Unity rally held to counter anti-Semitism

Dr. Michelle Elisburg of Floyds Knobs, Indiana, was in Louisville Sunday to send a message to those who've been terrorizing the Jewish people with bomb threats and other forms of harassment nationwide.

“We’re not going to cower in a corner,” said Elisburg, who is Jewish. “We’re not going to be afraid.”

Elisburg, 46, was among an estimated 400 people who gathered outside the Jewish Community Center on Dutchmans Lane for the We Stand Together Rally for Unity.

The center hosted the rally, along with the Jewish Federation of Louisville, after having to temporarily evacuate last Wednesday because of a bomb threat reminiscent of others that have occurred in this country in recent months. The rally served as a call to action to peace-loving people from all backgrounds.

“We have no time to be silent,” said Sara Wagner, president and chief executive officer of the Jewish Community of Louisville. “It’s a time to stand together and look together at the things that we do stand for, not the hate that other people stand for.”

Sunday afternoon, a cross section of people of various hues and faiths – including Protestants, Baptists, Muslims and Episcopalians – stood shoulder to shoulder, applauding and singing patriotic songs outside the center to show their support for the Jewish community.

“The outpouring of concern and love that has come from everyone standing here on our front steps today and on our front lawn has been truly amazing,” Wagner told the crowd. “…Every day, we wake up ready to celebrate Jewish life and to open our doors wide to the entire community.”

The bomb threat at the center follows a rash of such attacks across the country this year that has included not only bomb threats but the desecration of gravesites at cemeteries in Philadelphia and in Missouri as well as swastikas put on cars in Miami Beach, according to a news report.

Jewish institutions, such as community centers, schools and synagogues, have received more than 150 threats in the last three months, according to the Anti-Defamation League, a national civil rights and human relations organization. League offices also were targeted.

A former journalist, Juan Thompson, has been charged in connection with some of the threats. He allegedly was involved in a scheme to make his ex-girlfriend look guilty, according to the Associated Press.

►READ MORE: Beshear: GOP is playing with life and death on health care

►SEE ALSO:  5 takeaways from Mike Pence's Kentucky visit

But the threats have continued. For example, Wagner told the rally crowd that there had been another threat earlier in the day directed at a Jewish Community Center in Indianapolis. “It’s happening way too often,” she said. “Every one of these threats is too much.”

Her comments were echoed by Congressman John Yarmuth, who said it was important for everyone to keep coming out to rallies to say “no to hatred, no to bigotry, no to ignorance and intolerance.”

Yarmuth, who is Jewish, said the issue is personal to him because he grew up at the Jewish Community Center and knows Louisville voters.

“I know the kind of compassionate, tolerant, open community that we have, and in fact, that’s true of our country as well," he said. "What we’re seeing in these acts of hatred are not representative of this nation, this community, or I believe, the world.”

►ON THE GO? Download the CJ app for iPhone, Android and iPad

►FOLLOW US: Watch the latest featured video on YouTube

Sadiqa Reynolds, president and chief executive of the Louisville Urban League, told the crowd it's important to support the Jewish people but for the Louisville community to also stand together on other key issues, such as attempts to segregate the schools. "Louisville, don't just rally today," she said. "We need you every day."

Muhammad Babar, president of Muslim Americans for Compassion, lamented the county's inability, thus far, to break down barriers that lead to division. He also spoke of children who lost their lives during the Holocaust. "We cannot bring back those children, who never lived to be adults ... but we can promise them and we can swear on their innocence that never again in our world any group of people will be threatened or harmed on the basis of their religious beliefs, gender, skin color or sexual orientation," he said.

Reporter Darla Carter can be reached at (502) 582-7068 or dcarter@courier-journal.com.