ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ

Anti-Semitism is the oldest hatred. That it continues to grow, that it grows in Hawaii, poisoning not only the soil but the soul of our islands, that it grows in public, without rebuke from the public, as a threat to , Lt. Gov. Josh Green, is a disgrace.

Citizens may hide their true feelings about what was said and done outside Green’s home. But we need to call people’s attention to the fact that Green is the target of an anti-Semitic campaign of violence. In a word, these things are vile.

Green, who is also a doctor and a friend, may be the latest or most prominent Hawaii resident to experience anti-Semitism; but he will not be the last Hawaii resident, regardless of faith, to witness or endure anti-Semitism.

Because of the nature of anti-Semitism and the nature of human nature, because of the combined danger of the two, we are all Jews. That is to say, there is neither Christian nor Muslim, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for we are all one — we must be one — in our opposition to anti-Semitism.

We cannot hide from anti-Semitism or hope anti-Semitism will hide from us, as if what happened to Green was the social equivalent of a rogue wave: a freak of nature.

More waves will come, destroying our defenses, until we succumb to a man-made storm of hate.

Or, we can rebuild our seawall, choosing, as residents of the 50th state, to lead the nation in preserving the greatness of the Aloha State; choosing, as Hawaiians, to harness our greatest natural resource, our diversity, so the storm may dissipate; choosing to be true to truth itself, seeing it in ourselves, because Hawaii is the most ethnically and racially diverse state in the United States.

We alone have the power to make the storm disappear. If we do nothing, nothingness will be our fate.

Gone will be 11 score years and three of island history, from 1798 to the present day, from the presentation of a Torah to King Kalakaua, in the late 19th century, to the rise of the first Jewish congregation in the first year of the 20th century.

We alone have the power to make the storm disappear.

Gone will be the Jewish Welfare Board of 1939, the Hebrew Burial Society of 1942, the Honolulu Jewish Community of the 1950s, and the paradise years of the last 60 years.

The end of the history of the Jewish people in Hawaii would mean the end of all peoples — the Chinese, the Spanish, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Kenyans, the Portuguese, the French — with ties to the history of Hawaii.

We cannot afford such an end, nor can we tolerate such losses, because we cannot survive racial division through subtraction by religion: the elimination or exile of this race or that religion, culminating in a wasteland of hostility.

Society cannot afford to dismiss acts of anti-Semitism, either, because people have a right to know the truth.

Let people know the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, thus removing the shield of deniability and the veil of ignorance.