the Broward Sheriff's Office wasted no time in calling the parkland incident what it was, an "offensive hate crime of malicious vandalism." Meanwhile, the FBI had to be cajoled into an investigation of the Miami Beach incident, and it still refuses to call the torching of Chabad on Miami Beach a hate crime.
There can be no doubt that, as it moves further and further to the left, this Country is becoming more and more unfriendly to Jewish people. Despite the attempts by law enforcement to cover up these hate crimes by classifying them as vandalism, we Jews see them for what they are.
I take these attacks personally, I take all attacks on all Jews personally because I know what they lead to:
Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.
In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.
Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl, entry for Saturday, July 15, 1944
Never Again is being drowned out by "Chrad al Yahood" and I take that personally too. It means, kill the Jews, and when they say it, they mean to kill me, and my family. Like Anne, I see the wilderness coming too, and yes, even here, in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, I hear the thunder.
The photograph above was taken at the Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach, Florida.
Posted by LindaSoG at May 1, 2008 07:14 AM
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Comments
I hope they catch the bastards who did this. I'm just SICK about it!
Posted by: Stepperg at May 1, 2008 11:33 AM
I'm so sorry that this is happening, I do hope they are caught and that justice is swift and harsh. You are so right about the nature of the crimes, pure hatred not vandalism, it will get passed off as a juvenile crime, I don't believe in such a thing as juvenile crime, there is nothing juvenile about arson, rape, drug sales or murder.
Posted by: Jack at May 1, 2008 12:49 PM