As unrest continues in Amsterdam in the wake of anti-Semitic attacks last week on Israeli soccer fans visiting the city, Albany's Jewish community rallied Monday night.
Supporters gathered around the flagpole at the Sidney Albert Albany Jewish Community Center on Whitehall Road. "We stand here, outraged, outraged that Jew hatred is alive and well," said Laura Weisblatt, a co-founder of Amidah Albany.
"The current mutation of anti-Semitism is cloaked under the heading of anti-Zionism, and it has spread like a global cancer. Unfortunately, it reared its ugly head in the most gruesome way in Europe last week in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where dozens of Jews were hunted, attacked, beaten and run over by cars in the street by gangs who had organized and premeditated the attack," Weisblatt said, "Dubbing it themselves ‘a Jew hunt’ and proudly posting videos of it on their own social media pages. These Jews were singled out and hunted simply because of their identity."
Weisblatt added that there is evidence that the attack was planned long before the Israeli soccer fans arrived in Amsterdam.
"We are here today for them, for all our Jewish brothers and sisters all over the world, for our Israeli brothers and sisters, wherever they may be. We are one community, one people, one family. We stand united together against hatred, racism and bigotry, and specifically anti-Semitism in all its ugly forms," said Weisblatt.
Albany County Legislator Alison McLean Lane of the 14th district says as a "non-Jew," she condemns terrorism and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the local Jewish community.
"Terror events are meant to silence the outspoken, but only prove the perpetrators lack of humanity and the lack of value they place on human life. The events in Amsterdam, they did not happen in a vacuum. They are in addition to September 11, the 1972 Olympics in Munich. They are akin to the terror acts of Black September, ISIS, al Qaeda. There are so many, but they are also these smaller events that happen that are clearly anti-Semite events that are just shocking to me as a human being," McLean Lane said.
Speakers noted local incidents of anti-Semitism, including vandalism at Jewish cemeteries, bullying of Jewish students in schools, refusal of local businesses to serve Jewish organizations, and a shooting last December at Temple Israel on New Scotland Avenue where a Jewish preschool is located.
Evelyn Loeb is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors. "Anti-Semitism is again being promoted through rhetoric and turned into violence against us just because we are Jews," Loeb said. "My mother and father would have been horrified by these events. They both spent many years educating others about the Holocaust in an effort to prevent anti-Semitism. They would wonder if the world has learned anything from the past. Now is the time to embrace our identity as Jews, to find the allies who will support us. Many of them are here tonight and for everyone to step up and do this difficult work of fighting global anti-Semitism."
David Posner, CEO of the JCCs of the Capital Region, said the large turnout demonstrates the resolve of the Jewish community to not let disturbing events go unanswered.
"The United States is not 1930s Germany, but we can't assume that will always be the case. Showing up is one way we work to not let that happen," said Posner.
