Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Suffering from a troublesome case of anti-Semitic indigestion, “pete” from West Hartford belched in the Hartford Courant commentary section attached to a story called “A Tangle Of Tensions, “go back to isreal (sic) and steal some more land, dirtbag (sic) troublemakers.” The comment is a dramatic overstatement of some of the tensions underlying a decision of Litchfield’s Historic Commission to deny a Jewish orthodox religious group, Chabad Lubavich, permission to convert a “home” into a Jewish temple.  The historic “home” on Litchfield’s pristine town green was gutted 40 years earlier and turned into a business, seriously compromising the “home’s” historical character. Like the poor, anti-Semitism will always be with us. But in this particular case, a just decision between the competing claims of Chabad Lubavich and Litchfield’s Historic Commission very likely will be settled in court.  The dispute, in any case, appears to be tending in that direction since the Historic Commis...