When Minneapolis is ablaze, or when it is featured in one of the Cohen brothers' productions, I always feel a small pinch in my heart.
My mother was born and raised in the city, and even though I was there only a handful of times as a child, I have fond memories of the place. My grandfather, Rabbi Yom Tov Herzog, led one of the congregations in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, just next to the city. So my family album is laden with such memories of the American midwest.
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One of the stories from that period relates to the sad circumstances in which my grandfather and grandmother had to move to a different place, as well as most of the other Jews in the community.
At the time, the small city was rocked by the racial violence that had beset the state. The riots hit the city twice: 1966 and 1967. There long nights in which stores were ransacked and firebombed; many of them were owned by Jews.
Like today, the sense of discrimination and disenfranchisement sparked the violence across the US during those years. The events ultimately became a watershed moment in the relationship between Jews and African Americans in Minneapolis.
The solidarity the two had had as struggling minorities at the turn of the century gave way to anti-Semitism and rejection and precipitated the Jewish exodus from the diverse town of St. Louis Park. This experience hurts to this very day.
Protests against police brutality can be justifiable, but the scope of the ransacking we have seen in recent days underscores something much deeper and much more dangerous.
The images from New York, Washington, Atlanta, Seattle, and many more cities show a phenomenon that has far exceeded spontaneous protest and outrage. This is a form of civilian terrorism taken right out of the Marxist manuals of the 19th century.
The rioters have lamented the police brutality, but many of the groups taking part in the riots are aiming for something much more radical: restructuring the social and political order in the United States.
These include Antifa and Black Lives Matter, two radical left-wing organizations that want to dismantle the "establishment" and the "piggish capitalism" and all the "oppressive" power centers. The activists in these groups call the officers "pigs" and have occasionally expressed joy at the news that officers have been killed.
It's no wonder that many Americans, black and white, have expressed their displeasure over riots. Atlanta's African American mayor made this point succinctly. "What I see happening on the streets of Atlanta is not Atlanta. This is not a protest. This is not in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr.," she said at a news conference. "This is chaos."
The Trump administration's challenge is to preserve law and order. It would be too dangerous to give in or explain away this violent behavior of this magnitude, and minorities are particularly at risk of being hurt by this chaos.
