How teens in Missouri are experiencing antisemitism — and what they’re doing about it

ST. LOUIS — Ilana Boyer was in the fifth grade when her Jewish day school received a bomb threat.

It was the first time she ever experienced antisemitism. It wouldn’t be the last time she witnessed hate.

As a child, the threat of violence was “pretty scary.” Now 18, Boyer said she’s experienced more people “doing the Nazi salute to me or making harsh comments on the internet.”

Today, the soon-to-be college student said that those moments, while hurtful, have made her “super passionate about fighting against” antisemitism, especially as incidents continue to rise across Missouri and the rest of the country.

Missouri saw a 59 percent spike in hate crimes in 2021 — a record high, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. A look at the FBI’s hate crime data, released in December 2022, shows Missouri saw more anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2021 than the two previous years combined. At nine incidents, it was the highest number since 2015, according to voluntary reports by the state’s police departments.

With those numbers in mind, organizations in St. Louis are working to combat hate and address misconceptions about Jewish people, starting from within their own communities.

As antisemitism rises in Missouri, Jewish students fight back

Sela Masaki (left) of Student to Student shows the Torah to some students from Nerinx Hall High School. Student to Student presentations started 30 years ago in St. Louis. Today, young people in the organization visit classrooms each year to not only teach their peers about the Jewish community but also to answer any questions fellow students may have about their history and experience. Photo courtesy of Student to Student

Boyer is a group leader with Student to Student, a program under the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis that seeks to combat prejudice and hate in the city and surrounding areas.

Jewish students in the program, which has existed for 30 years, visit thousands of classrooms a year to share their experiences, such as celebrating Shabbat, and lead presentations on different topics, including Israel and the Holocaust. What started as an idea in the St. Louis region has expanded to 13 other U.S. cities.

“Most of my extracurricular activities at high school have been centered around Holocaust and genocide education really long before [the program], and I think that that comes from a place of my family being important to me,” said Sam Loiterstein, a Student to Student group leader.

Loiterstein finds one portion of the prepared presentation has a lasting impact: a heavy book that repeats the same word across 1250 pages. It’s a visual representation of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust.

During presentations, group leaders use examples to show their peers aspects of their religion and history. One book, often used, lists the same word 6 million times to remind people how many Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Photo by Gabrielle Hays/PBS NewsHour.

“If you turn to any page in rows and columns, [the book] only says the word ‘Jew,’” he said. “It’s meant to help us grasp the concept of how big the number 6 million is.”

Loiterstein said students are then asked to focus on one word in the book and “ understand that that’s a person that was murdered, that there’s more to this person than just being Jewish, these are bakers, tailors, husbands, wives, kids.”

For Loiterstein, the goal is also meant to help their peers understand that they don’t have to be silent in the face of hate, including antisemitism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, that’s present in the U.S. and around the world.

“Quite frankly, we need to have a conversation with ourselves personally and say, ‘Am I the kind of bystander that chooses the side of the oppressor?’” he said. “It’s the tiny little acts of courage from the bystanders that make hateful rhetoric have less of an impact.”

President Joe Biden recently proclaimed May 2023 as Jewish American Heritage Month. In a statement he said he’s made it clear that “I will not remain silent in the face of this antisemitic venom, vitriol, and violence,” citing his administration’s efforts to counter antisemitism.

“But governance alone cannot root out antisemitism and hate,” the president said. “All Americans — including business and community leaders, educators, students, athletes, entertainers, and influencers — must help confront bigotry in all its forms.”

‘It’s in our hands to fight’ against antisemitism

Helen Turner began her role as education director at the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum about two years ago. Photo by Gabrielle Hays/PBS NewsHour

Outside school classrooms, Helen Turner of the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum is trying to give not only young people but adults the tools to address all kinds of hate.

The museum debuted a new space in May that’s meant to build onto the experience of its permanent exhibition.

“For anybody leaving a Holocaust exhibition — be you 13 or 33 or 63 — this is a huge weight to put on people without giving them the tools and the space to explore them,” said Turner, the museum’s education director.

Dubbed the Impact Lab, the space is divided into three sections.

The first addresses the “spiral of hate,” which explains how our stereotypes and words become dehumanizing, providing a gateway for discrimination, violence, and later, genocide, Turner said.

“It always comes from different actions that are taken, social norms that are accepted,” Turner said.

The “spiral of hate” seen inside the Impact Lab at the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum is housed in a new building on its campus in Creve Coeur, located in St. Louis County. Photo by Gabrielle Hays/PBS NewsHour

The second section focuses on several examples of genocide and hate crimes.

The lab ends with an exercise challenging visitors to think about how they transition from being a bystander to an ally in their own lives, which Turner said is “where the rubber meets the road.”

“This space really is for every human being and … not to shame or blame anybody or to be kind of like a scary space,” she said. “It’s meant to call us all into conversation that we as a society need to have.”

For Turner, who has served in her position for about two years, the museum’s overall purpose is to help people learn from the past while also addressing the issues of the present and preparing for the future. Sometimes, that means learning of hateful incidents not only in the state but across the country.

The Anti-Defamation League, which also tracks antisemitic incidents, found that in 2022 the nation saw a 36 percent increase in incidents from the previous year. It was the highest number of incidents the organization has recorded since it started tracking in 1979.

Turner said it’s important there’s a Holocaust museum in St. Louis, in the heartland of America that’s “empowering people to speak out and to recognize antisemitism, which is sometimes half the battle.”

Scattered along the walls as you reach the end of the Holocaust exhibit at the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum are images of survivors who later settled in St. Louis. Museum staff say the goal is to show that they not only survived but they went on to live their lives. Photo by Gabrielle Hays/PBS NewsHour

Since the museum’s opening in the 1990s, staffers have documented more than 900 people who survived the Holocaust and later settled in St. Louis. Today, their names are projected onto the walls of the building. Across from them are pictures of these survivors and their families, a homage paid to the lives they lived and the families they raised.

As Loiterstein and Boyer prepare for college in the fall, both are thinking about how they can continue to push back against hate, while also protecting themselves.

Boyer wears two necklaces. One is the Star of David, the other is her name, written in Hebrew.

“I wear them every day, and sometimes when I go in public, like in a place I don’t necessarily like or somewhere I’m unfamiliar with, I’ll often tuck them under my shirt just because I don’t know how people are going to respond,” she said.

Though Boyer said she’s generally comfortable wearing her necklaces in and around St. Louis, there are times when she is hesitant. Loiterstein, whose necklace is a Star of David that’s been handed down generations, said he sometimes keeps his necklace under tucked in his shirt, too.

“It feels more like a betrayal every time it happens,” Loiterstein said, adding that his necklace was this “comforting, beautiful thing” his family has given him. “It feels to me like not wearing it on the outside and being proud of it is like I’m embarrassed or ashamed of my family, which I’m not.”

But it’s scary to think that wearing his necklace could lead to “a tragic, hard way to find something out,” he said.

Still, whether they are in St. Louis or off to their respective colleges, they don’t plan to let hate win. They are hopeful you won’t, either.

“Antisemitism is not going anywhere, but it’s in our hands to fight against it and make the change,” Boyer said.