Last week I found myself standing at the Occupy Burlington protest, a partial piece of the phenomenon spreading throughout the world. As of now the movement has spread to over 1,500 cities globally. Incredible as I originally found the movement, I discovered that recently the movement has been attached to connotations of anti-Semitism. There are countless YouTube videos of self-identified occupy protesters in New York City holding up signs that read things like “Hitler’s Bankers – Wall Jews.” Is “Blaming the Jews” going to become consistent with a movement I thought I could strongly believe in? Because to me it sounds eerily similar to pre-war Germany. Another YouTube video shows a protestor loudly and aggressively proclaiming “the Jews control wall street” as he stands in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park ranting against Israel and Jews. To claim that “Zionists Rule America” is simply putting your ignorance and naivety up on a pedestal. Clearly education has gone wrong somewhere because a lot of people like to believe that Wall Street is all made up of all Jewish people. According to the 1999 Forbes 400 “Rich List” only 23 percent are Jewish. Why should I, and people who understand the ridiculousness of these claims, go on to support something that invites the ignorance other’s. Is it reliable to assume that the Wall Street resistance does not whole-heartedly support and preach the beliefs of these certain individuals? By allowing and not condemning it says something to me and, I’m sure, a multitude of other people. These “flashes of anti-Semitism” are obscuring the message of a movement I truly believe in. It has even turned President Obama and Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, “to retract their expressions of support for the Wall Street