Last year the National Socialist Movement, an anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi group, adopted a half-mile section of Missouri’s highway to remove litter. Like other organizations that volunteer to pick up roadside trash — including controversial hate groups such as the white separatist National Alliance in Kentucky (whose founder influenced Timothy McVeigh) and the anti-immigrant San Diego Minutemen — the NSM received the customary Adopt-a-Highway sign. In response, however, the state’s Department of Transportation is renaming the stretch after the well-known Jewish theologian, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who escaped Nazi Germany and became a civil rights leader in the United States.
The Jewish Community Relations Bureau/American Jewish Committee proposed the idea and NSM members, who demand that all Jews, non-whites, and gays leave America, are unhappy. Cynthia Keene, a sergeant in the chapter, called the measure “childish.” This is not the first instance of the state fighting free speech with more free speech. Years ago, Ku Klux Klan members won a freedom-of-speech case against Missouri and their own Adopt-a-Highway sign, upsetting many residents. Officials countered by renaming the road after Rosa Parks, the prominent African-American civil rights figure. The latest renaming, already approved by the state legislature and supported by the governor, should take place this summer. Read the full story here. Update: Heschel’s daughter is opposed to this renaming. Read more here.
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Tags: Abraham Joshua Heschel, anti-Semitism, Cynthia Keene, Faith, hate groups, highway, Jewish, Ku Klux Klan, Missouri, National Alliance, National Socialist Movement, neo-Nazi, news, Politics, religion, religious studies, Rosa Parks, San Diego Minutemen, Timothy McVeigh
