Dear Editor,
We are in shock at the series of anti-Semitic school incidents over the past several weeks, with the most recent targeted very hatefully and hurtfully at an individual child. All of us feel the urgent need to voice not just that shock but also our resolve to do all in our power to uphold and support all of our fellow Wiltonians and especially to make it known that anything which does not affirm our fellow person in her or his personhood is not just unacceptable but is completely antithetical to who we are as individuals and as a community.
Wi-ACT abhors these bigoted and hateful acts and the grave hurt and distress they have caused among all of us and especially among Jewish students and their parents. That hurt and fear was expressed forcefully and very poignantly during the two-hour meeting organized by our schools on Friday morning at which many spoke with heartrending examples of the impact on their children, as well as on them, of these intentionally hurtful acts.
Wi-ACT knows first-hand how well people all across our community with enormously varied backgrounds–in large numbers and of all ages from young children to the elderly–work together for good and do so in so many ways and with so many different community organizations. We know that this is who Wilton is, and that is the Wilton that we uphold and are determined to do all in our power to nurture and protect. We know that what each of us does matters and that the example we set and the acts we do each day, every day, speak the truth about who we are as individuals and as a community. We stand ready to help in any and all ways that we possibly can, to speak up in the face of hateful attacks on anyone and to work proactively to do all in our power to assure that those attacks end.
Sincerely,
Wi-ACT’s 40-member Steering Committee
(The Wilton Interfaith Action Committee (Wi-ACT) is a consortium of the congregants of eleven Wilton faith institutions, Christian, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim.)