Maryland hate crimes

The House of Delegates voted Thursday to censure Del. Mary Ann Lisanti, whose district is in Harford County, for her use of the n-word. The Democrat was heard using the slur to describe a district in Prince George’s County during an event at a cigar bar in Annapolis in January.

Irma Pretsfelder was born in 1926 in a small village in Germany. She was 11 years old in November 1938, when the synagogue where she went to school was burned, during what is known as Kristallnacht.

“The next morning, policemen came and said to my father, ‘I have to take you into custody,’” she told the state Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee Wednesday afternoon. “‘But why are you taking me? What have I done?’ He said, ‘I have to obey orders. I have to take you to the next town.’”

A proposal before state lawmakers would expand Maryland’s hate crime law to include displaying a noose or swastika on someone else’s property without permission.

In 2018, hate crimes and hate incidents happened in city parks, historic main streets, and in suburban neighborhoods.

Last spring, four Howard County teen-agers were charged with hate crimes for allegedly defacing their school with racial slurs, swastikas, and more.

Now, some Maryland students, parents, teachers, and principals are pushing back with a message of diversity, understanding, and empathy.

Lee Gedansky’s son turns 13 in December. Their family plans to celebrate with a bar mitzvah at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation.

A bar mitzvah often comes with months of preparation. But in addition to all the usual concerns, the shooting that killed 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday has Gedansky worrying about safety measures.

Hate crimes in Maryland increased by nearly 40 percent in 2016, according to a recently released State Police report. The majority of the incidents were race-based and if you’ve been tallying up the news recently, that probably doesn’t surprise you.