Eternal Vigilance

If the Jews or anyone becomes too comfortable, there is always going to be someone to put the kibosh on us. It could come in the form of a Hitler or a Ahmadinejad. It could come in a Sudan or a Rwanda or in the form of a Larry Tripp.

Several years ago, Cantor Michael Weisser of Lincoln, Nebraska began receiving harassing, anti-Semitic phone calls and hate mail. He put a tap on his phone and contacted the police. Knowing that the mail was from local Ku Klux Klan Grand Master Larry Tripp but unable to prove it, he called him and left a message saying that what he was doing was wrong and that he would have to answer to G-d. In another call, he asked the diabetic and wheelchair-bound Klansman why he would want to be affiliated with the Nazis when even they would have rejected him for his disabilities.

One day he called Tripp and asked if he needed any help getting around or a ride to the grocery store. He told him he wanted to quit the movement but didn't know how. They met, and the cantor gave him a silver ring that he used to replace the swastika rings he had been wearing. Larry Tripp befriended the Weisser's, converted and moved into their home where they cared for him until he died.

Maybe that and an education, is what the Buford Furrows and the Larry Tripps of the world need, that and our eternal vigilance.