I awoke this bright, cloudless day in anticipation of the first painting class of the season at the Armory Arts Center in West Palm. In preparation for it I worked over the weekend drawing the series of dog portraits which will be part of my new collection of watercolors to be shown at the Blueberry Festival in Kennebunk in July. Since last May I have drawn numerous hunting and fishing landscapes to broaden the subject of my art. I looked forward to a quiet afternoon with no Apple watch or cell phone to interrupt my studio time. Once in class, with only a few newbies and the teacher available to help me finish off a number of paintings, I had a relaxing and productive session. It was one of those days when I felt contented and peaceful, very much like sitting on my dock at camp in Maine, with only the sound of the lake water lapping against the rocks. Yet times are not peaceful in my home waters. Upon exiting the studio, I lowered myself into my car and of course reached for my phone. There were scores of missed calls and emails. Office business I assumed. Yet the messages were not the usual legal matters. Our tiny hamlet of Montauk – population 3,563—had been vandalized the previous evening with swastikas painted on the walls and windows of businesses owned by Jewish merchants. Many of the messages on my phone were from friends and colleagues calling to offer their support.
I was stunned and frightened by the news. I have never been attacked as a Jew like this. It was personal even though they were not my properties that were vandalized. Who would do this? How does an individual have the anger and hatred to paint swastikas on someone’s private property, in public view? Where does the anger come from? Why are you threatening Jews therefore me and my family? What is the failure in our society that allows this to happen? The First Amendment doesn’t cover this kind of hate speech. Where has basic human decency gone?
Over the past year, I have been studying the origins of the Holocaust in connection with research for a book I am writing about my family who, in 1939, were murdered in Ukraine because they were Jewish. I found that the Holocaust began in the 1800s with the pogroms in Eastern Europe and culminated with the murder of six million Jews during Hitler’s reign. Yet here it is 2023 in Montauk, New York, and images from the Nazi era are front and center on the main street of a tiny beach town known for surfing and deep-sea fishing. “Jeden Die” –a misspelling of the German “Juden”– was sprayed in bold black letters on a wooden fence, the meaning loud and clear despite the perpetrator’s ignorance. These are chilling echoes of the past. Must I live in fear now, just like my grandparents did?
We need to confront the person or persons responsible and ask, “Why do you do this? Why do you hate me?”
