Progressive Democrat Issue 81: THE DELAWARE POGROM

Hate Crimes have been on the rise in America since 9/11, and, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, hate groups in America have increased by 33% in the past five years. A peak in attacks on Muslims after 9/11 was rapidly followed by an increase in anti-Semitism in the US and worldwide. There was a slight decline in anti-Semetic incidents in 2005, but incidents are still at disturbingly high levels.

Back in February I reported an incident that, while not a hate crime, was certainly a frightening trend. In Indiana, a prominent politician told a group of Jews that their opinion on the recitation of Christian prayers at legislative sessions didn't matter because they only made up 2% of the population. This is a further sign of the rise of Republican, Christian Taliban in the US.

But now it is pogroms. I use that word carefully. In Delaware, two families, one Jewish the other as yet anonymous, were forced to flee the town due to threatened violence by right wing Christian fanatics who were pushing Christian prayer in school.

This is from Jews on First:

Jewish family flees Delaware school district's aggressive Christianity

by JewsOnFirst.org, June 28, 2006

A large Delaware school district promoted Christianity so aggressively that a Jewish family felt it necessary to move to Wilmington, two hours away, because they feared retaliation for filing a lawsuit. The religion (if any) of a second family in the lawsuit is not known, because they're suing as Jane and John Doe; they also fear retaliation. Both families are asking relief from "state-sponsored religion."

The behavior of the Indian River School District board's behavior suggests the families' fears are hardly groundless.

The district spreads over a considerable portion of southeast Delaware. The families' complaint, filed in federal court in February 2005, alleges that the district had created an "environment of religious exclusion" and unconstitutional state-sponsored religion.

Among numerous specific examples in the complaint was what happened at plaintiff Samantha Dobrich's graduation in 2004 from the district's high school. She was the only Jewish student in her graduating class. The complaint relates that local pastor, Jerry Fike, in his invocation, followed requests for "our heavenly Father's" guidance for the graduates with:

I also pray for one specific student, that You be with her and guide her in the path that You have for her. And we ask all these things in Jesus' name.

In addition to the ruined graduation experience, the Dobrich-Doe lawsuit alleges that:

* The district's "custom and practice of school-sponsored prayer" frequently imposed ... on impressionable non-Christian students," violating their constitutional rights.
* The district ignored the Supreme Court's 1992 Lee decision limiting prayer at graduation ceremonies -- even after a district employee complained about the prayer at her child's 2003 graduation..
* District teachers and staff led Bible clubs at several schools. Club members got to go to the head of the lunch line.
* While Bible clubs were widely available, student book clubs were rare and often canceled by the district.
* When Jane Doe complained that her non-Christian son "Jordan Doe" was left alone when his classmates when to Bible club meetings, district staff insisted that Jordan should attend the club regardless of his religion.
* The district schools attended by Jordan and his sister "Jamie Doe" distributed Bibles to students in 2003, giving them time off from class to pick up the books.
* Prayer --often sectarian -- is a routine part of district sports programs and social events
* One of the district's middle schools gave students the choice of attending a special Bible Club if they did not want to attend the lesson on evolution.
* A middle school teacher told students there was only "one true religion" and gave them pamphlets for his surfing ministry.
* Samantha Dobrich's honors English teacher frequently discussed Christianity, but no other religion.
* Students frequently made mandatory appearances at district board meetings -- where they were a captive audience for board members' prayers to Jesus.

The Dobriches said the prayers to Jesus' ruined the graduation experience for Samantha. Mona Dobrich, Samantha's mother, repeatedly called district officials to complain. A board member told her she would have to get the matter put on a meeting agenda -- then refused to put it on the agenda. The school superintendent slipped the topic onto the agenda and then told Mona Dobrich she would need to raise it during the public comment period.

School board unyielding
The board opened the June 15, 2004 meeting at which Dobrich was prepared to speak with a prayer in Jesus' name. The board was not forthcoming to her request that official prayers be in "God's name" rather than in Jesus' name. The high school athletic director veered from his agenda topic to encourage the board to keep praying in Jesus' name...

A large crowd turned out for the next board meeting and many people spoke in support of school prayer. Mona Dobrich spoke passionately of her own "outsider" experience as a student in Indian River District schools and of how hard she'd worked to make sure her children didn't also feel like outsiders.

Hattier again approached her after the meeting. This time, the complaint alleges, he told her he'd spoken with the Rutherford Institute, a religious right legal group.

Talk show calls out a mob
The district board announced the formation of a committee to develop a religion policy. And the local talk radio station inflamed the issue.

On the evening in August 2004 when the board was to announce its new policy, hundreds of people turned out for the meeitng. The Dobrich family and Jane Doe felt intimidated and asked a state trooper to escort them.

The complaint recounts a raucous crowd that applauded the board's opening prayer and then, when sixth-grader Alexander Dobrich stood up to read a statement, yelled at him "take your yarmulke off!" His statement, read by Samantha, confided "I feel bad when kids in my class call me Jew boy."
...

A former board member suggested that Mona Dobrich might "disappear" like Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the atheist whose Supreme Court case resulted in ending organized school prayer. She disappeared in 1995 and her dismembered body was found six years later...

In the days after the meeting the community poured venom on the Dobriches. Callers to the local radio station said the family they should convert or leave the area. Someone called them and said the Ku Klux Klan was nearby.

"Killing Christ"
Classmates accused Alex Dobrich of "killing Christ" and he became fearful about wearing his yarmulke, the complaint recounts. He took it off whenever he saw a police officer, fearing that the officer might see it and pull over his mother's car. When the family went grocery shopping, the complaint says, "Alexander would remove the pin holding his yarmulke on his head for fear that someone would grab it and rip out some of his hair."

There's more. But that was all I could stomach. This is America, folks! People are threatened and forced to flee for not being Christian! Part of the reason the two families fled is because a group of right wing, un-American fanatics called "Stop The ACLU Coalition" publicized the names, address, and telephone number(s) of the Dobrich family on their website. There is more about this, as well as suggested actions to take, on Daily Kos. The head of the un-American "Stop The ACLU Coalition" has publicly stated that he is proud of the outcome of the efforts against the Dobrich family in Delaware, though he showed some hesitation when the word "pogrom" was used.

But it is a pogrom! In a very real sense. Pogroms don't have to result in the loss of life (my family was spared back in Latvia with only some property damage), and they don't have to be widespread. They start with isolated incidents and spreads from there. The "Stop The ACLU Coalition" has 200 blogs that participate. Links with the KKK were suggested. This is a very real, very frightening problem.

And it is not isolated. Many Republicans, including some of our newest Supreme Court Justices, are ready and willing to tear down the wall of separation between church and state and some go so far as to call America a Christian Nation. When confronting a Jewish caller, Right Wing Windbag Bill O'Reilly told the caller to "Go to Israel" if he didn't like living in a Christian America.

These people are un-American fanatics. But they also are in control of our government and our media.

Below I discuss holding Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and the Republican politicians who are close to them responsible for creating the social climate that encourages pogroms. In many ways, Coulter and O'Reilly's rhetoric advocates this kind of pogrom. Please read below for that very important action. But I also want to advocate your support for two groups that fight this kind of right wing extremism. I urge you to support Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, a group that fights to preserve the traditional American value of protecting religious freedom by keeping religion and government strictly separate. And, since one of the main extremist groups that participated in the pogrom is the "Stop the ACLU Coalition," I think it is VERY important and appropriate for all of us to SUPPORT the ACLU. We have never needed them and their support of traditional American Values of freedom as much as we need them now.