For the dimwitted habitués of comments threads, it was the news item that launched a thousand lame puns. But the case of the Bergholz Barbers is funny only as long as it remains a sound bite. Donald B. Kraybill’s new book, “Renegade Amish: Beard Cutting, Hate Crimes and the Trial of the Bergholz Barbers,” digs deep into a story that, for all its seeming quaintness, has the power both to rock the underpinnings of hate crime legislation and to break the human heart.
Here are the basics: Over the course of the fall of 2011, five different assaults were perpetrated on nine members of the Amish community in northeastern Ohio. Acting in groups, the attackers forced their way into their victims’ homes, overpowered and restrained them and then forcibly shaved off the beards of the men and cut the hair of both men and women, typically to the scalp. Some were left cut and bleeding. In a few cases, the assailants took souvenir photos of their shorn victims.
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