August 17, 2017
By Derek Hawkins
A head rabbi (click here) at Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s New York City synagogue denounced President Trump’s response to the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, joining a chorus of political and religious leaders who say the president was wrong to blame “both sides” for the violence.
In a letter Wednesday to his congregation, Rabbi Haskel Lookstein wrote that his community had been “consumed” by the “frightening message and fallout” from the hate-fueled mayhem that left one woman dead and others injured last weekend.
“We are appalled by this resurgence of bigotry and antisemitism, and the renewed vigor of the neo-Nazis, KKK and alt-right,” read the letter, which was signed by Lookstein and two other rabbis. “While we always avoid politics, we are deeply troubled by the moral equivalency and equivocation President Trump has offered in his response to this act of violence.”
“We pray that our country heeds the voices of tolerance, and stays true to its vision of human rights and civil rights,” it read....
The country cannot ignore the rise of racism. It is now pervasive, including federal legislation. We tolerated a lot of the change as "elections have consequences." That was wrong. As soon as the whiff of racism was being realized it should have become part of the national dialogue.
David Duke's agenda is at the point where his followers felt safe enough to carry weapons into Charlottesville, Virginia. We lost a wonderful woman and two police officers and Duke didn't even blink.
The gun rights issue has to be included in this. The weapons on the street of the USA are at least or more powerful than what the average police carry. We are looking at SWAT teams being challenged by NUMBERS, not strength. The militarization of the USA has played to the racist agenda. I think the political agenda of ALEC is happenstance to the David Duke agenda, but, it certainly helped in arming the American street.
The agenda of mayors and states to remove racist statues and other symbols is correct and needed. A society values it's leaders through such infrastructure. We need to remove the heralding of the Civil War South. It is correct to do so. We have to stop passing along the legitimacy of slavery as part of the south's economy. These icons defended the enslavement of human beings. It has to be dealt with.
The country cannot ignore the rise of racism. It is now pervasive, including federal legislation. We tolerated a lot of the change as "elections have consequences." That was wrong. As soon as the whiff of racism was being realized it should have become part of the national dialogue.
David Duke's agenda is at the point where his followers felt safe enough to carry weapons into Charlottesville, Virginia. We lost a wonderful woman and two police officers and Duke didn't even blink.
The gun rights issue has to be included in this. The weapons on the street of the USA are at least or more powerful than what the average police carry. We are looking at SWAT teams being challenged by NUMBERS, not strength. The militarization of the USA has played to the racist agenda. I think the political agenda of ALEC is happenstance to the David Duke agenda, but, it certainly helped in arming the American street.
The agenda of mayors and states to remove racist statues and other symbols is correct and needed. A society values it's leaders through such infrastructure. We need to remove the heralding of the Civil War South. It is correct to do so. We have to stop passing along the legitimacy of slavery as part of the south's economy. These icons defended the enslavement of human beings. It has to be dealt with.
