kipahs<\/em>, or jewelry, like Star of David necklaces, on the streets so as not to make themselves targets. Nor does it minimize the threat from terrorist groups or anti-Semitic regimes like that of Iran, which still hopes to acquire nuclear weapons and therefore place the one Jewish state on the planet in peril of being annihilated. Fears about Britain being ruled by an anti-Semite like Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn are similarly justified.<\/p>\nBut the problem in Europe is not that the continent is about to fall into the hands of Nazis. It\u2019s that only several decades after the Holocaust, the world is still awash in anti-Semitism that legitimizes the ongoing war on Israel and Zionism, and might one day engender more hatred and violence elsewhere if left unchecked.<\/p>\n
Our problem is not recognizing that anti-Semitism exists, but how to calibrate our response so as to avoid the twin perils of hysteria and complacence.<\/p>\n
Kristallnacht wasn\u2019t so much the beginning of Nazi crimes against the Jews\u2014discrimination, arbitrary imprisonment and violence long predated that moment. But it was the point of no return beyond which foreign observers could no longer deceive themselves about the nature of the regime and what it was capable of doing. Before then, even those who were not hostile to Jews\u2014plus some Jews themselves, including those who remained loyal to their German homeland despite the fact that it was painfully clear their love was not requited\u2014could see Hitler\u2019s rise as an aberration, a passing phase that would soon be either defeated or absorbed into less dangerous movements. Until then, Nazi Germany could still be, albeit with difficulty, spoken of as somehow connected to the Germany that was at the heart of European high culture and science, rather than barbarism.<\/p>\n
Yet to think clearly about Kristallnacht requires us to be both vigilant and realistic about the nature of contemporary anti-Semitism. You don\u2019t have to believe that a new Auschwitz is possible in the near future to understand that Jew-haters on the right, as well as their strange Islamist bedfellows, would, if they could, repeat the horrors of the past. What they are capable of doing in the present is bad enough in terms of their efforts to demonize Israel and its Jewish supporters without resorting to hyperbole that undermines any effort to raise awareness of the problem.<\/p>\n
Nor does one enhance Jewish security by speaking of the threat from white supremacists as having the kind of support that the Nazis possessed from a massive percentage of the Germany electorate. Today\u2019s far-right-wing killers are largely isolated politically and can count on no support from the political establishment in Germany or the United States.<\/p>\n
Equally foolish is the attempt to link President Donald Trump to anti-Jewish violence, ignoring his pro-Israel record and repeated condemnations of white supremacists.<\/p>\n
What is required of our Kristallnacht commemorations is a cool-headed willingness to call out hate wherever it occurs and to take whatever action is needed to ensure the safety of our communities. We must also be willing to understand that the Jews are not alone today the way they were in 1938. Nor, thanks to the existence of the State of Israel, are they powerless. Those who forget or misinterpret history so as to bolster foolish alarmism or dangerous complacence are not doing the Jews or the fight against hate any good.<\/p>\n
(Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS\u2014Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.)<\/em><\/p>\n
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