The Guardian, August 26, 2010
Today the New York Times reported that a pastor in my hometown of Gainesville, Florida is planning to “commemorate” September 11 by publicly burning Korans.
The photograph that accompanied the story showed the pastor, Terry Jones, standing in a field of grass behind signs that read “Islam is of the devil.” The tall pines of my childhood towered behind him and I was shocked to see the two images together. From my apartment in Tel Aviv, I searched the edges of the photo for something else familiar, something that would soothe me. Where is my hometown? I thought. This is not the Gainesville I grew up in.
Gainesville is quintessential America. It’s swimming pools and popsicles. It’s kids droning about on bikes on lazy summer days. It’s Norman Rockwell America.
It’s also Tom Petty’s hometown, the place that gave rise to his famous song “American Girl.” If I’ve had a bit too much to drink and I sing along, I find a Southern accent I never knew I had. And if a Jewish girl can find a Southern accent in Gainesville, anyone can find a home there.
Right?
Then I remember.
When I was a child, some of my evangelical Christian classmates urged me to convert. Because I was Jewish and didn’t accept Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior, they told me, I was going to hell.
When I was a teenager, I had a close friend whose father was in the Ku Klux Klan. For years, I hid my ethnic and cultural background from the family. Shame began to seep into me and I learned to hide my roots from everyone.
The summer after 11th grade, we were home alone, watching a movie with an African American friend of ours. The gravel in the driveway rumbled under a car’s tires—it was his father, the Klansman, arriving unexpectedly. Our friend hid in a closet. He climbed him out the window later and I met him down the road, tucked him into my car, and drove him home.
My last year of high school, the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in a local park that happened to be less than a mile from my house. As I left to go for a run, my mom warned me to steer clear of the park. Just in case.
An obedient daughter, I respected her wishes. When I heard later that counter-protesters outnumbered the KKK, I felt a thrill in my chest. This is my hometown.
I felt the same this morning when I read that the city of Gainesville had rejected Jones’s request for permission to build a bonfire. While the city denied that the decision had anything to do with what Jones’s intent to burn holy books, Gainesville’s mayor, Craig Lowe, voiced his discomfort with Jones’s ideology.
Which is my hometown? Which is America?
Gainesville’s struggle is a mirror for the country. And so are my memories. In the past, there was anti-Semitism, roiling just below the surface. Now, the threat is Islamophobia. And if Terry Jones burns Korans in Gainesville, he’ll leave shameful scorch on us all.
Photo: Chip Litherland/New York Times