A family that came apart

Jews and African-Americans have endured more than their share of suffering in the course of human events. They have been forced to remain outside of the societies that inhabited, and ruled, the places in which they lived. They were considered to be subhuman, or not human at all. This attitude has allowed white slave masters to use blacks like farm machinery; it has allowed the Nazis to feed Jews into the ovens like so much trash that needed to be gotten out of the way.

This unhappy commonality brought together Jews and African-Americans, and their leaders, during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. These were dark times; yet, they contained a bright, shining vision of a society in which people of all races lived happily together. This vision was put forcefully before us by Martin Luther King Jr., and African-Americans rose to meet the challenge of making it real. Some white people joined the fight, and many among this number were Jews. I cannot help but feel that the still-vivid memory of the Holocaust, not yet 20 years in the past, made Jews feel that the fight of African-Americans to be accepted as fully human in the society they shared was truly their fight, too. Each group strengthened the position of the other.

This paper has been reporting the terrible case of police brutality against African-Americans in the Village of Monticello. Officer Gerard Dietz hit a minor in the face with a flashlight and beat an adult on the face and body with his fists. Some village residents maintain these incidents are part of a long pattern of abuse practiced by Dietz. But, except for the negative publicity, this officer does not seem to be paying the price for his excesses, and has in fact exhibited an unbecoming arrogance. Dietz and other officers brought suit to get village taxpayers to pay for an attorney of their choosing to defend them against the charges levied against them. Moreover, Dietz has gotten a promotion and a raise.

It's no wonder that the African-American community is enraged, as we all should be. But because we are hammered with reports of police brutality in the news everyday, their effect on the public is the reverse of what it should be: instead of an uproar or protest, there is dull indifference.

Perhaps frustration in the face of this indifference is what prompted Jesse York -- a member of the village's Human Rights Commission, no less -- to burst out, in a fit a anger, with the appalling statement that Jews are in positions of wealth and power and so do not do enough to stop police abuses "because they're safe." Perhaps it was said to shock a sleeping public to action; but violence, whether it be with a baton or with words, begets violence, a truth proven so often in human history as be self-evident.

York, however, stopped this cycle of violence with a prompt apology to the Jewish community. Dr. Richard Stein, president of Temple Shalom in Monticello, to which York's letter of apology was addressed, accepted the apology. "I feel it's sincere," he said. "I'll say that as president I think we had a wonderful learning experience."

Considering the past solidarity between Jews and African-Americans, I believe the rift between these two groups, both locally and on the national scene, is akin to the rifts that happen in families. We hold those who are, or have been, especially close to us to a particularly high standard, and our disappointment in therefore the more extreme. But families have a greater talent for coming together than coming apart; and this is the future I see for the Jews and African-Americans in the Village of Monticello.

-- Pamela Chergotis, Editor

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