C ommunity
DEATH NOTICES
H eadlines
Historian Continued from Page 20
S I R O T A
Harris Sirota of Ventnor and formerly Mar-
gate, passed away on December 9th. He was
a pharmacist for over 40 years, where he
worked in Pennsauken and Cherry Hill before
purchasing his own company in 1969 in
Magnolia, which was called Center Phar-
macy. Harris ran and operated the store for
over 27 years with his wife, Jacquie. He was
a member of Temple Beth Sholom, originally
in Haddon Heights and then Cherry Hill and
was a minyanaire until his move to the shore
where they joined Emeth Shalom, now Shirat
Hayam. Harris served his country as a Private
First Class during the Korean Conflict in the
medical corps in California, Seattle, and the
371st Med Det WRAMC Washington D.C. He
was an avid member of the Margate Fishing
Club, Avoda, Equity 591 Lodge for over 60
years and Mizpah, now Rising Sun Lodge #
15. Harris is survived by his wife of 55 years,
Jacquie and daughter Jill (Paul Nguyen)
Sirota. The family asks that contributions in
his memory may be made to Avoda P.O. Box
3120, Margate, NJ 08402, Shirat Hayam, or
the National Pancreas Foundation, www.pan-
creasfoundation.org. J.S. GOLDSTEIN FUNERAL HOME
& MONUMENTS Inc.

www.jsfunerals.com S L O T N I C K
George Slotnick, December 10, 2021, of
Paramus, NJ, formerly of Philadelphia, Ari-
zona and Florida. Beloved husband of Rita
(nee Dobin) Slotnick, loving father of Rhonda
(Jack) Teadore and Michele (Harry) Wechsler
and devoted grandfather of Alison, Camryn,
Gabi and Marc. Mr. Slotnick was an Army
Veteran, having served in the Korean War. He
was the Manager of the Data Processing Cen-
ter, for the Philadelphia Police Department.

Contributions in his memory may be made to
the Alzheimer’s Ass.

JOSEPH LEVINE and SONS
www.levinefuneral.com W E R L I N S K Y
Florence Werlinsky (nee Ginsberg)Passed
away on December 14, 2021. Wife of the late
Samuel Werlinsky. Mother of Marc (Nancy)
Werlinsky, Carol Dotson and Cheryl (Michael)
Reisbord. Grandmother of Jeri (Kevin),
Daniel, Chelsea (Matt), Brynn, Samara and
Devyn. Great Grandmother of Madison, Alex-
is, Mackenzie and Chase. Contributions in her
memory may be made to a charity of the
donor’s choice.

GOLDSTEINS’ ROSENBERG’S
RAPHAEL-SACKS www.goldsteinsfuneral.com
A Community
Remembers Monthly archives of
Jewish Exponent Death Notices
are available online.

www.JewishExponent.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
themselves.” Sarna, who is also the chief
historian for the Weitzman
National Museum of American
Jewish History in Philadelphia,
spoke for an hour and then
took questions. His reason
for speaking was the rise in
antisemitism in the United
States since 2016.

The Philadelphia-born
professor argued that the root
of Jewish hate today is the same
as it was throughout American
history. It’s helpful for Jews to
understand that it’s not about
us now, and that it never was.

Antisemitism is related
to larger social ills like mass
migration, economic dislo-
cation and the displacement
of elites. When people can’t
explain those problems, they
look for easy answers.

In the current era, changing
demographics, hollowing
towns and reeling elites have
become prominent features of
American life.

Such uncertainties have
sparked antisemitic incidents,
according to Sarna.

In 2016, then-presiden-
tial candidate Donald Trump
used a Jewish star background
to tweet that his opponent,
Hillary Clinton, was the “most
corrupt candidate ever.”
A year later, white supremacists
marched through Charlottesville,
Virginia, and chanted “Jews will
not replace us!”
Finally, in 2018, a white
nationalist shot and killed
11 people at the Tree of
Life synagogue complex in
Pittsburgh. Sarna said that since
2016, antisemitic incidents
have risen, according to the
Anti-Defamation League. The
year 2019 saw a record high of
2,107 incidents nationwide.

But perhaps no episode or
statistic summarized Sarna’s
point better than U.S. Rep.

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s
Facebook post from 2018.

Taylor Greene, who was
not yet elected to Congress,
wrote that a Rothschild
family member helped cause
California’s Camp Fire, the
deadliest fire in the state’s
history. Weeks after entering
the U.S. House as a Republican
representative from Georgia in
January 2021, that Facebook
post resurfaced in media
reports. In that post, she was offering
an unfounded explanation for
a tragic event.

“They were designed.

Nothing is by accident,” Sarna
said of Taylor Greene’s faulty
logic. “Conspiracies are very hard
to disprove,” he added. “This is
a central element of the antise-
mitic mind.”
These incidents
are surprising, Sarna said. That’s
because, after World War II,
Americans viewed antisemi-
tism as something the Nazis
did. Or, as something America’s
enemies did.

Between 1945 and 1960, the
percentage of Americans who
heard expressions of antisem-
itism dropped from 60 to
25, said Sarna. A 1994 book,
“Antisemitism in America,”
by Jewish historian Leonard
Dinnerstein, concluded that
young Jews had reason to be
hopeful. “The subject of antisemitism
faded from public view for two
decades,” Sarna said.

But in the 2010s, antisem-
itism returned as political
movements revealed deeper
structural problems
in American society. Soros, a
billionaire and Holocaust
survivor, was blamed for
anti-Trump protests, Black
Lives Matter protests and even
the Arab Spring.

“Everything is connected,”
Sarna said, again explaining
the faulty logic.

A similar period in
American history played out
between the late 1800s and
World War II, he said.

The era was one of massive
social, industrial, urban and
demographic change. Jews
faced discrimination in insti-
tutions, physical attacks in
cities and verbal attacks over
the new communications
medium radio.

A U.S.

congressman, Albert Johnson, argued for
the passage of an anti-immi-
gration bill by denigrating
Jews. Carmaker Henry Ford
used the newspaper he owned,
The Dearborn Independent,
to promote conspiracies
about Jews.

But World War II started a
decline in antisemitism in the
United States.

To start a similar decline
today, Sarna thinks there needs
to be a focus on social media.

“We did eventually find a
way to regulate radio in a way
that allowed freedom of speech
but banned hatred,” he said. l
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