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i'm putting this here more to remind myself.. and also to let y'all know what our community is doing..
this comes from the eugene human rights commission, via the pflag list:
To have allies, we must be allies to others.
Hi Friends,
As most of you know, last week a group of people from our community chose to take stones and imprint swastikas on them. They then attempted to throw the stones through the windows of Temple Beth Israel during the Synagogue's Friday night service. The message they desired to send was clear. Eugene Human Rights Commission Chair Andrea Ortiz and I believe it is important that we, the greater community, respond to that message with one of our own. We want to send a message that is equally clear in our condemnation of hatred, bigotry, and intolerance. That using symbols of hate and tactics of fear are dead wrong. More important, we want to send a message that Eugene welcomes, cherishes and respects people of all faiths and that we believe our religious communities enhance and enrich our City. We are asking that you join us in a silent vigil outside the doors of the Synagogue on Friday, November 1, from 7:45 to 9:30 p.m. The purpose is to create a space for members of the Jewish community to worship in peace and safety at their 8:00 p.m. service, knowing that their friends and neighbors do care and wish to keep them from harm.
If you wish to join us, know that our plans are to stay outside the Synagogue so please dress warm, and please don't park in Temple Beth Israel's parking lot - we want to save it for congregation members. We would like everyone to consider bringing a card, note, or small token that expresses your thoughts or concerns. Temple Beth Israel is located at 42 West 25th, the corner of 25th and Portland Ave, one block west of Willamette. Do bring family and friends and help us spread the word. If you have any questions, please call the Eugene Human Rights Program at 682-5177.
Thank you for your consideration, Greg Rikhoff
Hello again friends,
I just received a request from Rabbi Yitzhak Husbands-Hankin to extend a warm welcome from the TBI congregation to anyone who would like to attend the Shabbat service. Please feel free to join the congregation if you desire. He says the congregation would be honored to have such friends praying with them.
As you spread the word, please let people know that they may choose between attending the service or joining the silent vigil outside.
being that i've been ill again lately, i've been doing what i always do when i'm ill.. i've been doing a lot of reading about the holocaust (for those of you not in the know, the holocaust is one of my areas of interest). in my many (re: 18-19 years) years of reading on the subject i have always hoped that i would have been one of the ones that would have risked her life to help those who were being persecuted. now i know that this is not the situation here in eugene, but this is still a situation where people have been threatned, where someone took a violent action against a group of people merely because they are jewish. and thats wrong. that is wrong. its wrong, its wrong, IT IS WRONG. and i NEED to show up at temple beth israel to show my solidarity with this community, to show that i care, and that i will do everything in *my* power to enable them to feel safer when they are coming together as community. they do it for me, in fact i share community with many members of temple beth israel. its the least i can do.
oh and while i'm on this subject of the holocaust.. since the war in afghanistan started i've been seeing liberal propganda crap (yes, *i* said liberal propoganda *crap*) comparing bush and hitler. bush is NO hitler. in fact there aren't many people in the leagues of hitler as far as evilness.
it makes me angry. it makes me really really really angry the way people in this country go throwing around the word hitler. the way people in this country compare just about anyone we don't like to hitler. i'm sorry, but that is just simply unacceptable.
my particular interest in holocaust reading is personal narratives. and i have read waaaaaay to many of them and i have seen waaaaaaaaaay to many figures, as in numbers of people killed, to be able to sit back and listen to the word hitler be tossed about as if it means nothing.
a few weeks ago someone wrote in to our local progressive rag about a movie about the homeless. now, i'd seen the movie and i'd pretty much had the same beef that she had about it.. but then she used the term "nazi propoganda".. now, if i'd been in a different state of mind i would have a) written into the paper and then b) would have confronted her the next time i saw her and thrown a few facts at her about the holocaust. no, that movie was NOT nazi propoganda. that movie DID NOT cause anyone to turn their backs while people were lying in the streets waiting to be deported to who knows where. that movie did NOT cause whole populations of people to throw hate filled words at people who were once their close friends and then turn them into police who they knew might very well do unspeakable things to them.. i could go on and on and on about what that movie WAS NOT in comparison to nazi propoganda.
as you can tell.. this whole making light of words like nazi and hitler infuriates me. i believe that if people are going to become unsensitized then they need to become resensitezed. 11 million lives is not something to ever become desensitized to. no, it is not ever something to become desenitized to.
and back to bush and hitler. these liberal idiots who dare to compare the two are the idiots. well.. them and bush. because it is my belief that bush is an idiot. and hitler.. i don't know how smart he was, but i think he was smarter than bush. and my conclusion, at least about bush, was confirmed today as i was watching one of those stupid entertainment shows.. bush home movies on the campaign. the man really is an idiot. but i will say this.. he might believe that some collateral damage is not a big deal, but i don't believe that he wants to commit genocide.
Posted by brooke at October 30, 2002 12.13.42 AM
