Nashville residents show Jewish solidarity after neo-Nazis converge on city
Residents of Nashville, Tennessee, are showing solidarity with the city's Jewish community, pushing a message of peace in the face of harassment from neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups descending on the city to spew antisemitic hate.
Residents of Nashville, Tennessee, are showing solidarity with the city's Jewish community, pushing a message of peace in the face of harassment from neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups descending on the city to spew antisemitic hate.
Multiple instances of such groups gathering and spreading anti-Jewish flyers prompted action from the Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville, leading hundreds of people to gather Sunday in Nashville's Bicentennial Park, said Deborah Oleshansky, the federation’s community relations director.
"We don't want to react to them, but we also can't do nothing," Oleshansky said. "We have to do something, and that was also part of the motivation of yesterday: to do something that was positive and not a direct reaction to them but rather a positive message out of it."
People attend the Nashville Together event Sunday.Courtesy Jewish Federation of Greater NashvilleAs early as July 6, a group of Patriot Front members marched down Nashville's popular Broadway with Confederate flags and chanting a Nazi slogan, NBC affiliate WSMV reported. A week later, another group converged and caused disruptions in and around the city, according to the station.
Law enforcement officials and local leaders urged residents not to engage with the group, which authorities said was coming in from outside the city. But community members communicated to the Jewish Federation that they were beginning to feel "under siege," Oleshansky said.
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