Tiverton Holocaust program offers education opportunity

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On Aug. 1, more than 100 people gathered at the Tiverton Public Library to learn about the horrors of the Holocaust. Alice Eichenbaum, a survivor, and Lillian Birch, the daughter of a survivor, spoke to the crowd.

The program was organized by the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center in Providence after a July 23 social media post by The Atlantic Sports Bar and Restaurant, in Tiverton, referencing the hot weather and featuring a photo of Anne Frank.

The post has since been removed from Facebook after the owners of the restaurant issued an apology. They did not attend the program and local media have not been able to reach them for comment.

Program organizers hope that education will help in the fight against antisemitism and remind people of the reality behind perceived jokes.

Other antisemitic activity

On July 2, in Boston, approximately 100 members of Patriot Front a white supremacist group marched. The Patriot Front, according to the Anti-Defamation League, was “formed by disaffected members of another white supremacist group, Vanguard America, in September 2017, in the wake of the Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.”

In Jamaica Plains, three people were arrested on July 23, when a group of white supremacists protested outside of a drag queen story time. Led by neo-Nazi group the Nationalist Social Club 131 (NSC-131), the hate group was met by counter-protesters and the arrests included a member of NSC-131 and two counter-protesters who clashed with the neo-Nazis. The Nationalist Social Club had previously demonstrated in February outside a Providence reading room and was allegedly responsible for a wave of flyer activity over the Independence Day weekend.

Antisemitism, anti-Semitism, Tiverton, SBHEC