Tree of Life
I expect that most of you are aware of the recent terror attack by a right-wing white supremacist in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
It should go without saying that there is no place for such inhumanity in a civilized society. Tragically, that does not seem to be the case, and many prominent people have virtually endorsed the premeditated murder of eleven innocent people — whether through silence or actions makes no difference. Therefore, because of the silence of the powerful, I feel obliged to use this soap box — as close to ground level as it may be — to say what they apparently will not.
We condemn racism, nativism, fascism, and white supremacy, and will resist and oppose it by whatever means we have at our disposal, now and forever.
Tree of Life Synagogue was targeted because of their support for purportedly left-wing causes, particularly their affiliation with HIAS and other refugee rights organizations that seek to fulfill that divine commandment: to love the stranger, in remembrance that we ourselves were once strangers in a land not our own.
I expect some of you may be wondering what this has to do with special education law. Nazi textbooks contained questions like, “The construction of a lunatic asylum [i.e., a residential placement] costs six million marks. How many houses at 15,000 marks each could have been built for that amount?”
Regardless of where it begins — with refugees, with Jews, whomever — you can be sure it will not end there. Not unless we end it ourselves, that is.
Marc Gottlieb
Partner
195 Montague Street
14th Floor
Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201
Marc@gottliebfirm.com
(646) 820-8506