The title of a famous book by gonzo artist Hunter Thompson is an appropriate gateway into an recent episode of public rancor and also into a way out of a cultural quagmire.

 

A hat store in Nashville (hatWRKS) owned by Gigi Gaskins publicized yellow patches in the form of the Star of David with the message stitched across the front NOT VACCINATED. They were selling for $5 each.

 

Perhaps Gaskins did not know that the yellow Star of David was a required identification marker for Jews living in Germany under the rule of Nazis. It was one of the early efforts by Nazis to identify, segregate, and marginalize Jews, a plan that led to what is now the known as the Holocaust.

 

Or perhaps Gaskins was jumping on the cultural bandwagon of U S Representative Marjorie Taylor Green (R, Georgia). Green stirred up emotions the week prior by asserting that the public health policy of wearing masks and getting vaccinated for the COVID 19 virus were reminiscent of policies Nazis put in place to manipulate and eventually murder the Jewish population in Germany in the 1930s.

 

Or perhaps Gaskins was just trying to make a buck and stay in business.

 

I didn’t know the answers to these questions when I posted on FB a picture of a person sporting the yellow Star of David with its political message of resistance to the vaccination. I added this script: “I have not the vocabulary to describe the wickedness of this Trumpian stunt.”

 

Within a day, the post had nine shares and 26 comments, a long way from viral but enough to grab my attention! Most of the posts were variations of “disgusting” and “shocking” and other expressions of self-justifiable loathing.

 

Except for one.

 

Rachel Bregman, a friend of mine and the rabbi at Temple Beth Tefilloh in Brunswick, Georgia posted this:

 

“A few things I’d like to share. I’m struck by the reactions of those who have posted here. The intensity and the certainty. We know little about this situation, the motivations and so on. Living in an era of quick judgment and fast condemnation is hurting all of us. I suspect the persons making and buying these arm bands feel similarly about the world: quick to decide who is right or wrong. The more we can move away from this orientation, the better … our very broken world will be. Acceptance is where healing begins. Let love guide.

 

No, I don’t love the arm bands…. While I think the form of expression is in poor taste, I suspect the people making and wearing these stars feel oppressed, afraid for their freedom, or even afraid for their lives….

 

I wonder if this odd expression of solidarity with Jews in the Holocaust could make for deeper understanding amongst peoples …. I think such an obviously offensive symbol is ripe for discussion, which is good. Complicated, challenging, necessary of deep bravery and good.

 

I know some people will resist or reject [my] ideas…. I get that. I’m practicing a way of living which is difficult. Hating the haters makes me a hater. I want more than that for me, for you, for this life.”

 

I took this as a gentle rebuke from a worthy friend; but I also present it to you as a gutsy repudiation of so much that passes for “freedom of speech” in the United States.

 

The use of the Star of David is offensive; and the resistance to safe and necessary public health initiatives is unacceptable in the extreme. But the question the good rabbi raises overshadows both of those judgments: do these badge-wearing, vaccination-refusing citizens have something deeper on their minds and in their hearts?

 

Are they afraid of something? Not the Nazis and not the COVID, but something else? Are they afraid of large governments telling them what to do? Or broader, are they afraid of being stereotyped, stigmatized, and segregated for who they are and what they believe? Are they fearful the country they know and love is slipping out of their hands and hearts, like sand through fingers?

 

Are they afraid of a future that looms so large, that appears to undermine their hopes and dreams? Is this what really motivates a person to sew on a yellow patch and say no to a lifesaving shot?

 

Their fears and our loathing form a combustible pile of cultural debris. Some fear it could explode into armed conflict if not outright war. Civil war.

 

Can resisting the rhetorical rage that arises so easily from our misunderstandings and misgivings provide, as Rabbi Bregman suggests, a way forward for the people of the United States of America?  She thinks so, and so do I.

 

Or, as a friend said today, “Less heat, more light.” Amen.