RENO - Democratic Senate candidate Ed Bernstein joined critics of the Jewish Defamation League's burning of Nazi and Confederate flags in Reno, a demonstration against hatred that divided the local civil rights and Jewish community.
The militant Jews burned the flags Friday in front of the federal courthouse where five self-described white supremacists pleaded guilty this week to an alleged firebombing at a Reno synagogue.
Bernstein added his voice to concerns also raised by the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League and a Reno-based Latino civil rights group called Unlimited Intervention - as well as the rabbi of the Temple Emanu-El targeted in the attack in November.
''I think anytime you take an action that is inciteful, that is the wrong way to combat another inappropriate action,'' said Bernstein, a Las Vegas lawyer active in the Jewish community.
''I would have preferred to see the Jewish Defense League working in an education process instead of a process that attempts to inflame. I've always advocated that the best way to fight, racism, bias, bigotry and prejudice is education,'' he said in an interview.
Irv Rubin, international chairman of the Jewish Defense League based in Los Angeles, led the flag-burning demonstration.
He urged Jews to arm themselves against the growing number of racially motivated attacks across the country, including successful firebombings at three Jewish temples in Sacramento in the past year. He also pointed to Burford O. Furrow Jr., who is accused of opening fire on children at a Jewish Center in Los Angeles.
''If just one person at that Jewish Center had a gun, Burford Furrow would not be alive today,'' Rubin said.
''We as Jews have got to show that we don't want to be victims anymore. It's time to get angry. It's time to take a stand.
''We have to defend ourselves. The days of the submissive Jew with his back hunched over, the humble Jew, are over,'' he said.
Former Reno City Councilwoman Judy Pruett-Herman and her husband, Reno stockbrocker Marty Herman, were among those who showed support for the flag burnings.
''It's just a showing of how we feel about hate groups. The Nazi flag symbolizes the ultimate hate group,'' said Herman, a member of the Jewish Defense League since he moved to Reno six years ago.
''There still are members of the Jewish community who feel meeting so-called violence with violence is the wrong attitude. But turning the other cheek only works for so long. There comes a time you have to take a stand,'' he said.
Pruett-Herman said she and her husband went to Idaho last year to march in protest of the Aryan Nation.
''My husband supports me and I'm a supporter of my husband,'' she said.
Rabbi Avraham Keller allowed the Jewish Defense League leaders to hold a news conference Thursday at his Temple Emanu-El where the Molotav cocktail was hurled at a window on Nov. 30.
But he boycotted the flag-burning Friday, saying it was a time for closure in the case.
''The Jewish Defense League is an organization that was created out of frustration with the lack of the ability of law enforcement to take care of business,'' Keller said.
''They do good work but take radical measures. I disagree with their tactics to draw attention to the issue. This burning of flags is not a way to convey a message,'' he said.
The interdenominational Reno-Sparks Metro Ministry also issued a statement opposing the flag burning.
''The answer to hatred and violence is not an additional dose of hatred and violence,'' said the Rev. Jackie Leonard, president of the group and minister for mission and outreach at St. Johns Presbyterian Church in southwest Reno.
''We view this proposed action as the same kind of hatred we joined together to condemn when Temple Emanu-El was firebombed last fall.''
Rubin responded angrily to that comparison.
''How can anybody compare the burning of a synagogue to the burning of a flag?'' Rubin said.
He said it was ''unfortunate and sad that the establishment'' didn't participate in the flag-burning demonstration and that Keller ''thinks it is closure time because five Nazis are off the streets.
''He is kidding himself. There are going to be more attacks,'' Rubin said.
''Law enforcement can't be everywhere. It's time for Jews to defend themselves. We should not be lining up behind Rosie O'Donnell and the Democratic Party to do away with the Second Amendment.''
Jonathan Bernstein, director of the Anti-Defamation League's central Pacific region based in San Francisco, said the Jewish Defense League is ''clearly a minority fringe of the Jewish community and do not represent much of the community at all.
''They don't have much of a presence anywhere in the country. It has always been a strategy of theirs to use the media to get a lot of attention to give the impression they have a larger following than they do,'' he said.
The JDL had every right to burn the flags, ''but I still believe it is counterproductive and could just end up exacerbating tensions in the community,'' he said.
Bill Maniaci of Reno, director of the JDL's Western region, disagreed.
''Anyone who says we don't have grassroots support here, they are not in touch with reality,'' he said Friday.
''Most of the liberal Jews tend not to support us. But the more religious Jews recognize this is in the Torah. We believe we are following God's law.
''This cancer is not going to go away. These people are afraid that the white man is losing his grip on control of this country and they blame the Jew.''
