Antisemitism and the Montana Menorahs
To my non-Jewish friends asking what they can do about antisemitism: This Sunday and for the next eight days, light a Hanukkah menorah. It’s a small but powerful way to stand shoulder to shoulder with Jewish communities under attack—and it’s a tactic that’s defeated such hate in America before.
In 1993 Billings, Mont., was rocked by antisemitic attacks from white supremacists seeking to establish an Aryan state. They desecrated the Jewish cemetery and made bomb threats against the synagogue. Then they threw a brick through the bedroom window of a 5-year-old Jewish boy, Isaac Schnitzer, aiming for the menorah on the sill.
The police advised his mother, Tammie, to take down her Hanukkah decorations to avoid drawing attention. That didn’t sit well with Tammie. She expressed her concerns to the Billings Gazette, which printed them. How, Tammie asked, could she explain to a child that today in America Jews must hide their menorahs—especially during a holiday celebrating their freedom to worship?
Margaret MacDonald, a Christian resident of Billings, agreed. She called her pastor, Keith Torney, and asked if the children in Sunday school could draw menorahs and display them in their windows in solidarity with their Jewish neighbors. Torney loved the idea and encouraged other churches to join in.
The initiative caught fire. Hundreds of hand-drawn menorahs appeared in windows around Billings. After the Gazette published a full-page picture of a menorah for readers to cut out and tape to their windows, the hundreds turned into thousands. Even local businesses joined in. The antisemites put up a fight—firing shots into a local Catholic school and smashing the glass panes of a church—but the volume of solidarity overwhelmed them. They eventually retreated from the town.
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https://www.wsj.com/opinion/antisemitism-and-the-montana-menorahs-00eada2e?st=GNN1Wh&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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