Silence In The Face of Evil

Paula R. Stern
May 2009

I’m rarely surprised when I get hate mail. In some sick way, I take it as a sign of success. If someone truly hates Jews, and bothers to write to me about it, it means that I’ve gotten to him. He’s listened to what I have to say and it so enrages him, he contacts me. When I was voodooed a couple of years ago (no kidding, I have the email), I was truly amused. Of course, I still contacted the Israeli police and FBI, but still, truly amused is the best description of my reaction.

Recently, I’ve got another crazy who has picked up my email. He writes, “JEWS ARE THE COWARDS YOU DID 9-11.” Beyond bad punctuation and a shameless love affair with the ALL CAPS button, this man loves red highlighting and large fonts. He does, however, sincerely hate Jews. “YOU TOOK AWAY SCHOOL PRAYER YOU MADE SURE ROE VS WADE PASSED YOU ARE SICK BASTARDS.”

He loves to make threats. He threatened the US President. He apparently doesn’t like African Americans either. He doesn’t like police officers – at least we are in good company, and he warns the Jews of America, “We will go to NYC,Los Angeles,Miami, Chicago,Boston, San Fransisco,Dallas,Atlanta, Philadelphia,Camden and West Palm Beach and bring our guns to your temples.”

Besides seriously needing to learn how to use the keyboard and spell checker, I’ve met this man’s type and he doesn’t frighten me. The one that frightens me is a much simpler and quieter person. The above emails came from one man and were sent to an ever-growing list of active Jews and others he has identified, myself among them. Some live in Israel, some in the US. Some I know personally or by reputation – most fine people, who happen to be Jews.

On the list was one email, one of those emails that don’t identify the person’s name (“patriot” followed by a number and the domain). The voodoo guy was Patriot10. I wondered if this was the return of Mr. Voodoo man and so I searched the Internet and found this second email address associated with a man named Robert. No real connection confirmed with the first one, who was named Ross.

I let it go until I got an email from Robert, “Sorry, guys, but I'm simply not interested in pro/anti-semitic arguments....from EITHER side. So, please take me off this list, else I'll have to block everyone, which is time-consuming.”

Now what bothers me is that this guy received several hate-filled emails from John (the eloquent guy with the broken keyboard) and never responded. It was only after I wrote to the group suggesting that John “probably believes his own lies” and asked “do they get dumber than this?” that Robert was prompted to stop his silent participation in these emails.

In the face of evil, we have two options. We can answer back, or we can remain silent. Robert chooses silence. He doesn’t have time for arguments that are either “pro/anti-semitic.”

I’m left puzzled as to what a pro-Semitic message is? He equates messages of hate with those that condemn them. They are all lumped together into pro or anti. One calls for murder, the other for incarceration of evil. To Robert, they are equally bothersome. He has no time for “EITHER” side.

In the absence of good, evil triumphs. In silence, hatred reigns. John is clearly a disturbed individual that makes me very happy to live in Israel, far from his sick and demented mind. He is clearly tormented with thoughts that Jews perpetrated 9/11, control the US government, have the police under their thumbs, and apparently control medical science enough to create swine flu.

I have never been bothered by the Johns of the world. I accept their sickness as something against which I must fight. I use words and reason, and the Johns fall into nothingness. No, John doesn’t bother me nearly so much as Robert. The Johns of the world wanted the Holocaust; the Roberts of the world allowed it to happen. The Johns of the world in another religion attacked the World Trade Center, the trains in Madrid, the buses in London and cafes and buses and malls here in Israel. But the Roberts of the world allow the Johns to spread, to attack innocents so long as the Johns don’t bother them or take too much of their time.

You defeat John by being on guard, but understanding the sickness that fills his mind and the hatred that poisons his soul. What I have never learned to do, is understand the Roberts. I don’t know how to defeat someone who does not believe in standing for what is right against what is clearly wrong. Part of me wants to know, part of me knows I never will. Perhaps the saddest thought I have right now is that it is Robert and not John who will defeat the world, if we let him.