Antisemitism, my Jewish identity, and why leaders' words matter

I didn't find out that I was Jewish until 2001 when I was 17 years' old – and even then, by accident, and with firm instructions to never speak of it again. When I came home from school and told my mother that I'd shared the news with my high school classmates, she was devastated. She warned me that we still need to fear discrimination and persecution. I remember rolling my eyes at her and telling her that the war was so many years ago and that we had nothing to worry about, especially in Canada. Decades later, I finally began to understand her anxiety and terror, and why antisemitism is no joke. Not then. Not now. Not ever.

Kanye West's recent hate speech, and the subsequent aggrandization of White supremist agenda, has given me pause for thought over the past weeks. I felt compelled to write this post to help raise awareness about the rise in antisemitism (and how it never really went away); how important it is that we educate children about the Holocaust, particularly through the sharing of survivor stories (including my family's, which I'm sharing for the first time); and why leaders must recognize the power of their words if they want to support a culture of belonging and inclusion.

Antisemitism: "The longest hatred"

Historian Robert Wistrich dubbed antisemitism "the longest hatred." For centuries, even millennia, Jewish people have been persecuted and murdered simply for being Jewish. As the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes: "It did not begin in the Nazi era, nor did it end with the close of World War II."

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights describes antisemitism as part of Canada's "cultural fabric" from the 1880s to the 1960s.

Even Canada, a country that questionably ranked #1 for social justice in the 2021 Best Countries Report, has a tarred history. The Canadian Museum for Human Rights describes antisemitism as part of Canada's "cultural fabric" from the 1880s to the 1960s. Between 1933 and 1948, less than 5,000 Jewish refugees were accepted into Canada – the fewest of any Allied nation. An immigration policy described as "none is too many" saw 900 Jews aboard the MS St Louis be refused entry in 1939, with over a quarter of those on board eventually dying in the Holocaust. This history of racism and bigotry likely comes as no surprise to those familiar with Canada's shameful genocide of Indigenous peoples.

Antisemitism never went away. In fact, it might be getting worse.

Annual reports from B'nai Brith demonstrate that antisemitism is on the rise, citing that 2021 was the sixth consecutive record-breaking year for antisemitism in Canada. The independent Jewish human rights organization says there were over seven antisemitic incidents everyday in 2021, including a 733% increase in violent incidents on 2020 – from nine to 75.

Similarly, the ADL reported a 34% increase in antisemitic incidents in the United States in 2021, which broke the record for the most number of incidents reported in a year since the organization began tracking in 1979. There was also a 52% increase in the distribution of antisemitic propaganda by White supremacist groups compared to 2020. Nearly one in five of the antisemitic incidents was attributed to right-wing extremism, including incidents involving the Goyim Defense League (GDL).

You might have heard about the GDL in the news recently. Like many rightwing groups, they capitalize on popular culture to recruit. Kanye West's recent antisemitic comments created an opportunity for them to stand on the shoulders of his celebrity to inspire more bigotry. And it looks like it worked, as there has been an uptick in incidents in Los Angeles including fliers blaming Jews for everything from gun control measures to COVID-19. Not unlike how Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany losing World War I, and for just about anything else he could think of.

We need to remember what happened to ensure it won't happen again.

Almost a third of North American students believe the Holocaust was exaggerated or even fabricated, according to a 2021 study. Other recent American and Canadian studies have also pointed towards dramatic gaps in basic awareness and understanding of the Holocaust amongst Millennials and Gen Z. Concerningly, 22% of participants in the Canadian study weren't even sure if they'd ever heard of the Holocaust.

22% of participants weren't even sure if they'd ever heard of the Holocaust

Despite these knowledge gaps, roughly half of the participants in both surveys believed something like the Holocaust could happen again. Perhaps a disturbing sign of the times, and all the more reason why it's so important that Holocaust education is mandatory curriculum. At this time, there isn't a single province or territory in Canada that mandates Holocaust education as part of their secondary school curriculum; in the U.S., it's required in only 22 states.

Survivor stories are a critical way that we pass on these experiences and help the next generations to understand the magnitude of the atrocities of the Holocaust. But with almost 80 years having passed since the end of World War II, the number of living survivors is dwindling, and we must rely on their descendants to keep their stories alive.

My family's Holocaust story

For most of my adult life, all I knew was that I was 'technically' Jewish through matrilineal descent. At some point over the years, my mother had nodded to the Holocaust and how her mother had been sent to the UK as a child. That's about all I knew until the pandemic, when a DNA test piqued my interest and I began to research my family's history by sifting through online genealogy sites and Holocaust archives.

I can trace my Jewish ancestry back as far as the late 17th century. The name I circled in red, above, is my great-grandmother, Mietze Cohn. She was murdered at 56 years' old by the Nazis after being deported to Lublin in 1942, likely at the nearby Majdanek concentration camp. My second great-grand aunt, Elise Cohn, was killed at Theresienstadt camp, in what is now the Czech Republic, in 1943. Her son, Carl – my first cousin, 3x removed – and his son, Hans, who was just 16 years' old, were deported in 1942 to Raasiku train station in Estonia, where they were either executed immediately at a killing site or later perished at a nearby camp.

Another first cousin, Charlotte, who is pictured in the cover image for this article, committed suicide in 1941 after so many years of marginalization and humiliation. When the National Socialists assumed power in 1933, she and her family were gradually deprived of their rights and plundered of their wealth. Her first-born son, Fritz, was executed at the Minsk ghetto in 1942 after it was discovered that he was aiding covert communications back to Hamburg. Her husband, Franz Rappolt, was killed at Theresienstadt in 1943. They were each honoured in 2007 with a Stolpersteine ("stumbling stone") on the streets of Hamburg where they once had lived.

These are just the stories that I've been able to piece together, but there are still many mysteries and gaps in my family tree. Antisemitism affected my family long before Adolf Hitler came to power. In 1910, my great-great-grandfather, Oskar Cohn, changed his entire family's surname to Lessing and converted to Lutheranism. Lessing was the maiden name of his brother's non-Jewish wife, presumably chosen to avoid suspicion. Of course, the 1935 Nuremburg Laws later made such a union illegal, and Jews who converted to Christianity weren't safe from the Third Reich. It was their race, not their religion, that was punished.

My grandmother, Marie, had enjoyed a relatively happy childhood in Hünern, a tiny east German village that is now part of Poland. She would rollerskate the halls of the stately home she grew up in, pictured above. I'm fortunate to have this photo as the house was bombed during the war.

Her happy childhood, of course, came to an abrupt end. My great-grandparents saved my grandmother's life by sending her to boarding school in England in the late 1930s when she was just 13, along with her older sister, Erika. It was the last time she would ever see her older brother or her parents. In my research, I was able to identify that my great-grandfather and my grand-uncle had been able to escape to South America – why my great-grandmother wasn't with them, I'll never know. Perhaps she stayed back in hopes of a reconciliation with her daughters. I showed this tourist visa from 1960 to my mother. It was the first time she'd ever seen a photo of her uncle, who she didn't even know had survived the Holocaust.

Losing (and reclaiming) our family's identity

It wasn't safe to be either German or Jewish, so my grandmother dropped both identities, and learned English as quickly as possible. Last year, my mother recalled her childhood to me of growing up in post-war London, walking past bomb shelters and bombed buildings on the way to school. On the playground, children would pretend to be spitfire pilots and chant "We killed the Jerries! We hate the Jerries!" Even revealing she was half-German meant relentless torment and bullying. She, too, learned at a young age to keep schtum.

My mother and her three younger siblings were instructed to not say a word about their heritage. My grandmother, being human, on occasion broke her silence, confiding horrifying memories and stories to my mother. Still a child, my mother couldn't understand what she was being told and didn't even know if it was true, until she was old enough to start going to the library where she could validate her stories through history books. Perhaps because she felt rejected for being sent away at a such a young age, or perhaps because she did not want any reminder of or attachment to her Jewish/German heritage, my grandmother rejected contact with her very few remaining relatives for the rest of her life. She was often cruel to my mother about her physical appearance, as she "looked" Jewish.

Today, it is no surprise to me that my mother developed such ingrained shame and fear of anyone knowing her family's Jewish ancestry. The Nazis not only stole the lives of my great-grandmother, and many other relatives, but they also stole my family's identity. Imagine, such a big part of who you are and where you came from being the one thing that you can never share with anyone.

I am not a religious person, but I have fully embraced my 26% Ashkenazi Jewish genes. In 2020, I celebrated Hanukkah for the first time. In 2021, I began wearing a necklace with a chai symbol. Chai is the Hebrew word for "life", "alive", "living" – this is my way of keeping my family's history alive and honouring my heritage. I am Jewish and proud.

A final word: Leaders' words matter

Words matter. Always, and especially if you are in a position of power. "What makes power dangerous is how it's used," says Brené?Brown in Dare to Lead. Regarded as one of the most influential hip hop artists of all time, Kanye West undoubtedly has (or at least had) power. He also has platform, not only through his music, but through social media. His lack of accountability for his hateful words is the only thing that upsets me more than the words themselves. He is and continues to be willfully ignorant to how his words have poured gasoline on a smoldering fire.

As people leaders, we have power. Our words have power. And we must take accountability for those words and their impact. And we must create a culture of psychological safety in which our words can be challenged and our ignorance can be addressed. Because there isn't a single leader in this world who knows everything, nor is there a single leader in this world who has never caused offense.

Even Brené?Brown makes mistakes. She once used the term "spirit animal" in an Instagram post and was quick to be educated by her vast following. As she talks about in this podcast episode, instead of taking the post down, she took accountability:

"I apologize. I apologize that my learning was at the expense of hurting other people, and I understand and it will not happen again."

Words can instill fear or they can create safety. Words can let people know that they belong and that their voices matter, or they can make people feel like their opinions are neither welcomed nor valued. Words can create a culture where people feel ashamed of being who they are or where they feel like they have to hide their identity to fit in, just like my mother and grandmother hid their Jewish identity for so many years. To support a culture of inclusion and belonging, it's important that we spend time thinking about the words we use – and the impacts they can (and do) have – both in and outside of work.

To learn more about Holocaust Education Week and how you can participate, visit the Holocaust Education Centre.