Re: GET's on sloat-Nazi Bookstore

08/10/12 - posted by jb

"Five days before the beginning of Passover, 1977, Rabbi Theodore Alexander of Congregation B'nai Emunah, a small synagogue composed mainly of Holocaust survivors, in the predominantly middle-class Sunset district
of San Francisco, arrived at his office to find that a Nazi bookstore had opened across the street. To mark the opening of the store, named after Hitler confidante Rudolf Hess, the Nazis erected a swastika in front of the
building and displayed a picture of Hess, other Nazi insignia, and anti-Jewish posters in the store window.

Several days later an angry crowd of Jews armed with sledgehammers and crowbars ransacked and destroyed the
bookstore. A few hours later, five stained glass windows at Congregation B'nai Emunah were smashed, apparently as an act of retaliation. Morris Weiss, a Holocaust survivor, and his son Allan were subsequently arrested for leading the assault on the Nazi store."

Alas, when you become like your enemy, your enemy wins and while I abhor Nazis and all they stand for, then and now, attacking and vandalizing their bookstore may have caused more damage than if it was rather just left to die of its own hate and disregard for human decency. But then again, who knows?

jb