To the editor:

As Jewish teens, we are no strangers to the many small acts of antisemitism that place on a regular basis, whether it be little pencil sketches of swastikas in the bathroom stalls, hearing Nazi salutes jokingly thrown around in the halls, or even at larger scales such as the incident at the baseball field that recently occurred. It is rarer, however, to look down at your local paper and see such hatred staring back at you, as it has recently. The article published holds two main problems which we hope to address, although that certainly does not diminish the various others that exist.

The first issue that much be addressed is the front-page picture. Out of the countless people who work to make the Barrington Times happen, those who must proofread and review and give their sign of approval, did not one individual pause to think about the consequences of displaying a giant swastika on the front page? You clearly omitted the other vulgarities and racial slurs that were graffitied, as those would not have been appropriate for our local paper, and rightfully so, but why did you think it was acceptable to include such blatant antisemitic imagery? The impact of this picture was clearly not given the careful consideration that it deserved. 

The second main issue does not come from what was included in the article, but more so from what it failed to properly address. It would have been one thing to include such a picture with an article that went into at least some detail about the antisemitism taking place and the effects of such public hatred, but for it to be paired with an article where there is only a brief mention of antisemitism on the second page and no direct acknowledgement of the harm that such actions undoubtedly caused is incredibly irresponsible. We can understand the intention behind the speculation that the acts of vandalism were not motivated by the ideologies expressed through the swastika and racial slurs, but including such thoughts without definitive knowledge is not helpful, and in fact worsens the situation by downplaying the damage that was done by such actions, even if that was not what the author truly intended. 

Overall, we write this letter to point out the problems that could have easily been avoided, and to hold accountable those who have made mistakes. We hold no animosity, but we will not stand by and overlook blatant ignorance of the problems at hand. Please do not take this as shaming, but rather as teaching. We hope you can use our personal experiences and opinions as Jewish youth within the Barrington Community to help better your understanding of these issues. 

Sincerely,

Chloe Buka

Barrington 

Chloe wrote this letter on behalf of the Barrington Community Temple Youth Group.