Can Playgrounds Defeat Antisemitism?

A left-of-center Jewish organization in New York City has proposed a series of steps that it claims will reduce antisemitism. High on the list is “renovating playgrounds.”

Skeptics may recall the fate of a similar proposal by Jewish optimists that was implemented in the 1920s in Jerusalem.

In the aftermath of Palestinian Arab mob violence in 1920 and 1921, officials of Hadassah, the U.S. women’s Zionist organization, decided that a Jewish-Arab playground might help counteract Arab antisemitism in Jerusalem.

Funded by the philanthropist Bertha Guggenheimer, the Zion Hill playground opened near the Zion Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City in 1926, complete with supervisors trained by the American Playground Association.

Sadly, the experiment did not go well.

In the late summer of 1929, Arab residents of Hebron and Jerusalem carried out widespread anti-Jewish violence. Since the Zion Hill playground was situated in a predominantly Arab neighborhood, the supervisors, fearing for the children’s safety, quickly shut down the facility.

Two months later, when the supervisors returned to the site to reopen it, they were horrified to find local Arab children painting slogans such as “Down with the Jews” and “Down with the Balfour Declaration” on the equipment and walls.

Although one of the goals of the playground had been to promote good relations with the local Arab residents, chief supervisor Rachel Schwarz found that “amongst the Arab neighbors are many who took an active part in recent riots, and are very active at present in the [anti-Jewish] boycott.”

Schwarz reported to the American sponsors of the project that Arab children were harassing the Jewish children with shouts of “We will slaughter the Jews!” and “The Jews are dogs!” There also had been incidents in which “the Arab boys ran after the Jewish children, throwing stones at them.”

By the autumn of 1930, the majority of the playground’s sponsors decided to close it for good. Former Hadassah president Irma Lindheim opposed shutting down the facility, on the grounds that “the Arab and liberal press will make capital of this” to prove that the Jews were not sincerely interested in cooperation with the Arabs. But her colleagues were convinced that, despite their noble intentions, the site had become too dangerous.

Playgrounds are wonderful, and those who build or renovate them should be commended. But the playground in Jerusalem didn’t stop antisemitism, and renovating playgrounds in New York City is not likely to stop it there, either — because antisemitism in America today is not rooted in a lack of slides or swings. It’s rooted in the anti-Jewish bigotry that is taught in too many homes, articulated in too many podcasts and shouted on too many college campuses.

Dr. Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of more than 20 books about Jewish history and the Holocaust. Follow him on Facebook to read his daily commentaries on the news.