Kristallnacht(The Night of Broken Glass) was a state-sponsored terrorist action against Jewish people, businesses, homes, and synagogues, a pogrom planned and executed by SA paramilitary forces and civilians throughout Nazi Germany on November 9 and 10, 1938. Most German law enforcement officials looked on without intervening.Kristallnachtand the eventual murder of six million Jewish souls resulted from the longstanding hatred of the Jewish people, what some refer to as The Longest Hatred, dating back millennia. Related I love Hitler: Young Republican leaders spout racist, anti-LGBTQ+ views in leaked chat What I have deemed Kristallnachmittag(The Afternoon of Broken Glass) was a government-sponsored action on January 6, 2021, against the United States Constitution and the legal transition of power planned at the highest levels of the U.S. government and executed by cult-like insurrectionists at the Capitol in Washington, DC. It took government troops many hours to eventually intervene.Antisemitic imagery and tropes helped fuel and ignite the January 6 paramilitary forces of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, with some people wearing a blackCamp Auschwitz T-shirt emblazoned with a skull and crossbones, and beneath it the words work brings freedom an English translation of the Auschwitz concentration camp motto: Arbeit macht frei. Dive deeper every day Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues Subscribe to our Newsletter today Some of their words make it clear that they hope to provoke the Great Revolution based on a fabricated account of a government takeover and race war that would ultimately exterminate Jews.Hate speech generates hate crimes, resulting in harassment, violence, and loss of lives. It affects the individual, then the community, and eventually has ramifications at the national and international levels. The Holocaust did not begin with killing; it began with words, stated a 2016press releasefrom the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. The Museum calls on all American citizens, our religious and civic leaders, and the leadership of all branches of the government to confront racist thinking and divisive hateful speech.We have witnessed hate-filled, antisemitic words coming from Doug Mastriano, a former Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor, against his Jewish opponent, Josh Shapiro.Kanye West has doubled and tripled down on his scathing antisemitic rhetoric, and Kyrie Irving, star NBA player for the Brooklyn Nets, finally backpedaled and apologized for posting a link to a film containing antisemitic material. Stereotypes and tropes used to maintain and perpetuate oppression are many. Regarding those employed against Jewish people, a partial list includes:Killers of GodIn Service of / Fathered by the DevilHost DesecratorsPoisoners of Drinking Wells & Transmitters of DiseasesUsurersRitual Murderers & Abusers of Christian ChildrenForced Circumcisers of Non-Jewish malesImmature / Inadequate Religious ConsciousnessClannishAlien RaceWanderers / StatelessHolders of Dual / Multiple LoyaltiesProselytizers to JudaismFreedom-Killing CommunistsSuper CapitalistsSexually PerverseOversexed or Sexually Frigid FemalesLecherous Males of Christian Women and GirlsFeminized and Non-Athletic MalesController of World Economic Systems and GovernmentsGreedy for WealthFinancially Cheap and CheatersControllers of the MediaExaggerators of the Extent of Anti-Jewish OppressionExploiters of the OppressedWhen anyone uses an already marginalized group to advance their own agendas or careers by stereotyping and scapegoating, that itself is an act of oppression.Every time some Anti-White, Anti-American, Anti-freedom event takes place, you look at it, and its Jews behind it.Thisheadlinein October 2018 blamed Jews for sexual assault charges lodged against then newly confirmed United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The words were printed in bold capital letters on covertly posted extremist fliers distributed at the University of California at Berkeley and Davis, as well as at Vassar and Marist colleges in New York state.The fliers depicted a photo of Kavanaugh surrounded by distorted caricatures of Jewish Senators withMagen Davids(Stars of David) branded on their foreheads. The fliers also included Jewish billionaire, George Soros, whom the political right has unjustly accused of funding anti-Kavanaugh opposition, allegedly paying protesters, and funding the so-called migrant caravan (group of asylum seekers) then inching its way toward the U.S. southern border.On October 26, 2018, about an hour after Florida police captured a man who was suspected of sending approximately 15 pipe bombs through the mail to prominent Democrats, an anonymous man phoned my home, someone who apparently knew I am a professor, and spouted, Hey, how can I donate to your university, you Jew K**e.I immediately hung up. He called me back, but I did not answer his second attempt to deliver his message of hate.One day later, my heart broke as I watched TV reports of a shooter who entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, killing at least 11 people and wounding several others, including 4 police officers. The shooter was said to have ties to pro-neo-Nazi white supremacist organizations. He reportedly shouted during his carnage that Jews must die! As a fairly visible columnist, I have gotten many antisemitic and heterosexist online and telephone threats through the years, some anonymous, some not.I am an out and proud queer Jew. I have been involved in the struggle for civil and human rights most of my life, and I declared to myself long ago that the cause is just and that I would never shrink from the battles or allow others to intimidate me. That said, while making me somehow stronger and even more committed to work for a socially just society, the venomous insults have nonetheless taken an emotional toll on my psyche and on my overall self-esteem.And what are the effects on other members of Jewish communities, especially young people who are progressing through their identity development process? Victims of marginalization and systematic oppression are susceptible to the effects ofinternalized oppression, whereby they internalize, consciously or unconsciously, attitudes of inferiority or otherness. According to re-evaluation specialistSuzanne Lipsky, this internalization, created by oppression from the outside, plays itself out where it has seemed safe to do so in two primary places: 1. on members of their own group, and 2. upon themselves.In the case of religious minoritized communities, this can result in low self-esteem, shame, depression, prejudiced attitudes towards members of their own religious community, and even conversion to a dominant religious denomination.A Jewish student expressed to me in private that when he came to our Midwestern university campus when I was a tenured professor there, he went into a religious closet. To avoid marginalization by his peers, he told them that he was raised Methodist because he has often heard other students express cruel anti-Jewish sentiments regarding Hitler and the Holocaust as well as every-day expressions such as Dont Jew me down (translated as Dont cheat me like a Jew) and Thats so Jewish (like Thats so gay, both intense put-downs). The antisemitic fliers posted at the University of California at Berkeley and Davis and at Vassar and Marist colleges announced they were Brought to you by your local Stormer book club.The Anti-Defamation League describes the chapters of the Daily Stormer Book Club as small crews of young white men who follow and support Andrew Anglin and his neo-Nazi website, the Daily Stormer, and that SBC members present themselves as American Nationalists and are part of the alt right segment of the white supremacist movement.You Jews will not replace us! Jews will not replace us! The estimated 1500 neo-Nazi white supremacists blared out this disgusting chant as they marched with their Tiki Torches in hand through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia on August 11 and 12, 2017. It happened during their Unite the Right protest rally over the scheduled removal of a statue commemorating Civil War General Robert E. Lee.This march was reminiscent of similar events held throughout Germany, and particularly in Nuremberg, during the Nazi era.So why do people all along the political spectrum, from far left to far right, from self-described white supremacists to many people who are otherwise well-intentioned, target Jews, many of whom appear white? The partial answer, stemming from a long and complex history, is that though Jewish people are members ofeveryso-called race, even Jews of European heritage (Ashkenazim) have been and still continue to be racially othered by some dominant Christian European-heritage communities.For this reason, members of white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups engage in religious, ethnic,andracial bigotry against all groups they consider non-white, including Jews. In other words, anti-Jewish prejudice and discrimination (antisemitism) is a form ofracism.Looking back on the historical emergence of the concept of race, critical race theorists remind us that thisconceptarose concurrently with the advent of European exploration as a justification for global domination beginning in the 15thcentury and reaching its apex in the early 20thcentury. Geneticists tell us that there is often more variabilitywithina given so-called race than between races, and that there are no essentialgeneticmarkers linked specifically to race.Though biologists and social scientists have proven unequivocally that theconceptof race is socially constructed, this does not negate the very real consequences people face living in societies that maintain racist policies and practices on the individual, interpersonal, institutional, and larger societal levels.Anti-Jewish hatred, while a mainstay of political, religious, and social discourse in the United States, appears nevertheless to be on the rise. Incidents in the U.S. hit an all-time high in2024with 9,354 recorded cases. This amounts to a 5% increase from the 8,873 incidentsrecorded in 2023, a 344% increase over the past five years, and an 893% increase over the past 10 years. As we commemorateKristallnachtin early November, we must not merely acknowledge it as a historic event, but more importantly, as a look into the not-so-distant future if we remain silent.Politicians, celebrities, and other public personalities must step up to the plate and stand up against the multiple forms of oppression, including antisemitism.Under the Hitler regimethe most important thing that I learned was that bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problems, said Joachim Prinz, Rabbi of Berlin, who was exiled in 1937 to the United States, in a speech on August 28, 1963. The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful, and the most tragic problem is silence. Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.