It is horrifying that we’ve been seeing increased anti-Semitism in New Hampshire. Some of it is criminal, such as the shooting of the menorah at Dartmouth in December, and some of it is just hateful speech.

I am not asking for anti-Semitic hate speech to be banned; I’m asking for our elected leaders who have the trust and respect of Granite Staters to condemn it loudly and clearly. I am asking our leaders to call it out for what it is: bigoted, discriminatory, and unacceptable.

Otherwise, children will continue to hear it, and if not condemned, it starts to sound normal, acceptable even. It’s what our children will learn.

We need to remember we are all human, however we may differ in culture or religion. As Shylock asks in The Merchant of Venice, “Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?”

Shakespeare has Shylock begin this speech with an ideal we can readily agree on: The differences between humans, between Christians and Jews, are not very deep. Fundamentally, we are the same. But the rest of Shylock’s speech, rarely quoted, speaks to the dangers of fear and division that may lead to violence. And as we’ve seen too often, violence fueled by hate speech has become a reality across the country and even here in New Hampshire.

That’s not acceptable, not now, not ever. We are not that many generations away from those who fought against genocide caused by normalizing, accepting, and finally institutionalizing anti-Semitic hate speech.

My father fought in World War II, and both of my parents faced discrimination and quotas.

That is not the world I want for my children or their children.

Let’s not enable our worst history to return ever again. In the face of something so distasteful and hateful as bigotry and discrimination, silence is simply not enough. Our elected leaders must speak out and make it clear that they categorically reject anti-Semitism and hate.

(Cindy Rosenwald of Nashua represents District 13 in the New Hampshire Senate.)