Vandals turn a Jewish familys home menorah into a swastika

[Behind the Aegis]

Source: Washington Post

When Naomi and Seth Ellis’ young sons said that they wanted lights on their house in Chandler, Arizona, like all their neighbors’ Christmas decorations, the parents knew what to tell their three Jewish boys: Yes.

---snip---

After the boys went to bed on the sixth night of Hanukkah, someone dismantled their special menorah and turned it into a giant swastika.

“We talk a lot about the importance of equality and tolerance, loving everybody no matter what,” Naomi Ellis said. “I had to tell them that not everybody feels that way. Some people are ignorant, and this is what they do.”

She watched tears well up in her 9-year-old son’s eyes as she explained.

“They know about the Holocaust. They know about Nazis,” she said. But before Friday morning, the three children — ages 5, 7 and 9 — had never before seen a swastika, the symbol of the Nazi party that carried out the murder of 6 million Jews and of current-day hate groups.



Read more: http://www.heraldnet.com/news/vandals-turn-a-jewish-familys-home-menorah-into-a-swastika/

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Just a reminder...

[TreasonousBastard]

1. This seems to be going viral, and there are few words bad enough for the pond scum who...

would do this.

They went to a lot of work to make a little boy cry and his parents fear. My fear is that they see themselves as entitled under the new regime.

[Judi Lynn]

2. No one is safe who's not a fascist.

[Feeling the Bern]

7. It may go viral, but it won't even raise an eyebrow. It's just Jews.

We Jews have had this happen to use for three millenia and no one cared. Jewish blood is cheaper than used toilet paper. Cheaper than broken glass. My Jewish blood is the cheapest, most worthless thing on Earth. And White christian civilization has proved that time and time again.

So has non white civilization and I have two examples:

1. Being Jewish was illegal in Uganda until recently.
2. Jewish isn't a state approved religion in China, so the CCP has declared war on the Chinese Jews of Kaifang and have passed laws that state that my wife cannot join me at Chabad House because you need a foreign passport to get in.

But Christianity is okay here in China.

[Feeling the Bern]

3. Expect more of this. But it's okay to do this.

To Trumpers, we are scum of the Earth that deserve ovens.

To the left wing, we deserve this because. . .you know, Israel. I've read that a few times here on DU. So have you, OP.

I expect this to be alert, even thought what I said was 100% true.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. I fully expect more of this.

Frankly, I am expecting something much worse. Other groups will get it bad too, but it will be us that merit excuses and "meh's". I am trying to focus on those who are actual allies (I do the same when it comes to GLBT issues). After watching an Amazon documentary on Goebbels propaganda, the parallels were so eerie, I really do have an idea of what is to come.

[Feeling the Bern]

5. Paul Newman from Exodus: "They make act like allies, but they will turn on us when the winds change

Make no mistake about it, we are alone in this fight. As every Jew has been for centuries." When talking when the British blocked the ship in the harbor.

[BigDemVoter]

60. Same here.

I don't believe I've ever heard so many consistent antisemitic messages--whether blatant or subliminal--for a very, very long time. Yet now that I am reading your response, it made me reflect on WHEN I heard such frequent messages in the past.

The LAST time these types of messages were swirling around that I can recall to this level was when George Wallace was reaching for the presidency. The voters who wanted George Wallace LOVE them some tRump.

And now they all feel encouraged to be themselves.

It's the same goddamned people. Duh. Thanks for indirectly giving me some insight.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. I'm not going to alert, but say up front that...

it's not a good idea to blame the many for the words of a few.

There's that town in Montana that put stars of David in all (most, anyway) their windows when the skinheads started throwing rocks.

Wouldn't it be great to see menorahs on every house on that block...

[Feeling the Bern]

8. Good Christians deflied my car with swastikas. I was beaten up repeatedly as kid for being Jewish

I see this and I get pissed. I have been victimized by it waaaay too many times.

Blaming the many for the few. . .Israel is filled with people who support a two state system. But they also don't matter because. . .you know, Bibi.

[TreasonousBastard]

10. I wouldn't consider them good Christians...

and if I were Jewish, I doubt I'd consider Bibi a good Jew.

Using religion as an excuse for being an asshole has been way too popular over the years.

[Feeling the Bern]

11. I was subjected to being forced into Catholic Church by my grandmother for forcibly conversions.

I could list the horror I have faced in the good, tolerant USA.

I wake up a night, even after 25 years, in sweats, hearing the fists and feet hit my body with people screaming "die, Jew bastard, die."

Muslims never did that. Hindus never did that to me. Buddhists never did that to me. Zoaroastrians never did that to me. Wiccans never did that to me. Satanists never did that to me. Sikhs never did that to me. Only Christians have done that.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

15. Wow! I'm sorry to read that!

Too bad that you didn't get to attend my high school. The Jewish kids were a minority there, overall, but I never heard or saw such behavior!

They were the majority in my "honors" classes and tended to be the bullies in there, actually. It was more verbal than physical, so no biggie.

[whathehell]

20. "forcible conversions"?

I thought those went out with the Middle Ages.

I was raised Catholic with 12 years of Catholic school and never heard of such a thing.

[Feeling the Bern]

21. Get forced to go to church. then get harrangued for the entire day about how evil being Jewish

is and how I need to accept Christ, then get punished for not doing it.

I'd call that forced. Thanks for mocking part of my abusive childhood.

[whathehell]

22. Sounds like the work of your grandmother,

not the institutional church, and, forgive me, but your grandmother sounds like a nutcase....Where were your parents in all this?

[Feeling the Bern]

24. Either ignoring me or beating me.

Stop now! I really don't care. The fucking Priest was part of that shit too.

[whathehell]

25. You obviously have a story to tell..How about telling all of it, instead

of just bits and pieces?.....Again, where were your parents?

[whathehell]

30. Your Jewish parents were ignoring or beating you?

Sounds like there's more than one abuser in your tragic family story.

[Thor_MN]

35. And it sounds like another one now.

If you need a picture, pick up a mirror.

[whathehell]

42. Huh?

Try writing in full sentences. You can then look in your own mirror.:

[Thor_MN]

44. It sounds like another abuser, if you need it spelled out for you.

I really think looking in a mirror would have given you your answer, but...


And I'm not going to give you your apparent desire, someone to argue with.

Good bye, Have a nice life.

[whathehell]

46. What, pray tell, is "it"?

Never mind...You clearly don't know what you you're talking about.

[elias7]

48. Just read thru Trumps twitter - reads the same. Bullying with or without awareness of it

[Buckeye_Democrat]

23. That's horrible!

God help us all... and I write that as an atheist! (Raised Christian-Methodist.)

I'm starting to think minorities are going to get bullied almost anywhere they go. I was bullied when I went through a red haired stage in elementary school... even by the teachers! It's mind-blowing how some people behave!

[montana_hazeleyes]

19. Jewish people matter a whole lot to me Feeling the Bern!

I don't usually swear on here, but I will say this, my thought when I saw this was "Those Fucking Bastards" in reaction to whoever did this evil act.

[JudyM]

38. Which state were you living in? My dad was chased home from school with rocks around Easter

for a number of years. Still has a big lump on the back of head where one caused blood to gush.

[Feeling the Bern]

39. Delaware County, NY. . .NY's answer to the Ozarks.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

53. Sheesh! That's a very pro-Republican county!

http://www.co.delaware.ny.us/departments/elec/election_night_reporting.htm

(You obviously know that already.)

[whathehell]

18. "It's not a good idea to blame the many for the actions of a few"

Excellent.

[whathehell]

28. The left wing is not "okay" with this and you know it..

Opposition to the Right Wing in Israel equals anti-Semitism about as much as opposition to the Right Wing in America equals anti-Americanism. Cut the BS.

[calimary]

9. Looks like The Mark of the Deplorables.

[still_one]

12. This is getting worse and worse. Trump seems to have embolden them

[RKP5637]

26. Trump, has given them permission to do as they damn well please. We saw that in his

hate filled rallies, he endorsed their hatred, sided with them, and worshiped their racism and bigotry. He seems intent in turning the US into a very hateful place with lots of division and isolation. And then look at his picks/appointees. What a cast of characters.

[raccoon]

13. Thanks, Trump. All his bigoted, racist talk encouraged (and still does)

oxygen wasters like those who did this.

[Daxter]

14. Learn a martial art

In times like these, it is important to know how to defend yourselves and those you love. I am no way advocating violence of any kind, but I am encouraging anyone who feels there safety is at risk to learn how to defend themselves. I recommend Brazilian jiu hirsute.

[lunasun]

27. i can't even

[barbtries]

16. this makes me so sad.

the hate just for what? there cannot be true satisfaction in the act, or in knowing they've caused this pain. what makes people so small and so hateful?

[LeftishBrit]

17. Scumbags.

[dubyadiprecession]

29. Children need to be fully educated in the schools about the Nazi's.

Atrocities were also committed against our service men during world war II. These of course were the people fighting for our freedom and the swastika is also a slap in the face to them as well.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

32. I took a young woman on a first date in '93, and I suggested that we...

see Schindler's List.

After it was over, she asked me on the way to my car why anyone would make such a terrible movie. I asked what she meant.

Long story short, she didn't know anything about Nazi Germany! None of it! She graduated from a high school that I knew had a pretty bad reputation in the area -- e.g., low average SAT scores -- but it still blew my mind! She never even saw a documentary on TV about it?!

At least she cried after she realized it was based on real events, saying stuff like, "How could people do such things?!"

We didn't go on another date. It was more her choice, probably because the first one with me wasn't much fun! It was no big loss as far as I was concerned.

[Rustyeye77]

33. You couldn't find a comedy to go to ?

Nt

[Buckeye_Democrat]

34. LOL! That probably would have been a better first date movie choice!

Oh, well. It might've been for the best that it worked out that way.

[whathehell]

43. What planet was she from?

I grew up in a blue collar, non-Jewish family where we read about it and watched films like "Judgement at Nuremberg" and "The Diary of Ann Frank" when I about ten years old.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

45. Me too!

My parents and older siblings exposed me to some disturbing history pretty early, stuff that lots of other kids at my elementary school didn't know.

Maybe she grew up in a family that "shielded" her even longer from such things? Heck if I know.

[whathehell]

47. Right..It's hard to imagine growing up

to dating age without having even heard of the Holocaust.

Even if my family had never discussed it, there were books, newspapers and magazines all over my house, not to mention television and movies....I can't even imagine it.

[heaven05]

31. shades of 1933 nazi germany

the brownshirts are and will be, in numbers, roaming our neighborhoods looking for likely victims. Their fuhrer told them this was okay and his son-in-law is jewish....but since he's the uber rich son of a crooked real estate magnate, he's different. Right?

[rickford66]

36. Pretty clever vandals

Discover the Menorah. Decide to rearrange it. Figure out how it's put together. What tools needed. Either working in the dark or with attention attracting light. Make no sounds. Rearranged the pieces in some semblance of a swastika. All done in a fairly short time period. Hard to believe they didn't have some prior knowledge of the construction.

[JudyM]

37. And there should be fingerprints all over it, unless they used gloves. I hope the cops are looking

at that.

[MicaelS]

40. What are you implying?

That the family did it to themselves?

In any case it is easy to see it's made of PVC pipe. PVC is easy to work with. It is obvious that it is also not glued together, just force fitted. Pull it apart, reassemble it. Probably took 5 minutes tops.

[rickford66]

41. Not implying that at all.

Only that it was done so fast and secretly. Those vandals were very very clever.

[whathehell]

49. Maybe they'd done it before..

or had planned it in advance -- Whatever the answer, I hope they get the shit stains that did it.

[rickford66]

50. Well...

If they'd done it before, I guess they just roam around looking for PVC Menorahs OR they had prior knowledge and had time to plan. I'll bet they had prior knowledge.

[whathehell]

52. Roaming would not have been necessary if

they lived in the area.

Whatever...I'm less concerned with the "how" than the "why".

[rickford66]

54. I'm saying I don't think itwas random vandals.

Probably a neighbor or acquaintance. It was well planned and executed. I also hope they are caught.

[whathehell]

55. Very possible....Shitty rotten people, in any case.

I wonder if they'd have the guts to express their ugly bigotry in the light of day.

[MicaelS]

59. Agree 100 percent. n/t

[Gothmog]

51. This is sickening

[shenmue]

56. Excuse my language

but f*ck these people.

[inanna]

57. What terrible times we live in.

I'm all out of words.

[BigDemVoter]

58. What a terrible way to introduce those children to the more ugly things life has to offer.

Life has its delights, but then there are the human boils on the ass of humanity to contend with.

[benld74]

61. Chandler residents have CORRECTED this BIG TIme

Menorah was restored in ONE days time
LARGE gathering with readings done by the entire community.
BIG F U to those who did this!!

[sheshe2]

62. I am so sorry to see such needless cruelty.