Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on November 16, 2021

Jewish leaders say derogatory phrase on Oelwein billboard more confusing than offensive

OELWEIN, Iowa (KWWL)- Oelwein Police are continuing to investigate a message spray-painted onto a billboard promoting the COVID-19 this weekend.

The billboard on Highway 150 near 12th Street Southeast encouraged people to get the COVID-19 vaccine and directed them to a website for answers to vaccine-related questions.

Someone spray-painted the phrase "submit to genocide" followed by "goyim," a derogatory term that refers to non-Jewish people.

"We are disheartened with this display of hate," Oelwein Police Chief Jeremy Logan said. "We recognize that this does not reflect the core values of those in our community, and we will continue to work towards tolerance and understanding by and for everyone equally."

The term "goyim" was initially a biblical Hebrew term for nations, appearing in several places in the Torah.

"The term appears with some frequency in the Hebrew Bible," Jay Holstein, the J.J. Mallon Teaching Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Iowa, said. "It means unambiguously nation, and it is a use to distinguish a group of people who have a constitution a land and the ability to defend it."

Over the years, the word has come to refer to someone that is not Jewish.

Avrohom Blesofsky, the rabbi at Chabad in Iowa City, said the term is not always offensive, but it depends heavily on the context in which it is used.

"When I was younger, someone would say go call the goy to do such and such, so that was not necessarily a negative thing," he said. "For example, some things are not permitted on Sabbath, so if they needed someone to assist in that, they would call a goy, so that is not derogatory at all."

Holstein said he remembers his grandfather using the term growing up, but it has not taken hold in the U.S.

"It is the kind of it's the kind of term which, given the right circumstances, can be explosive," he said. "If you're trying to make a case against whether and to what degree Jews belong in this country, whether and to what degree Jews are a good thing or good citizens."

Blesofsky said the message spray-painted on the billboard was confusing.

"There are no religious Jews in Oelwein, Iowa," he said. "That term is usually used in a traditional setting. Something is not quite adding up just from the usage of the terminology."

He said it is possible the person who wrote it might not understand its meaning.

"We don't know where the individual is coming from," he said. "Certain language has entered our lexicon. Anyone could write the word goy. It could be a Jew and non-Jew."

The message was written on a billboard promoting the COVID-19 vaccine. According to the Anti-Defamation League, there have been several un-true conspiracy theories that claim Jewish people have profited off the vaccine and used it to expand global influence in the last several months.

"The more volatile the times are, and the more you need a scapegoat, the more Jews are subjected to this danger," Holstein said. "This is only several generations removed from the slaughter of 6 million human beings only because they were Jewish."

While Blesofsky said he had not experienced anti-Semitism in the 20 years he has lived in Iowa City, there have been a handful of incidents throughout the Hawkeye state.

"Usually, people that do these acts of hate do it either out of fear or ignorance, or both," he said. "My only request to that individual would be as that, you have so much pain and anger is that you should plead by god to overcome your anger and overcome your fear. That will resolve the issue for that individual is, you know, this person must be in a lot of pain, that they go to such extremes to express something so negative."

Like a candle on a menorah during the upcoming Jewish holiday of Hannukah, Blesofsky said only light can stamp out darkness. The message of the holiday is to spread light.

"The way that we combat any darkness, whether it be this type of darkness, of living in fear, which leads to hate is by increasing in light," he said. "Hanukkah offers to everyone a message of warmth, light, hope and that does dispel all the darkness."

Chief Logan said there were no new developments in the case on Monday, but officers are actively looking into it.

Logan said his officers have been working with the sign vendor to clean the inappropriate statements off the billboard. They hoped to have that done by the end of the day on Monday.

Read more from the original source:

Jewish leaders say derogatory phrase on Oelwein billboard more confusing than offensive - kwwl.com

Category: Jewish
Tags: