Unless one is a White Supemecist, Neo-Nazi, or the like - the near universal outrage and sympathy expressed by Americans of all stripes for the entirety of the Jewish people was wide spread and palpable. It was enormous and unprecedented. Who can forget the huge headline in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette the next day which read (in Hebrew) ‘Yisgadel V’Yiskadesh Shemeh, Rabbah…’?
Unsurprisingly Bowers was convicted on all 63 counts of that heinous crime in a Pittsburgh court without his defense attorney contesting any of them. The trial is really about the penalty phase which could either be the death penalty or life in prison.
All of which reassures me of the essential goodness of the American people and their complete rejection of antisemitism. Regardless of their politics. But there is another form of antisemitism that is far more subtle. And yet can have terrible (albeit not deadly or violent) consequences for Jews that are subjected to it. An antisemitism that has deniability built into it. From VIN:
A large frum family alleges that they suffered through an extremely difficult and shocking ordeal, getting thrown out of their hotel on Shabbos, in blistering heat, under police enforcement…
According to the claims, the extended family of twenty children and twelve adults were allegedly ousted from Hunter Lodge, after the owner complained about the noise made by the children as they played on Shabbos afternoon, and ordered them to vacate.
OK. I get that the noise made by 20 children running around on a Shabbos afternoon can be very disturbing to the guests in adjacent or nearby rooms. In fact, it would be very disturbing to me. Especially since I tend to take a nap on a typical Shabbos afternoon. So I can’t really say I blame anyone for complaining to the hotel staff about it (which management claims was the case), in an effort to restore peace and quiet. That is not antisemitism. But what followed quite probably is:
After being ordered to leave, the family explained that due to religious reasons they could not leave in middle of Shabbos, but the unwavering owner called the police. The family claims they begged the police to wait until after Shabbos, yet astonishingly, the State Police and Sheriff came to back up local police and demanded the family leave immediately.
The family claims that the hotel was informed about the number of children and they accepted them anyway.
Now If I were a hotel manager I would have never accepted any family that had 20 children regardless of their race, religion, or ethnicity. I would have established hotel guidelines that would not accept large numbers of children under any circumstance since it would be impossible to control the noise. and thereby disturb other guests.
But that is not what happened. Apparently the hotel knew upfront that this family was huge and had a lot of children. And booked them anyway. Sure enough the disturbing noise of 20 children playing together followed.
An entire extended family of religious Jews being evicted from a hotel on Shabbos was not only problematic Halachically, it was physically taxing on a hot summer’s day and very humiliating.
Does a hotel have a legal right to evict people any time they chose for any reason?. Don’t know. But they surely have a moral obligation to treat people with dignity. And certainly not publicly humiliate them. Especially after first accepting them – knowing the circumstances that eventually caused their eviction.
Truth is that once they were accepted knowing the number of children in the family, they should never have been kicked out! The hotel should have sucked it up and learned a lesson for the future. But at least have the common decency to allow this family to to stay a few more hours until after Shabbos so they can leave in some semblance of dignity and not forced to violate Shabbos. (As for the police part in all this, I’m not sure they had a choice but to act on the hotel’s request immediately.)
So at the end of the day this hotel did indeed prove to be antisemitic. And they are surely denying it.
If I were this family, I would be looking for a good lawyer just about now.
*The hotel response can be read here. If their version is anywhere near true, then instead of the hotel being guilty of antisemitism, that family is guilty of a major Chilul HaShem!
