Alvin H. Rosenfeld
Tablet, Jan. 15, 2024
“Swastikas are back, and the hatred they symbolize is more vocal, more visual, and more pervasive than it has been for decades.”
On Christmas Day, 1959, a newly rededicated synagogue in Cologne, Germany, was prominently defaced with swastikas. Immediately thereafter, a “swastika epidemic” broke out in over 20 towns and cities across West Germany, targeting other synagogues, Jewish cemeteries, and Jewish-owned shops. “Death to Jews” and “Jews go home” were among the antisemitic slogans that accompanied this sudden outpouring of Nazi sentiment. In no time at all, a wave of similar incidents occurred around the world. By early March 1960, swastikas appeared seemingly everywhere, so much so that within a three-month period, public expressions of anti-Jewish hatred occurred in 34 countries. In the United States alone, 637 incidents of this kind were recorded in 236 cities and small towns, some of them accompanied by death threats and attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions.
Many were shocked, for under the sign of the swastika Jews had been murdered by the millions in some of the same countries now witnessing this sudden outpouring of hostility against Jews. Was this renewed display of Jew-hatred a continuation of Hitlerian passions or would it pass?
Answers were not easy to come by, but the “swastika epidemic” of 1959-60 petered out after a time, and the antisemitism it represented became relatively quiescent for a while.
It has revived in our own day, and energetically so. Swastikas are back, and the hatred they symbolize is more vocal, more visual, and more pervasive than it has been for decades. Especially since Hamas’ massacre of Israelis on Oct. 7, Jew-hatred, often in the form of Israel-hatred, is vociferously and unapologetically on display on college campuses, in large street demonstrations, on social media, and in segments of America’s political, and cultural life. … [To read the full article, click here]