Anti-Semitism: If you are silent, you are complicit

Debra Leigh at the podium

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Debra Leigh, right, and Monica Segura-Schwartz speak on behalf of CreateCommunity.

“The bottom line is this: If you are silent, you are complicit,” Waite Park activist Natalie Ringsmuth told people gathered to condemn violence against Jews Nov. 1 in the Welcome Center at St. Cloud State. 

“If you continue to listen to a radio station because it’s funny — even though Antisemitism is part of their humor — you are complicit,” Ringsmuth said to the standing-room crowd gathered to remember 11 worshippers shot to death Oct. 27 at Tree Of Life – Or L’Simcha synagogue in Pittsburgh.

“So, rise up Central Minnesota. Put on the language of love and the shoes of peace,” she said. “But once you’ve put them on, don’t just sit there. Speak up. Stand up. Say something and do something.”

Ringsmuth is founder and director of UniteCloud, an organization that uses social media to combat racial and religious attacks on St. Cloud area residents. Her words were among the remarks shared, letters read, poems recited and commitments made.  

Area leaders delivered unequivocal commitments of support for the Jewish community of greater St. Cloud:

• Robyyn Wacker, St. Cloud State president, said: “You have my personal, and the St. Cloud State institutional, commitment to recognize and honor the history and contributions of the Jewish community.”
• William Blair Anderson, St. Cloud police chief, in a letter, said: “I want to say, emphatically, that your St. Cloud Police Department stands with you in this darkest hour. We stand by you in the name of humanity and all that is right.”
• Monica Segura-Schwartz, CreateCommUNITY coordinator, said: “All of us must stand together against Antisemitism and hateful rhetoric against those who look, love and pray differently than ourselves.”
• Dave Kleis ’89, mayor of St. Cloud, in a letter, said: “We stand in one accord with the Jewish community in St. Cloud.

The event was organized by a group that included Ringsmuth, Phyllis Greenberg, professor of gerontology, Mark Geller, owner of High Impact Training, St. Cloud, and Dan Wildeson, director of St. Cloud State’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education. 

Wildeson opened with remarks about the purpose of the event.

“We are here today for words for the good, our common good, the moral and civic act of caring for the well-being of the other, of those who are not you, and those who are not part of your identity group,” said Wildeson.

The Rev. James Alberts, founder and pastor of Higher Ground Church of God in Christ, St. Cloud, noted how humans tend to dwell on differences, rather than similarities.

“Religion, color, sexual orientation — or any other delimiter that we want to use to separate ourselves — are nothing more than excuses for us not being the loving, caring community that we are supposed to be,” said Alberts.

A single, male shooter is charged with 44 federal crimes in the mass shooting. The alleged shooter targeted Jews online and made anti-Semitic comments during the shooting, according to law enforcement sources.

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