Comparisons of COVID restrictions and the Holocaust are obscene for their trivialization, disproportion and inaccuracy. Never was the inaccuracy on greater display than when the chairman of the Oklahoma Republican party, John Bennett, explained his post on the party’s Facebook page of a photo of a yellow star labeled “Unvaccinated.”
The Washington Post quoted Bennett as saying:The Nazis “gave [Jews] a star to put on, and they couldn’t go to the grocery store, they couldn’t go out in public, they couldn’t do anything without having that star on their shirt . . . Take away the star and add a vaccine passport.”
The point of the yellow star was not only to stigmatize Jews. It was to prevent Jews from freely circulating in public, whether for groceries or anything else. The point of the yellow star was to endanger Jews who went out.
They surely did not casually “go to the grocery store.” First they had to ascertain which few stores they were permitted to enter and which provisions they were allowed to purchase. Nazis closed stores of all kinds to Jews.
In his abysmal ignorance, Bennett said that to wear a mask in an American restaurant is parallel to wearing a yellow star in a Nazi-era store. The mask affords the freedom to eat out, while the yellow star exposed the Jew to violence. The mask is an inconvenience, while the yellow star was an invitation to be demeaned, beaten or murdered. The mask is designed to stop the spread of disease, while the yellow star was to intensify the spread of hate and eventually render it easy to identify Jews and facilitate their deportation to death camps.
John Bennett was roundly condemned by the Republican and the Jewish leadership of Oklahoma. What he really needs is an education.
Copyright © 2021 by the Intermountain Jewish News
