Dobrich: The Growing Subculture of Religious Exclusion and Prejudice in Public Schools

Let's pretend for a moment that you live in Georgetown, Delaware; that you are an Orthodox Jew, and your child comes home and tells you that she is being harrassed by teachers and other children because she is not a Christian. Better yet, let's lay down our political affiliations for a moment and pretend that your child is being harrassed because she is a Christian, in a school where Jews are the majority. How would that make you feel? Those of you who believe in this kind of prejudice and exclusion will not want to answer that question, I feel sure. I am confident that you wouldn't want to picture yourself in such a heartbreaking situation. Our biggest problem in America today is not our inability to identify with eachother; it's the fact that we are choosing, every day, with more and more fervor, not to care. The Dobrich family's case puts this problem into the spotlight, but countless other families are experiencing the same religious exclusion and prejudice, all across the country today.

How can a country built on diversity turn a blind eye to religious exclusion and prejudice? What is our justification? Certainly some would say it's that God wants us all to be Christians. The Christian faith tells us that Jesus died for all our sins. He also died because the community around him was intolerant. Essentially, because of religious exclusion and prejudice. Yet a large portion of this country is intolerant now of anyone unlike them, and justify the prejuduce by invoking the name of God.

The Dobrich family were used to being the only Jewish family in their small town in Delaware. Samantha Dobrich was used to listening to religious Christian prayers at her public school functions until one evening in 2004. That evening was a high school graduation, where the prayers included, "Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light".

Samantha's mother, Mrs. Dobrich, began to wonder why, according to her community, no matter how good a person one is, they are doomed to Hell if they don't become Christian. Why would a group claiming to worship a man who taught tolerance, acceptance, and love for all, make the Dobrich family and others feel such a sense of exclusion? Mrs. Dobrich would get no answers from the religious leaders in her town. She begged the school district not to stop the school prayers, but just to make them more generic and inclusive to all cultures.

When the community found out about Mrs. Dobrich and her plight, Christians were up in arms, feeling their religious expression was at risk of being limited. An epic battle ensued, with the local Christians protesting, sending hate mail, calling radio stations, and harassing young Samantha Dobrich. How ironic. Soon Mrs. Dobrich felt she had no choice but to move her son Alex Dobrich to another school, in a larger community, until she felt it was safe. That day has not come for Mrs. Dobrich. She has filed suit, and is still trying to have the peaceful life she feels her family deserves. The community of Georgetown is making the Dobrich family pay a high price for that peace.

One local businessman summed the Dobrich case up eloquently when he stated, ""If the Dobrich family feels singled out, they should find another school or excuse themselves from those functions. It's our way of life." That is the kind of ignorant, shallow attitude that is spreading across the entire country. It always existed, and always will to an extent, unfortunately. However, we have allowed it to become an epidemic in America now; a growing subculture of accepted religious prejudice, and exclusion.

Those of us who still have common sense can look at the wider problem the Dobrich case represents from a tolerant perspective. We can ask ourselves why this religious exclusion and prejudice is being allowed to happen when we clearly have a Separation of Church and State in place to protect the diversity of our people, and allow for religious inclusion. Unfortunately, the religious exclusion has become so rampant that we already know the answer to that question, don't we? It's happening because we have leaders in charge of our government who refuse to enforce the protective laws. This is an absolute disgrace, and among all the other absurd miscarriages of power by our current government, this is the one that will have the most lasting effect on our country, and our way of life. The purposeful inaction of our leaders has given justification and fuel to groups that would otherwise continue to be viewed as lunatic fringe.

Let's break this down and put it into basic terms that everyone, even bigots, can understand: When we exclude Jews and tell them they should be Christians, this is the most fundamental hypocrisy. Why? Because according to the same Book that is being used as a weapon in our country, Jesus was a Jew. Christianity would not exist without the Jewish faith. To justify religious exclusion by using the name Jesus, is both stupid and dangerous.

So, sadly, in America today, the America that our immigrant parents and grandparents built with their sweat, blood, and tears, millions of people are subject to exclusion, sanctioned and allowed by our own government. This is the height of betrayal, to every religious faith, to every human being who has come here based on the principles our forefathers set for us. It is a betrayal that will long haunt us as human beings, but also as Americans. Every day that this government turns a blind eye to religious exclusion and prejudice, a Jew is subject to not just religious exclusion, but intolerance. That will increase and worsen the longer it is allowed. It has and will continue to bleed over into families of every non-Christian faith. Children who are growing up to be kind, tolerant, intelligent, and dedicated are being denied what is rightfully theirs. The right to pray without thought of cultural consequence, the right ot coexist peacefully without prejudice or religious exclusion; these are the rights at stake. Once we allow those rights to be slowly robbed from certain groups, we become so much less as human beings.

America was invented for every person, of every possible faith. When did it become common place for us to say, "If you don't like something about America, leave"? How can we live with ourselves, when at this very moment, in a million tiny ways, we are walking the path of the Nazis. This is not an overstatement. Video, audio, and documented history tells us that the Nazis didn't come out of nowhere and load up Jews to murder. They began with small betrayals, in small communities. They systematically worked to make the exclusion of Jews commonplace and ordinary. This included anyone who wasn't of Hitler's accepted group, not just the Jews. The religious exclusion was so slow and steady, in fact, that noone really noticed what was happening until the world looked on in horror. By then it was too late, and everyone in those small communities went along with it, with the exception of a few people who dared to make their own conclusions about who was worthy of God's love, and our love. Those few people helped keep countless human lives intact. Yet what are we as Americans doing to stop our own country from becoming a place where religious exclusion and accepted prejudice are the norm? As of right now, not nearly enough.

Back in Delware, someone was quoted telling Mrs. Dobrich, "If you want people to stop calling him 'Jew boy,' you tell him to give his heart to Jesus." Those of you who are in agreement with this sick idea, tell me this: Would you have the guts to tell Jesus this? Jesus the Jew, that is.