‘As a Jewish American, I Don’t See This Country Quite the Same Way After January 6’

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‘As a Jewish American, I…

NATHAN WOLFSON

The Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol building had a profound effect on most Americans — but for Nathan Wolfson — a Jewish resident of Washington, D.C., who lives close to where the riot took place — it was especially disturbing. (He is an adjunct professor at The George Washington University.) Wolfson’s grandmother was a Holocaust survivor who fled Europe, and the images of some rioters promoting virulent antisemitism (“Camp Auschwitz” t-shirt) were burned into his consciousness. In the article linked below, Wolfson raises the question: Will Jews need to flee America someday?

Quote: “As a Jew, I could not help but hear the echoes of fascist violence that my grandparents endured during a surge of antisemitic extremism that led them to flee Europe shortly after the end of World War ll. The violence I witnessed last year led me to ask whether I too might have to flee one day to avoid increasing extremism and white nationalism in this country.”
— CNN.com

Read “As a Jewish American, I don’t see this country quite the same way after January 6” ►

Photo: Courtesy Nathan Wolfson

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“[T]he foundations for extremism usually are held in check by various restraints. Societies are not liberal, moderate, progressive, and free because almost all their citizens – let alone their politicians — are liberal, moderate, progressive or committed to the freedoms of others.

“But societies consistently avoid extremism when the infrastructures of freedom are strong: when key institutions and norms encourage a more decent, rights-respective, lawful politics; when powerful social movements and independent media hold leaders to account, expose rather than reinforce political fantasies, and champion the rights of the vulnerable; and when information is produced and scrutinized by scholars, civil servants, and non-governmental organizations devoid of either government repression or vested interests.

“Yet no infrastructure is rigidly immovable, and once key components are eroded and weakened, once sections of the political and cultural elite attempt to mobilize the foundations of extremism, the system of restraints can swiftly collapse.

“While genocide on the scale of the Holocaust is historically exceptional, its central lesson is that the broader danger of extreme atrocities is not. In the words of the great historian Ian Kershaw, the Holocaust ‘lit a warning beacon that still burns brightly: it showed how a modern, advanced, cultured society can so rapidly sink into barbarity… It showed what we are capable of.’ Only by rejecting false narratives of conflict and polarization, and maintaining systems of rights and freedoms for all, can we hope to prevent that capability from once more becoming a reality.”

— Jonathan Leader Maynard in his incisive article “Could It Happen Here?: The Holocaust and Atrocities in the 21st Century” To read the entire article, click here.