Perspective: Finding inspiration following destruction

Jay Barnes
Jay Barnes

In January, 48 Jewish Community Centers in 26 states reported receiving nearly 60 bomb threats. On Monday, vandals in St. Louis committed a senseless property crime with enormous symbolism - damaging more than 150 gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis.

In December, I had the privilege of visiting Israel with a group of fellow legislators on a mission with the Jewish Federation of St. Louis. It was an amazing and inspiring trip. We met with Israeli businesses that had expanded in Missouri. We visited universities and social service agencies that gave us ideas for better governance here. We were pilgrims to Christian holy sites.

And we also learned about Jewish culture - including millennia of persecution. One night about midway through our visit, we visited a kibbutz (a co-op) far from a large city and came upon a statue that, without context, would not cause a second look. It was a woman with elongated arms and fingers grasping a child's back, and the child reaching up to her shoulders.

In the 1940s, the kibbutz included many Holocaust survivors and individuals who were able to get out of Europe before the full Nazi wrath claimed their lives and the lives of their families. Of course, not everyone escaped. During our visit, we spoke to one such individual, now in her 80s, who explained the sculptor created the statue based on a letter from a victim of the Holocaust where she explained her arms just were not long enough to save the children. To me, the statue was symbolic of both the tragedy of the Holocaust and the hope of Israel - a place where her arms would be long enough.

I was also struck by our visit to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. The museum takes each visitor through the history of the Holocaust - and the systematic march from words and rhetoric to legal oppression to outbursts of violence to organized "re-location" to the gas chambers. The most heart-wrenching items were the little things the victims carried - their personal effects, the photographs in their wallets that showed happier times. The museum is designed to put you in that place. In one section, literally in their shoes. What would you take with you? What would you say to your loved ones? What would you have been thinking if you were in their shoes? What would you have done? Would have been willing to leave everything you knew, where you had lived your whole life, before it was too late? If you were a non-Jew, would you have had the courage to help hide and protect?

Actions, words, and symbolism matter.

It is embarrassing that something like this happened in our state. What happened next is inspirational. One course of action would be to try to ignore it. Missourians of different faiths joined hands to make things better - confronting hate with unity. On Tuesday, Rep. Stacey Newman had an impassioned moment of personal privilege on the House floor describing the hurt she felt. On Wednesday, Gov. Eric Greitens and Vice President Mike Pence joined thousands of Missourians of different faiths to show defiant opposition as well as to help rebuild this sacred resting place. In these divided times, let us never forget our shared humanity and values that cross sectarian, ideological and partisan lines.

Opening doors of opportunity

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education oversees providers in the virtual school program to ensure quality. This program has existed for years but has been underused because of state funding issues and school districts that have been unwilling to voluntarily let students enroll. The bill passed the House Thursday by a vote of 144 to 9. If it becomes law, it will open doors of opportunity to every student in our state - whether they're urban, suburban or rural, and whether they're seeking Advanced Placement classes or trying to catch up.

House 138, sponsored by Rep. Bryan Spencer, aims to solve this problem for public school students. His bill expands access to virtual education classes statewide. Where a school district either does not offer a class the student wants to take or the district offers the class but it conflicts with the student's schedule, HB 138 provides that the school district must allow the student to enroll in the course.

In his State of the State address, Greitens lamented over half of Missouri school districts do not offer a single Advanced Placement class, nearly half don't have a single student in physics, and less than one in five have a student in chemistry. In some school districts, there is not enough interest to make it feasible for the district to hire a physics or a chemistry teacher - let alone something even rarer like Mandarin Chinese or coding.

State Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, represents Missouri's 60th District, and shares his perspective on statehouse issues each week.