(Jewish Group) 'Small' instances of antisemitism are a sign of how grave the problem is

When my family built our home in Saunderstown, Rhode Island 40 years ago, we found most people in the community to be friendly and welcoming. A memory that has stuck with me through the years, however, is the question one resident, whose family had lived here for generations, asked me: “How did the Morgenthau’s get a property in South County?”.

The not-so-subtle meaning beneath that seemingly innocuous question was “who sold land to those Jews?”

After seeing that the owners of a sports bar in nearby Tiverton felt comfortable using antisemitic jokes — specifically, ones that made light of the Holocaust and the death of Anne Frank — to promote their business, I was reminded of that question from years ago, and of the not-so-subtle prejudice which prompted it.

When my grandfather Henry Morgenthau Jr. served as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Treasury, he fought back against antisemitism in the State Department publicly and played a key role in the United States defeating Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. My mother and her family fled Austria following Kristallnacht and were among the lucky ones to have escaped with their lives.

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Shame this isn't sinking with many people, including, sadly, many Jews. Seems it will take another "Tree of Life" event, or actually, something even bigger, for some to understand and believe anti-Semitism in the US (and the world) is real and a problem.