Posted in .

Pennsylvania Capital – Star: After an act of hate, community rallies for Harrisburg synagogue

  • August 13, 2020
By John L. Micek

Is there any symbol that speaks to the potency of hate like the swastika? Is there any symbol that simultaneously evokes as much anger and fear when you see it?

As they headed to services on Monday, members of Kesher Israel, a temple in uptown Harrisburg, were confronted with the sight of swastikas on the front of the synagogue. Local and state police, as well as the state attorney general’s office, were summoned to the scene.

“My security antenna went up,” Rabbi Elisha Friedman told our colleagues at The ‘Burg magazine. “People were worried about safety.”

And not without reason. Statistics have shown that anti-Semitic attacks hit their second-highest level ever in 2019. The members of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh are still healing from the worst act of anti-Semitic violence in American history. And the head of the Philadelphia NAACP is facing growing calls for his ouster after he shared an anti-Semitic meme earlier this month.

” … Rising anti-Semitism is a danger to us all. We have found that, at times of political uncertainty, social unrest or downturns in the economy, anti-Semitic incidents tend to increase. And as anti-Semitism rises, other groups often experience rising hate as well,” Shira Goodman, regional director of the ADL of Philadelphia, told the Capital-Star in May.

It wasn’t long, however, before the community and other synagogues began rallying around the congregation, The ‘Burg’s Maddie Conley reported.

“An attack on one Jewish institution is an attack on all Jewish institutions, and we are here for you as your neighbors and friends to fight anti-Semitism wherever it exists and to support you at this difficult time,” Rabbi Peter Kessler and Rob Teplitz, the congregation president, of Temple Ohev Sholom in Harrisburg, said in a statement.

Rabbi Arianna Capptauber, of Beth El Temple, the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, told Conley that she personally feels “the sting of the swastika, as it represents the deadly hatred that killed many members of my family. Yet I will not cower in the face of this weaponized symbol, for I know that we are held by a resilient Jewish community and a caring community of allies here in Harrisburg.”

That support reached across faith divides, with the Rev. Russell C. Sullivan Jr., pastor of Pine Street Presbyterian, across Third Street from the Capitol, saying his congregation “[condemned] this criminal act of hatred directed towards our Jewish brothers and sisters. With the people of Kesher Israel Synagogue and the Jewish community, we stand in solidarity and support.”

On Wednesday, more than 150 people joined in a vigil against hate. On his Facebook page, Democratic activist Cole Goodman noted that “We must all, no matter where you’re from, your background, your ethnicity, your age; stand up firmly and loudly against religious discrimination of any kind. That’s what community is truly about.”

This incident also impacted a member of the Capital-Star’s family. Bella Altman, who translates stories for our Estrella-Capital section, attends Kesher Israel with her family. All of us at the Capital-Star stand with her, and all of Harrisburg’s Jewish community, against hate.

The Capital-Star remains committed, through our news coverage, and our opinion pages, to telling these stories and elevating those important voices. Their voices have to be louder than hate. Their voices can drown out hate.

But lawmakers can do their part, too.

package of anti-hate crimes bills, sponsored by Rep. Dan Frankel, a Pittsburgh Democrat whose district includes the Tree of Life Synagogue, and other lawmakers, remains in park in a quartet of House committees. The October 2018 murders at the synagogue were the worst instance of anti-Semitic violence in state history.

There’s still time left in this year’s legislative session for lawmakers to match the soaring rhetoric they used in the House chamber in 2019 to honor to the victims of Tree of Life.

They can pay tribute to the hard work of the Black Lives Matter movement by following up their work on police reform legislation by passing a hate crimes package that makes for a safer Pennsylvania, and sends a clear message that the Commonwealth does not tolerate hate.