H eadlines
State Senator: Fight Against Bigotry Failing
L OCA L
ANDY GOTLIEB | JE MANAGING EDITOR
STATE SEN. ANTHONY
Williams didn’t pull any
punches on Sept. 23 when
discussing bigotry in the
United States: He’s embar-
rassed by what he sees.

“We are quickly becoming
the non-envy of the world,”
he said.

Williams was one of
several dignitaries speaking
at a “Stand Against Bigotry”
press conference hosted
by Jewish Federation of
Greater Philadelphia and
the Philadelphia Holocaust
Remembrance Foundation
at the Horwitz-Wasserman
Holocaust Memorial, and he
was clearly the most blunt.

“We are at the crossroads
of another civil war in this
country,” he said. “My 7-year-
old grandson was born to a
place I don’t recognize.”
Williams recognized the
efforts underway to fight
racism, anti-Semitism and
other forms of bigotry —
efforts he said don’t go nearly
far enough.

“The fact that we have
friends of different ethnic
backgrounds will not win the
fight,” he said. “We have to get
off the sidelines and get into
the streets.”
Williams referred to the
anti-Semitic social media
posts that drew headlines this
summer by Philadelphia Eagles
wide receiver DeSean Jackson
and former Philadelphia
NAACP President Rodney
Muhammad, saying the
former was more troubling
Stand Against Bigotry participants place stones on the
Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs at the Horwitz-
Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza in Center City.

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State Sen. Anthony Williams
— Jackson is a young man with
a platform to influence others
— because it’s a sign that
educational efforts are failing.

“If he was properly educated,
he never would have posted
that,” Williams said.

That theme cropped up
a couple times during the
35-minute event.

“Our No. 1 enemy is
ignorance,” said Bishop J. Louis
Felton, senior pastor at Mt.

Airy Church of God in Christ.

“Ignorance is a deep resistance
to knowledge.”
“The younger generations are
not connected to their history,”
said Eszter Kutas, executive
director of the Philadelphia
Holocaust Remembrance
Foundation. “History does not
have to repeat itself.”
And there are ample oppor-
tunities to teach, Attorney
General Josh Shapiro said.

“This is a moment in time
when we can reach into our
teaching ... and realize each of
us has an obligation to do our
part,” he said.

Anti-Defamation League
Philadelphia Regional Director
Photos by Andy Gotlieb
Shira Goodman noted that hate
is something that is learned,
not something that’s innate.

“The good news is that it
can be unlearned,” she said.

City Councilman and real
estate developer Allan Domb
spent a couple of minutes
detailing his background,
describing his fa mi ly’s
immigration from Poland and
a childhood incident of anti-
Semitism in Fort Lee, New
Jersey, where a landlord
evicted his family and two
other Jewish families after
his mother complained about
having no hot water.

David Adelman, who chairs
the Holocaust Remembrance
Foundation and is the co-chair
of the board of directors of the
Jewish Federation of Greater
Philadelphia, said a concerning
trend is the number of people
who acknowledge there’s a
problem with hatred yet do
nothing about it.

“The most harmful words
are ‘not my problem,’” he said. l
agotlieb@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0797
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