In his 1821 play “Almansor,” German-Jewish writer Heinreich Heine famously said, “Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people.” Over the period of the Third Reich, the trajectory Heine prophesied came to be.
Heine’s words are not a relic of the past. A picture shared by Cong. Beth Israel in Jackson, Mississippi, after it was firebombed last Shabbat, is eerily familiar.
A reader and friend Helen Starr, whose parents Fanny and Zesa survived the Holocaust, put side by side the picture from Mississippi and a picture of a hidden trove of books in Holland during WW II, presumably to safekeep them from destruction. The effect is chilling. What happened then is happening now.
It starts with physical objects, but it doesn’t end there. It never does, as Starr reminded me of Heine’s words.
In Mississippi, Jewish sacred objects — including Torah scrolls — are destroyed by fire. In Boulder, a Jewish woman, raising awareness of Israeli hostages, is murdered by a firebomber.
I don’t need to plumb the respective mindsets of either perpetrator, for they are not unique.
Anti-Israel so-called progressives are infected with anti-Semitic venom (see the pro-Hamas demonstration, Jan. 8 outside a Queens shul).
On the other side, classic right-wing anti-Semitism is in resurgence. When the Vice President says that America is a Christian nation, as he did at the recent Turning Point USA conference, he promotes a two-tier system, Christians and others. By doing so, he violates the pluralistic spirit of the Constitution and tacitly encourages those who seek to agitate — through words or acts — against the “other.”
The widespread condemnation of the arson in Jackson is evidence that most Americans still believe in pluralism. But another Jewish target not even a month after Bondi Beach is further evidence of the adversity Jews today face.
Shana Goldberg may be reached at shana@ijn.com.
© IJN 2026
