Sticks and stones, they’re saying

To the editor:

(re: “Liberalism and antisemitism,” May 25)

The old children’s line “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me” can be applied to Barry Ziman’s outlook.

Poor Mr. Ziman was offended by words, 40 years ago. Perhaps a look at more recent history is in order, as there appears to have been some more up-to-date activity:

• Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, white racist marchers launched a violence/hate  filled riot, shouting: “Jews will not replace us,” and which resulted in a woman being run down — murdered — by a driver in a car aimed at her.

• The Oct. 27, 2018 mass murder of Jews at the Squirrel Hill Synagogue in Pittsburgh, with 11 dead.

• The January 2022 Colleyville, Texas, assault on its synagogue.

• The recent hate crime-charged shooting of two Jewish men in the Pico Robertson neighborhood of Los Angeles.

• The April 2019 assault murdering/injuring — some permanently scarred — Jews at a synagogue in Poway, California.

• April 13, 2014: Neo-Nazi and former Ku Klux Klan leader Frazier Miller Jr., fatally shot Jews in Overland Park, Kansas.

No pun, but most would believe that murder trumps offensive speech in degree on the “being offended scale.”

By the way, Mr. Ziman, all these shootings — save one — were committed by “conservatives,” i.e. people on the right wing of the political spectrum, not by “liberals” or “progressives.”

The one shooting not committed by a “conservative” was by a religious zealot of the Islamic faith, hardly a “liberal.”

In fact not a single “liberal” or “progressive” has ever gone out of their way to (mass) murder Jews. Save maybe Joseph Stalin. And by common assent, he was no progressive.

As an aside, there was a little incident of an insurrection on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, resulting in six dead. Not a single progressive was found to be a supporter of the attack, nor have progressives claimed credit.

Mr. Ziman, I am truly sorry that words 40 years ago offended you. But what do you say, sir, to the mass shooting victims, murdered in the interim?

“I’m sorry, my pain is greater than yours?’’ They cannot hear you, because they were murdered.

At some point, the extreme right wing and the extreme left wing all meet behind our backs. Hate knows no bounds, nor political affiliation. But living now, today, I am far more afraid of the unhinged and unleashed radical right — supported by unfettered access to all sorts of guns — than some loud mouths talking 40 years ago.

In my lifetime, a pox on both their houses. But for now, you can keep company with the active haters, the active shooters, and the murderers of Jews. I’ll take the progressives. At least I know they won’t be taking aim at me.

I suggest you duck when the active shooter takes aim at you in your Jewish community.

And watch out for those verbal barbs aimed at you by progressives. They can be deadly.

Not.

Adam Stoler