Submitted by Marina Rosin Levine, Greenwich
The newsletter sent out by the Greenwich Republican Town Committee and signed by Vice Chair, Joe Montanaro, shook me to my core. The newsletter used the devastation in Israel and Palestine as a moment to attack the local and national Democratic party. I am appalled by this insensitive action and rebuke the newsletter’s contents.
I am a Ukrainian born Jewish American citizen and a registered Democrat. My family immigrated to the United States when I was a child to escape systemic antisemitism. And like all Americans, my life has been marked by the distinction of before 9/11 and after 9/11. Similar to that, the Jewish community, can further delineate their existence or lack thereof with before the Holocaust and after the Holocaust. Now a new Jewish generation has the chilling events of this week as an equivalent benchmark.
Before Hamas terrorized Israel, after and still. Every Jew feels this week’s events with
every fiber of their being. So, it infuriates me when Mr. Montanaro suggests that
Democratic Party (me) are responsible for the actions of Hamas, therefore the
destruction of my own people, my own family living in Israel, just to score a few cheap
political points.
Seven-in-ten Jewish adults identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. That is not by accident. Albeit not without its faults – do I struggle with the fringe factions that are standing with Palestine? I do. I have distrustful feelings toward PM Netanyahu, like many Israelis and I empathize with Palestinian civilians – their experience has been awful – a choice between bad and worse, pawns of terrorism. I am not afraid to call out my party’s weaknesses. However, at its core, at the top and in its majority the Democratic Party addresses the most primal needs of the Jewish community, INCLUSIVITY and TOLERANCE, antisemitism’s sworn enemy and terms labeled “woke” by too many in the Republican party. Biden has been applauded by friends and family in Israel for his deep support for Israel. Israeli media are leaning in with the same support.
Divisiveness and the elimination of Jews are the core of Hamas’s ideology. Hamas is not a friend of Palestine. Hamas is not a friend of Israel. Conversely Hamas is a great friend of Iran. Iran, who is a great friend of Putin, who is suddenly considered not worth fighting against by the Republican Party. We have seen the proliferation of Neo
Nazism, Right Wing extremists and groups like the Proud Boys who found voice and
solace under the Trump Republican brand of scapegoat politics. Certainly, we
remember the Charlottesville, “Unite the Right” rally where “White Lives Matter” and
“Jews will not Replace Us” slogans were chanted in unison, whereby the end of the day, Heather Heyer was dead, mowed down by a white supremacist who drove his car into counter protesters.
And how about the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue a crime perpetrated by a killer who claimed, ‘immigrants are invaders’ and ‘Jews contribute to white genocide’. Will you blame Democrats for that too? Instead of simply voicing support and a call for unity-finally. We get “vote for Row B”.
So, before you use the destruction of my people as fodder for your niche newsletter, take a better look at how your dear leader has stoked the flames of antisemitism and hate right here in the US and at the minimum take accountability for that. Unless of
course you are okay with his messaging? Hamas and hate were on the ballot in Gaza,
likewise Trump and hate are on the ballot here. What have we learned this week?
Social media has made everyone feel like they need to opine on everyone else’s
trauma. That is an unfair burden-especially for those with such shallow understanding of antisemitism, the complexity of Israeli-Palestinian relations, and the tragedy of today.
Please use this letter to the editor as an official invitation to release you from any obligation for conveying fake empathy towards my Jewish experience and the Israel Hamas war.
Marina Rosin Levine
RTM D7