Larry Trapp, Grand Dragon of the Nebraska Ku Klux Klan makes an announcement: he’s going to blow up the Synagogue in Lincoln, massacre the entire Jewish population, and then do the same to the blacks (and if he’s smart, he’ll spare the Jewish doctors, black orderlies, and Vietnamese nurses.) The police do nothing. The citizens are apathetic. So what can the Synagogue Cantor do? Knowing that Trapp is blind and legless, he picks up the phone and says “need a ride?” I mean come on, what does Cantor Weisser have to lose? He figures he’s doomed anyway, because the same group of racists destroyed a Vietnamese community center, and the police weren’t much help with that one. But when Weisser finally meets (what he thinks is) this powerful, menacing monster of a Klansman, he’s in for a surprise. He know that Trapp is disabled and can’t see, but even worse, Trapp is not a hard-driven man with any resolve. He’s just a lonely guy, hiding behind a large bear, dying of diabetes, and never recovered from an abusive childhood. They invite the guy over for dinner on Shabbat, and by Sunday he’s thrown his white hood in the trash.
Back in the
1990’s, I watched documentaries about white supremacists, and they were all the
same: disaffected young people, alienated from their parents, hopelessly
drifting through life, and without adult guidance. Then along comes a manipulative adult,
flatters these kids with attention (or alcohol) and they’re now in his
clutches. Trapp was an adult when he joined the Klan, but just like those poor
kids, he fell into the web that his “benefactors” had spun. It was after
Weisser treated him as an equal, and not a pawn, that Trapp would see that he
was wrong (and had been wronged). It would not only be a time where he’d ask
for forgiveness, but also find the strength to forgive his own father, who’d
pretty much destroyed the family.
Now let’s look at
these two main characters; Larry Trapp is a working class Midwesterner, and
Mordecai Weisser is a Jew from New York. You might think they have nothing in
common, but they do. Both had troubled childhoods, both had lousy parents, and
both did time in jail. Weisser had a non-typical childhood for a
Jewish-American: raised in a broken home, in and out of youth reformatories,
looking for acceptance with the wrong crowd. The difference is that Weisser
discovered his Jewish roots and found a strong community to be part of. Trapp
didn’t. So while Weisser found a happy career, Trapp drifted through life,
escaping into the bottle. Weisser obviously senses what Trapp’s troubles really
are. Perhaps his own rough childhood has gave him a kind of telepathy?
Trapp was dead
within a few months. In the years after this story took place, Weisser and his
wife divorced, he took a post in New Zealand, returned to the USA and became
the Rabbi of an old congregation in Flushing, Queens. The neighborhood had few
Jews left when he arrived, not because of anti-Semitism, but because they
simply got old. The area is now 90% Chinese and Korean, so the Synagogue is
like a lone holdout. Things are not what they were in 1994, with fewer hate
groups to join and former skinheads have left their past behind. Weisser’s
congregation in Flushing had no conflict with the Asian community in any manner
whatsoever. Why would they? The social dynamic is far different. They’re like two ships passing in lanes half a
mile apart, neither one’s interests conflicting with the other.
I read a similar
book, Autobiography of a Recovering
Skinhead by Frank Meink. The author was just like Larry Trapp; abused kid,
horrible neighborhood, then the racists show up and give him something to
belong to. He had no real beef with the blacks, and there were none where he
lived. His problem was that he was a lost boy. Essentially, that’s what Trapp
was, and the Weissers didn’t have to try that hard to bring him in from the
cold. But Meink had to go to jail to see the error in his ways. All Weisser had
to do to change Larry Trapp was to offer to meet him face to face.
When my mother read
this book, she wasn’t especially impressed. With a look of annoyance, she said “No
wonder it got the Saint Christopher medal, this is the kind of book that Christians
just love!” Now you must understand, my parents are part of a strict sect of
Judaism, so there’s a lot they’ll expect of a book that has anything to do with
Judaism. My mother may have thought that Cantor Weisser’s interest in Judaism
was shallow: she expects a Jewish clergyman to be a bit more scholarly. But over
the years, I’ve realized that it plays into a desire that people have, and that
is to seek peace through mutual understanding and cooperation. Look at the
current movement for Restorative Justice as an example, where people try to
reduce crime by encouraging dialogue.
Back in 1999, a
man named Buford Furrow shot and killed a bunch of people over their skin color.
He was a failed engineer, and despite having no experience in military or law
enforcement, was made a Lieutenant of security for the Aryan Nations. He was
known to be proud of his rank, which outside of the racist gang meant nothing
to anyone. Fourteen years after shooting
an immigrant mailman and several children, he admitted that he was wrong. It’s
not unusual for young killers to say “we were bored” or for a terrorist to have
been a beta male in life. That’s the essence here; bored, angry, hopeless, and
wanting to feel stronger. It’s a bad combination. But thanks to some strong minded
people, there is hope. Cantor Weisser believed in the Jewish ethic of
forgiveness: first you learn why your actions were wrong, then you admit your
wrongs, and finally, you consciously cease to transgress. By being the first to
treat this Klansman as an equal, Weisser brought him to see the error in his
ways and make amends for all his wrongs.
I wonder if lives would’ve been spared if Weisser had gotten
to Buford Furrow.
