And so it starts. The frog is put in a pot of cold water that slowly warms so it’s not experienced as a threat. The danger doesn’t register until it’s too late. I will start in 2025, but such incidents started earlier.
At an anti-Trump rally in Chicago, the leaders chant anti-Israel slogans with the crowd responding that Israel should be thrown into the sea. (hijacking the goal of the protest)
3 professors at UIC were found to have suffered discriminatory harassment starting in 2022. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said that the university “had every opportunity to address this and didn’t.” (antisemitism) [1]
Jewish preschool teachers, about to leave for a training in Italy, are required to sign a document disavowing “occupation in Gaza.” (litmus test) [2]
Dual U.S./Israeli citizens who are students and faculty at a respected university are enduring blood libel accusations such that a colleague is spending 2-4 hours a week helping them cope. (blood libel antisemitic trope)
Oak Park is pulled into a conflict over an Illinois law that bans state pension funds from supporting Boycott Divestment and Sanctions of Israel. The BDS movement is pledged to end the state of Israel; BDS also opposes Palestinians working with Israelis unless the Israeli essentially disavows the state of Israel. (not peace-seeking) [3]
You are in a social media group, and someone says you should be kicked out because you are a “genocide-supporter” and shouldn’t be around kids. Others in this group agree. (demonization)
You are absolutely anti-Netanyahu and his government (as probably most of us No referendum voters are), yet people assume you support him. Where did that idea come from? (vilification)
Can you feel the water getting warmer? Our synagogues have security and armed guards. Do your churches have that? Do they need that? What would you call this?
I am seeing a “coming-for-the-Jews” movement and it’s building up steam. It can happen here. It won’t look exactly like Nazi Germany, but it will rhyme. People will be shunned, blacklisted, made guilty by association, fired and demonized at the least. And, of course, it will not stop with Jews. I don’t live in Oak Park (any more), but rising water knows no boundaries and I feel it heating up. Can you? Silence on this is complicity.
Sources:
[1] Jewish News Services, Aug. 18, “Federal agency finds ‘reasonable cause’ that Chicago university discriminated against Jewish, Israeli professors.”
[2] Wednesday Journal, Oct. 21, “Trip to Italy canceled for local Jewish preschool educators.”
[3] American Jewish Committee, Jan. 25, 2023, Tough Questions on the Anti-Israel BDS Movement Answered; and The BDS Movement’s Anti-Normalization Guidelines Explained | BDS Movement
Phyllis Rubin
River Forest
