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Intolerance in a tolerant time of year

I’m sitting down to write my Bayside Gazette Editor’s Notebook.
I was going to write about this being my favorite time of the year. My Jewish family and friends are preparing for Passover. While my Christian friends and extended family are getting ready for the beautiful Easter holiday.
Instead, I’m stopped before I sit down at my desk as my daughter tells me there was a shooting with fatalities at Jewish locations in Kansas City.
The perpetrator was apparently found and smiled and allegedly said “Heil Hitler,” to the crowd watching.
It’s just a day before the first seder of Passover, and now I prepare for the holiday distracted. It was like the Passover in 2002 when a bomber killed 30 Jews sitting down for the seder in the Israeli town of Netanya.
How in this world can there exist such brazen hatred?
Passover celebrates the Jewish exodus from slavery in Egypt. It is filled with symbolism that is as contemporary now as it was thousands of years ago.
But here in this wonderful nation, the United States of America, Jews have thrived through this country’s history.
One of the parts about being editor of the Bayside Gazette that I absolutely love is my friendship with people from so many different faiths, from Catholic to Evangelical Christian to Orthodox and Reform Judaism to others. When I spend time over at Diakonia, I know that our collective faith in God and our ability to help other people glorifies that faith.
We are on this planet, I believe, to help one another.
Our Eastern Shore home is diverse and tolerant. I hope that the families in Kansas City are surrounded by the love and support of both the Jewish and non-Jewish communities. It is my hope that these Kansas City killings are an aberration.
I have a personal friend who comes from the area, and this is certainly not the hometown she knew growing up.
It just seems as if hate wants to erupt from time to time, but there are just too many good people in this world who make sure that love of one’s neighbor is part of our way of life, be it here in Berlin, West Ocean City or anywhere in Worcester County.
Please, let’s celebrate our diversity, and where we find differences, do so in a spirit of tolerance.
What happened in Kansas City has to make us work even harder.
We can never take one another for granted.
If we feel there’s a reason to doubt our safety, then borrow the term said in New York, if you see something, say something.
What happened in Kansas City is a hate crime.
We don’t tolerate hatred here in our area.
On the eve of Passover in Kansas City, the unthinkable happened.
Let’s make up our minds to talk about what happened with one another and our children. This is inconsistent with life on the Eastern Shore.
Thank God for that.