. The group’s members had been plotting to attack several targets in Los Angeles, including a synagogue and the First African Methodist Episcopal Church.
As part of the sentencing, the U.S. district attorney designed a program to challenge the group’s racist views. Participants in the program were required to meet with their intended targets: pastors from the First AME Church, Holocaust survivors, and two rabbis.
The meeting took place at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance, and I was asked to participate as one of the rabbis.
The skinheads were angry and were convinced that they were victims because they were a persecuted white minority when they were in high school.
The pastors and Holocaust survivors were not making headway. Then something unexpected happened.
The skinheads asked the rabbis, “Why do Jews get preferential treatment and have a special symbol on food products and whites don’t get their own symbol?”
My friend, Rabbi Daniel Landes, explained kosher food, rabbinic supervision and the symbols that indicate to consumers that the food meets specific kosher dietary requirements.
The skinheads seemed unmoved by this explanation, so I decided to take a different approach, based on my years of experience working with people who had been brainwashed by cults.
“Millions of Americans consume Heinz ketchup daily and never notice the O.U. symbol on the packaging. How did you skinheads notice what so many others overlooked?” I asked.
Their answer was simple: “We received literature from a white supremacist group that pointed it out to us, and stated it was a Jewish plot to control the economy.”
Then I posed a question forcing them to think critically. “Now that you know what these symbols really stand for, how do you feel, knowing that you accepted what the white supremacist groups told you without questioning or checking out the facts? Do you feel taken advantage of?”
The silence was palpable as they realized they had been manipulated. During the lunch break, they wanted to know more about critical thinking and thanked me for helping them see things from a different perspective.
The way to rid the world of ignorance, hatred and falsehood is not through looking for allies and protectors in the wrong places. The “alt-right” will not be won over by Jews for Jesus, because they are smart enough to see through the hypocrisy and deception.
But a push toward critical thinking, backed by honesty, knowledge, and love, might change them. As King Solomon taught, “The one that brings his case first seems right, but then his neighbor comes and examines him.”
We also know that actions speak louder than words. If we campaign daily to do a good deed for someone and ask the person to pay it forward, we can turn the tide of a society that has become selfish and angry to one of loving kindness. This is what tikkun olam, repair of the world, is about.
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