But we have to stop deluding ourselves into thinking that we are exempt from this sort of horror. We mythologize the past, pretending that 80 years ago in Western Europe was ancient history, rather than our grandparents’ generation. We condemn the Trump-Hitler comparison because we view Hitler as an evil so without bounds that it feels arbitrary to equate him to anything 2016 could cook up. convention, reads: “The Holocaust did not begin with killing, it began with words.” But as the United States Holocaust Museum’s recent statement, in response to the “alt-right” D.C. Let me reiterate: Trump is not Hitler yet. Numerous mosques in five states received anonymous letters stating that “Trump is going to do to you Muslims what Hitler did to Jews.” Every daily news cycle brings another report of Swastikas painted in a park or in a block of flats. where they cried out, “Hail Trump!” and performed Nazi salutes. The “alt-right” - a veiled rebrand of Neo-Nazism - hosted a celebratory convention in D.C. 8, these individuals on the fringes of American society seem to be gaining confidence. To deny that Trump’s registry for Muslims reflects Jews wearing Gold Stars in Nazi Germany is to deny history. With a national jewish registry, a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses and racism based on “Jewish-sounding” names, there is little question as to whether Trump’s threats reflect Hitler’s actions. When people deny that Trump depicts the 21st century Muslim American as suspicious, secretive and threatening, they deny Hitler’s parallel representation of the 1930s German Jew. But to deny the eerie parallels, the way both hijacked economic anxieties and insecurities of declining international influence on the world stage, is to deny history. When my mom deemed me and my sister old enough - 18 and 15 respectively - she and my dad took us to Auschwitz. They would remind me that I am biologically comprised of asylum seekers, that I only exist because Britain opened its borders to refugees. They gave us Old Testament names: Leah and Jemima. Growing up, my mum and dad would speak to me and my younger sister about Russian and Lithuanian family members fleeing persecution. And what is the point of that awareness, if I do not use it to call out the past as I see it in the present? In my household, Jewishness means an awareness of history, an understanding of the discrimination, exclusion and horror met by every generation before us. My parents instilled in me the belief that secularity and a disinterest in tradition does not detract from a Jewish cultural identity. Beyond that, he has appointed undeniable Islamophobes to senior positions, such as Michael Flynn, who referred to Islam as “ cancer,” and former CEO of Breitbart, Steve Bannon, who published articles with headlines such as “ 10 things Milo hates about Islam.” Trump has stolen the Nazi playbook and replaced the word Jew with Muslim. and has called for a registry of Muslim-Americans and a monitoring of mosques. Trump says the United States has a “ Muslim problem,” he lies about the “thousands of thousands” of Muslims cheering at 9/11, he proposes policies to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. But to all critics of the comparison I ask: When does it become appropriate? Recently, an LA Times editor - a guest speaker in my journalism class - argued that it is a lazy conversation ender. Historians, journalists and apparently school superintendents (a high school history teacher in California was suspended for commenting on the “remarkable parallels” between the two) have slammed it. But I believe that my ancestry permits me the right to compare Trump to Hitler. I was raised by two staunch atheists: We never lit the candles on a Friday night, and I couldn’t explain Yom Kippur to you even if it gave Hilary 38 more electoral votes. While I am undeniably ethnically Jewish - neither of my parents can trace anyone on their respective family trees who is not - my Jewishness has never been central to my day-to-day existence. Watching him run a presidential campaign on scapegoating and otherizing Muslims has connected me to a Jewish heritage from which I am for the most part detached.
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