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Last year, the Teton County School District found multiple swastika images in a high school bathroom. Thirteen months later, the district found graffiti including antisemitic messages and racial slurs in a field near Jackson Elementary School. In April, Jacksonites began removing other white supremacist and neo-fascist hate images around town, too.
Beyond these isolated instances, incidents of antisemitism, especially vandalism and assault, are on the rise nationally, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
In light of that, members of the Jackson Hole’s Jewish Community and Christian church groups gathered last month to watch “October 8,” a documentary about the rise of antisemitic incidents in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel in 2023. The film focuses particularly on some students’ experiences with the rise of antisemitism on social media and college campuses.
After the screening, Shari Brownfield said her daughter didn’t experience antisemitism directly growing up in Jackson.
“There’s an amazing community, it didn’t seem to be a conversation to bring up when she was younger,” she said.
Her daughter, Finley, said she remembers some kids drew Swastikas on their iPads or lockers in middle school, but she saw it more as a sign of immaturity and ignorance than a direct threat.
“There’s just a lack of education in comparison to people that are genuinely being rude,” she said.
Reading books about the Holocaust, Finely said, was the start of deeper talks. Now 19, Finley is in college in Southern California. She considers herself a Zionist, unlike most of her friends on a liberal campus. She said it can feel isolating, but she tries to surround herself with mixed opinions, including people who feel similarly.
“My mom is very on my side about being myself and not hiding anything,” she said.
Like many tough topics, the younger years usually mean simpler, age-appropriate conversations.
That’s the case for Rabbi Zalman and Raizy Mendelsohns, parents of nine kids, two of whom attended the screening.
Nachi (left), his mother Raizy (center) and Meir Mendelsohn (right). (Sophia Boyd-Fliegel / KHOL)
A 12-year-old, Nachi stands at his mother’s side. She has her hand on a stroller with her infant. Raizy said she talked with some of her kids about the antisemitic graffiti incident, but at Nachi’s age, he’s shy to share. He did speak up about the family’s 24-hour, phone-free shabbat, every Friday from sunset until sundown Saturday.
“There’s more family time, you get to play games, it’s fun,” Nachi said.
Raizy added that this time is intentional. They “disconnect, in order to connect,” she said.
“We include our children in everything that we stand for, and everything that we stand, for revolves around us being Jewish,” she said.
The Mendelsohns are Orthodox. They don’t have a television, or social media apps like TikTok or Instagram.
“So if there’s one thing I could suggest to people is take those 24 hours, any 24 hours, and just disconnect from the noise around,” she said.
At any age, she said, conversations with her kids about Judaism are mostly about values.
Referencing a similar emphasis on values, Avi Kantor reflected on his upbringing in talks about antisemitism.
Avi Kantor says he tries to answer his kid’s questions about contemporary conflicts with context. (Sophia Boyd-Fliegel / KHOL)
“[We’re] just teaching our kids to treat everybody, as a person, as a human, to see them for who they are,” he said of his three kids between 14 and 20.
Like Brownfield, Kantor says he has not run in directly with antisemitism in Jackson.
“I never really found ourselves particularly focused or hyper-focused on antisemitism,” he said.
Now, he tries to answer his kid’s questions about contemporary conflicts with context. These conversations pop up around the dinner table, especially with his eldest now living there.
“And then, putting that in context to the historical challenges of the region and our longer history,” he said.
As Shari said, there’s no real playbook.
“There isn’t really an answer to like, what do you say about antisemitism as much as how do you instill pride in your Jewish child,” she said.
