Spokane Rabbi Yisroel Hahn was shocked when he came face to face with antisemitic comments on a page meant to promote an event he's hosting. Rabbi Hahn says the event will go on as planned, but he's hurt after people from around the country and in Spokane decided to use his Facebook event as a place for hate.
"'The Holocaust did not happen.' 'Shut your lying Jew mouth and stay away from our white youth,'" said Rabbi Hahn who was reading what a Facebook user posted on his event page. Rabbi Hahn says he has never seen anything like this before.
"I didn't delete this because I want people to see that antisemitism is real."
And that it's happening right here in Spokane. Among the posts, one shows the star of David lit on fire with a caption asking people to spit on the Israeli flag. Other postings were so vile that we could not put them on T.V. "These are the forces of darkness," Rabbi Hahn said.
Rabbi Hahn invited Holocaust survivor Marthe Cohn to speak on June 14th and with these posts, the rabbi says he's more convinced than ever that this event needs to happen.
"Actually, it points the finger that we really need to bring a Holocaust survivor to speak, " Rabbi Hahn said. And he has a message to those who posted in hate: "Go and educate yourself and show up at the Holocaust survivor speech."
The rabbi says he's contacted police and the FBI about the Facebook posts, and adds that the light of positivity will prevail.
(story and photo: Peter Maxwell, Reporter, KHQ.com)