By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – If hate has no home here, it certainly is comfortable as a long-term visitor.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has issued its annual report, tracking anti-Semitism, the flames of which social media has only fanned vigorously.

“You have misuse of Holocaust imagery, for example, a Photoshop of Dr Fauci into an SS uniform,” said Rick Eaton, the center’s director of research, “and not just any SS uniform, it’s an actual picture of Dr Mengele, the Angel of Death at Auschwitz.”

At a statehouse news conference Thursday, Rabbi Abraham Cooper quoted Wiesenthal himself when Wiesenthal was asked if there could be another Holocaust.

“When you have a crisis in society, hate, and technology, anything is possible.”

The conversation took place in 1980.

Dave Dahl can be reached at News@WJBC.com.