(A News and Sentinel Op-Ed - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

In 1998 my mother, a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, was appointed the founding chair of the West Virginia Commission on Holocaust Education. Her induction ceremony at the Governor’s Mansion remained a source of pride for the rest of her life. I grew up hearing her odyssey of a relatively normal childhood in Vienna. That life slowly deteriorated into the life of a refugee, of having to wear the yellow star, then of a life in hiding. Of the childhood terror of coming face-to-shin with shiny Nazi boots, of having to accept the reality of never again seeing her beloved father, murdered in Auschwitz.

She told me of the serendipitous accident that disclosed her name to her American benefactor, of their eventual marriage, of settling in Morgantown, of raising three children, and of completing her doctoral degree at WVU.

She was determined to use her childhood experiences to impart her life’s lessons to the youth of her beloved adopted state, so that they might be able to recognize the telltale signs of intolerance that lead inevitably to events like the Holocaust.

There is absolutely no doubt that one of those signs now menacingly confronts West Virginians in the guise of House Joint Resolution 31.

In what must surely be one of the most cynical and dangerous publicity stunts in recent memory, HJR 31 wants to mislead an already faithful population into believing that a constitutional amendment enshrining the “Holy Bible as the Foundational Text in the State of West Virginia” will somehow make West Virginians’ lives better.

I say cynical because these elected officials are surely aware that should this amendment be adopted it would be struck down immediately by even the most conservative courts as a direct violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, which clearly prevents the government from favoring one religion over another. Not only do they know this, I suspect they are counting on it, since the spectacle from that ensuing showdown would afford them the additional publicity they crave and in turn provide a distraction from issues that truly matter to West Virginians, like unemployment, financial scams, or health care.

And I say dangerous because the separation of church and state not only protects the government from the possibility of theocratic intervention, but it also protects religion from the government and the possibility of the government telling us what to believe and how to believe it. It cuts both ways.

Government sanctioning a religion injects an immediate marginalization of anyone who isn’t a member of the official state-approved religion. This process of marginalization, of lessening another group, of directly or indirectly reducing them to second-class citizens, is right out of the fascist playbook. It is terrifyingly reminiscent of what the Nazis did. That is not hysteria, that is history. That one of the sponsoring delegates once spoke out against Holocaust education when she was a member of the House Education Committee, arguing that “…if you don’t want to mention the individual genocides why do you mention the Holocaust,” should set off additional alarm bells.

Though cloaked in the verbiage of faith, HJR 31 is not about faith. Christians and non-Christians have long ago reconciled and even appreciated that spiritual lessons do not and should not necessarily comport with secular ones; there is a place for both. The clause proclaiming the Bible to be “…an accurate historical record of human and natural history” is frankly demeaning to all West Virginians.

Last week Rabbi Joshua Lief of Wheeling’s Temple Shalom wrote eloquently of the threat this amendment poses to all of us: “If freedom of religion can so easily be revoked, what other freedoms will follow? We still have freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom to gather, and freedom to vote; let us put these gifts to better use before it is too late. They are coming for me right now; if we don’t all speak up, they will be coming for you next.”

My mother passed away in 2023. Last year, largely through the efforts of Senator Jack Woodrum, the State Senate formally adopted Resolution 6, honoring her as “…a remarkable woman, who dedicated her life to educating others about the dangers of intolerance and prejudice while inspiring efforts to create a future in which none among us will be singled out to become a victim or a persecutor.” HJR 31 absolutely threatens many of us to be so singled out. I would implore all West Virginians to take action while they can to see that doesn’t happen and urge their delegates to withdraw HJR 31 immediately.

***

Laurent Levy is a graduate of Morgantown High School, pursuing doctoral studies in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Gratz College in Philadelphia.