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May. 12th, 2022 05:29 pmTwo Saturdays ago, someone vandalized a mural in town. A stunning, beautiful mural about welcoming refugees into America: https://colab-arts.org/
The vandalism involved spray painting a Star of David over the face of a woman wearing a hijab. So what I felt wasn't just anger and upset, but also shame. Shame that apparently a member of my community, claiming to stand for my values, was making this statement. In the past few weeks, tension between Jews and Muslims in Israel have been a bit higher than normal, with fighting at the al-Aqsa mosque and a number of street attacks, so it seemed like a plausible inference that there was some connection. But this Jew did not speak for me.
There was a vigil that Saturday to stand against the hate, but most observant Jews weren't aware of it because it was Shabbat, and a lot of Jews felt like it was important to be visibly there to say this does not represent us. So they had another vigil on Monday, maybe a hundred people showed up and a bunch of clergy and community leaders spoke. I felt obligated to show up.
At the vigil, I learned that the artist had been harassed while painting, and had asked for police protection from the mayor, who promised it and then failed to deliver. The mayor later spoke and she apologized, while kinda making it sound like it was the police's fault, not hers. Either way, there's a missing part of the story there that I doubt we'll ever learn.
Then on last Thursday, the police announced they'd arrested a suspect. Who was apparently not Jewish. I don't know if he did it or not, he is innocent until proven guilty and I don't have that much reason to trust the police. And now it goes to the courts, which means any evidence won't become fully public for a while, if ever.
We're unlikely to ever know the whole story, which makes it even more frustrating. Why did he the vandal do it, and why did they use a Star of David as the symbol of their hate? I am reminded of an opposite story back in 2017 when a spate of threats to Jewish federations was ultimately traced to a Jew. We rarely get the full story, these things cross our social media dashes and we form opinions about them from incomplete data and those opinions shape the way we see the world.
But as a concluding thought, the explanation of the mural that they discussed at the vigil is that its intention is the show symbols of the homelands of the refugees, to indicate their deep longing to return home. It stands in contrast to classical American iconography about immigrants, which generally emphasizes adapting to a new homeland. As a Jew with complicated feelings about immigration and assimilation, I am sitting with that idea and reprocessing. I hope the mural gets repaired soon and that it stays up for a long time, so I can continue to reflect on its messages.
The vandalism involved spray painting a Star of David over the face of a woman wearing a hijab. So what I felt wasn't just anger and upset, but also shame. Shame that apparently a member of my community, claiming to stand for my values, was making this statement. In the past few weeks, tension between Jews and Muslims in Israel have been a bit higher than normal, with fighting at the al-Aqsa mosque and a number of street attacks, so it seemed like a plausible inference that there was some connection. But this Jew did not speak for me.
There was a vigil that Saturday to stand against the hate, but most observant Jews weren't aware of it because it was Shabbat, and a lot of Jews felt like it was important to be visibly there to say this does not represent us. So they had another vigil on Monday, maybe a hundred people showed up and a bunch of clergy and community leaders spoke. I felt obligated to show up.
At the vigil, I learned that the artist had been harassed while painting, and had asked for police protection from the mayor, who promised it and then failed to deliver. The mayor later spoke and she apologized, while kinda making it sound like it was the police's fault, not hers. Either way, there's a missing part of the story there that I doubt we'll ever learn.
Then on last Thursday, the police announced they'd arrested a suspect. Who was apparently not Jewish. I don't know if he did it or not, he is innocent until proven guilty and I don't have that much reason to trust the police. And now it goes to the courts, which means any evidence won't become fully public for a while, if ever.
We're unlikely to ever know the whole story, which makes it even more frustrating. Why did he the vandal do it, and why did they use a Star of David as the symbol of their hate? I am reminded of an opposite story back in 2017 when a spate of threats to Jewish federations was ultimately traced to a Jew. We rarely get the full story, these things cross our social media dashes and we form opinions about them from incomplete data and those opinions shape the way we see the world.
But as a concluding thought, the explanation of the mural that they discussed at the vigil is that its intention is the show symbols of the homelands of the refugees, to indicate their deep longing to return home. It stands in contrast to classical American iconography about immigrants, which generally emphasizes adapting to a new homeland. As a Jew with complicated feelings about immigration and assimilation, I am sitting with that idea and reprocessing. I hope the mural gets repaired soon and that it stays up for a long time, so I can continue to reflect on its messages.