Category: Anti-Semitism

It depends on the context

 

Yes, the presidents of Harvard and MIT should also resign. Because it really does depend on the context.

Free speech is not the unfettered ability to say anything.  Free Speech on campus should be balanced against the needs of the students to attend school without threat or harassment.

Advocating for Genocide is despicable.  Although the University is a free marketplace of ideas, calling out for the extermination of Jews on campus is the furthest from a safe and secure space for Jews as there can be.  For those presidents unaware of Jewish history, 6 million Jews were slaughtered during the Holocaust.  So, Genocide is an exceptionally loaded concept.

The inability to understand the context of this issue and articulate it during an appearance before Congress demonstrates the incompetence of these people to fulfill the role of president at these Universities.  If Harvard and MIT are okay with that, that is on them, but they also demonstrate shameful behavior and terrible judgment.

 

#BringThemHomeNow

 

 

 

Bring Them Home Now

We are anxiously hoping the current negotiations for the return of some kidnapped hostages will bring our people home soon.

It is a deal with the devil, but you do what you must do.

However, the devil is in the details, and the details are troubling.

We have been unable to get “proof of life” for all held captive. Why is this the case?  Is Hamas not in control of all the hostages? If true, it does not bode well for those remaining in captivity.

Why has the Red Cross been unable to check on the welfare of the hostages?  This, too, is an ominous sign that Hamas may not be in control and our people are not being treated humanely.

Why are the negotiations 3 to 1?  For every Israeli returned, three people are returned to Hamas.  This seems an admission, particularly by Hamas, that both sides value Israeli human life more than Palestinians’.

These issues are distressing, But the answers to these questions offer insights into how things will progress after this deal is concluded.

Let us bring home those we can and work to bring the rest back as quickly as possible.

 

Mission to Israel Countdown t-2

Are you pro-Israel or not?

This is a moment of truth.  Which side are you on?

I am pro-Israel.  I believe in the State and its right to exist. I believe in its right to defend itself.  I believe Hamas is intent on Israel’s destruction; as such, it must be treated as an irreconcilable enemy that must be fought. But this battle comes at a price.

I grieve for the suffering of the Palestinians and pray that they, too, might find peace, dignity, and self-determination with a government that serves them.  And I am offended by the violence in the West Bank against Palestinians that seemingly slips under the radar but is no less egregious.

I disagree with Israel’s government and its policies.  But I set these aside for the time being.  Our focus must be on the current crisis.

I’m not too fond of reductionist thinking, but this is a simple binary decision.  You stand with Israel, which is now conflated with the Jewish people, or you do not.  This doesn’t mean we agree on everything (that will require the Messiah’s intervention), but world events have made it clear that the rest of the world has grouped the Jews with Israel.  We, therefore, must stand together.

We must stand for our values and deeply consider how those values are understood, especially in these challenging times.

Which side are you on?

Our lives are changed

All of our lives have been irrevocably changed as a result of October 7. The lives we thought we enjoyed before have had the veneer ripped away, and we are in a new and strangely familiar place as a people of history.

As many of you know, I am planning a trip to Israel with a few of my colleagues from the Philadelphia region through the generous support of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. Our purpose is to learn, bear witness, and bring home the stories of what is happening to the people of Israel. We will start in Tel Aviv, and we will move South, meeting with families of the kidnapped, hostages, and others whose lives around the envelope have been changed forever.

I do not know what I will encounter. And I say that as someone who is struggling here in the Diaspora and as someone committed to the Jewish state. We have complex and conflicting moral issues to try and understand. It is like threading the eye of a tiny needle. Our tradition is well-versed in parsing, probing, and understanding how we maintain our values even when those values are challenged in the most extraordinary ways. But we have enjoyed the opportunity to study those texts, not live them in real-time, and here in lies the real challenge of what it means to understand what is going on Jewishly.

I will share the lessons I will learn and some wisdom that I hope will come from these experiences. But I will at least bear witness.

I have been asked repeatedly if I am nervous or scared about my trip to Israel, and I do have trepidation, but it’s not the trepidation of being physically hurt. It is the trepidation of everything that I have held dear, of everything that I have worked for, of everything that I believe in, being tested in a way that I never thought would be imaginable today.

The virulent Jew-hatred we believed was part of our history is now being expressed publicly and shamelessly; that is frightening.

I am privileged to know many people of Goodwill, and so many of them have reached out in this fraught time to offer their support and love. But there are so many others who have remained silent and too many others who have let their antisemitism erupt into the public space. We can no longer pretend that Jew-hatred does not affect us. It does, and we must now decide whether we stand for what we claim to believe and fight for those values and ideals.

I pray for the people of Israel, I pray for my Jewish brothers and sisters both there and here, and I pray for peace. Perhaps these things may come more quickly than the all-too-elusive Messiah. It is up to us to hasten their coming.

 

 

 

Apologize?

Many have called upon Donald Trump to apologize for embracing two avowed Jew Haters.

Trump has not distanced himself from these bigots or their bile.

Trump is a clever checkers player who has acted according to what he believes is best for him.  For us now to receive an explanation or apology after so much time has elapsed would be suspicious at best.  It is impossible to believe any apology would be sincere and instead a cynical calculation for personal benefit.

One of the best ways to put out a fire is to eliminate the oxygen from which it is nurtured.  Let us deprive this dumpster fire of any further oxygen/publicity so we might focus on issues of importance, including repairing the damage he has incited, stoking hatred, violence, and contempt for the institutions that undergird our nation.

And Justice For All

There is nothing like the threat of economic consequences to elicit a heartfelt apology.

Yes, that is as cynical as it sounds.  The recent antisemitic bile spewed from Kanye West and Kyrie Irving has met with pushback and outrage from the Jewish Community and severe fallout in the business community. And voila, apologies have started to cascade out.  But writer/activist George M. Johnson pointedly shared in a recent interview that West had been spewing hatred against the Black community for a while before turning his sights on the Jews.  That, however, did not provoke the same level of outrage from either Jews or businesses.  This is for reasons ranging from racism to the idea that such vile thoughts didn’t hurt anyone’s bottom line enough.

We all need to do better.

We all must enjoy the same rights and responsibilities in our society; that hatred against one group threatens everyone.  Businesses are rarely the bastions of moral virtue. But businesses will respond when we inflict economic consequences on bad behavior, such as not going to Nets games or buying West’s sneakers or clothing, because hatred directed at any group is unacceptable to all of us.  This is a call to all who find themselves in a group that has been “othered” in our society and those who enjoy the privilege of not being so ostracized.  Jews need to speak for the civil rights of all people, not just Jews.  Blacks likewise need to talk about injustice whenever it happens in our society, not just when Black people are affected. And so too with everyone.  To echo Langston Hughes, Let America be America for all Americans.

Some hate for hate’s sake and believe we live in a zero-sum game where a gain by me is at your expense. This is patently false.  A gain by me in the areas of justice and civil rights is a gain for all of us.  We measure the strength of our society not by the will of the stronger but by our ability to protect the vulnerable and give voice to the otherwise unheard and exploited.

I did not have much use for Kanye West before these recent rantings, and I have none now.  Irving’s comments are likewise repugnant.  And I do not need to patronize brands that undermine the “arc of justice” to which we as Americans should aspire.  I support the right to free speech even when it contradicts my values.  But words have consequences; Hate speech leads to violence and injustice. That is un-American, where all of us are called to draw the line.

Torah for Jews Today – Parshat Matot

Matot offers a climax to one of the troubling stories in the formation of our people.

 

On the verge of entering the Promised Land, the children of Israel must fight the Midianite people first. Although Moses instructs his warriors, according to God’s directive, to slay all the Midianites, Moses is angered when the army spares the women and children and reiterates the command to kill.

Were the Israelite people freed so they would unquestioningly carry out God’s dirty work? Or was this a test to see if we were worthy of freedom and the responsibilities such freedom carries? Were we ready to serve God as a righteous light to the nations? The army commanders understood the implications of this barbaric act and refused to follow the order. Moses overruled them, demanding harsh vengeance.

This kind of retaliation is appalling by our standards, and it was unacceptable for the Israelites, too. The phrase “Just following orders” sends shudders down the spine. But, even where legitimate grievance exists, morality trumps brutal vengeance. Matot is a warning for us and our interaction in an often inhospitable, antisemitic world.

However, the past cannot be the only lens we use to see the future. There was legitimate grievance against the Midianites. They attempted to undermine the nascent Israelite nation, and war appeared to be the way forward. But following orders is insufficient reason to commit atrocities. God’s vengeance is best left for God to transact (the flood, Sodom and the Korach Rebellion, to name three).

When individuals assume that responsibility and act on behalf of God, it is dangerous. A humane approach offers compassion instead of annihilation and a path toward peace. This alternative does not dismiss the history but does not make us slaves to the past, repeating and perpetuating tribalistic hate. Our tradition repeatedly admonishes us to act with benevolence and, in the words of Pirkei Avot, “Even in a place where there are no menschen, strive to be a mensch.”

Against this backdrop, we might look again at the lessons of this part of the parsha and see how we can apply them in many current world affairs and, in particular, to the situation with the Russian war’s effects on Ukrainians and Poles. We cannot be indifferent to human suffering; it goes against everything our tradition demands.

Jewish history in Ukraine and Poland is fraught. Persecution and antisemitism characterize much of the Jewish experience. Periods of welcome, such as King Casimir III inviting Jews to Poland as other countries expelled them, are countered by the infamous Khmelnytskyi and pogroms, which accounted for the slaughter and terror of the Jewish population of the region. It is little wonder that approximately 2 million-plus Jews emigrated to America at the turn of the 20th century when the opportunity to leave that place presented itself.

Furthermore, we understand that deeply rooted antisemitism enabled the Holocaust. These are substantial reasons for the Jewish psyche to be wary. But if we are limited to only that, practicing hatred in response to hate, we deprive ourselves of the very humanity our tradition teaches.

We Jews are duty-bound to see and respond to the Ukrainian people’s human suffering and the Poles’ heroic efforts. We know that the support by the Poles is something no one offered us as the Shoah unfolded. And knowing this, we can nonetheless be instruments in alleviating anguish and perhaps elevating ourselves in the process.

We can serve as Or l’goyim, a light to the nations, deeply rooted in our belief that we can be agents of change; partners in the ongoing act of creation; that we hear of the suffering and do not stand idly by as another’s blood is shed. Our values compel us to be part of the solution to the problem rather than remain mired in a history where we were seen as the problem needing to be solved.

Of course, we do not deny the past or naively presume the days of Jew-hatred are over. But we can take steps to help the world become a better place. This is a lesson I learned from Parsha Matot.

Show your support for the victims of war with your donation.  For each donation of $54, we will send you the Ukrainian Sunflower to wear proudly and keep us aware you stand against the suffering.  Proceeds are going to the JCC Krakow, a leader in helping Ukrainian refugees.

 

We’re making Whoopi

I found Whoopi Goldberg’s recent comments about the Holocaust both ignorant and offensive, and in that, I am certainly not alone. However, that says a lot about both of us and our different perspectives. So maybe there is something to be learned on both sides.

I believe Goldberg honestly shared what she thought. It was her opinion. After substantial pushback and some time to absorb the response, she offered a sincere apology. It seems that she learned from that experience. Unfortunately, for those of us seeking to cancel her or supporting ABC’s gratuitous “time out” as with ill-mannered children, we squander an opportunity to learn from her about her perspective. Her view does not pose a threat, and it was not a voice of hatred. But it is rightly rejected. However, I would be interested in hearing more. Her comment on the Stephen Colbert show,  “I thought it was a salient discussion because as a Black person, I think of race as being something that I can see,” offers an interesting perspective on a deeply personal subject to the Jewish community. I doubt I would agree, but I am sure I would learn something from her.

I am looking forward to her conversation with Jonathan Greenblatt from the ADL.

Let’s get Whoopi Goldberg back on the air and walk forward together.

 

The School Maus Ban

With Maus, the McMinn County Tennessee school board has highlighted issues beyond Anti-Semitism.

With the extraordinary rise in documented Anti-semitism, we rightly are sensitive to it. However, if we merely write off the TN School board as Anti-Semites, we miss some crucial things worthy of discussion. We must ask a fundamental question: Is this a matter of teaching about the Holocaust, or is this the right book to do so? Let us set aside the charge of anti-semitism and consider other reasons why Maus would be banned.

Let me give two examples from my own Jewish experience to help frame the matter:

I have regularly seen people ushering children from the sanctuary before the Yizkor liturgy in our services. And often, well-intended adults keep their children from funerals and unveilings.

The rationale common to these is that the adults thought it best for the welfare of the children to shield them from issues surrounding death. They deemed such experiences as emotionally unhealthy. Perhaps the people of Tennessee thought similarly.

Maus is an explicit graphic novel. The author, Art Spiegelman, does not hold back from exposing the horrors of the Holocaust. The scenes are brutal and sear themselves into the mind’s eye. Once seen, it is impossible to un-see it. Arguably, that was part of Maus’ intended purpose. Maus has been a challenging and controversial book on almost every level.   Bringing it to children should be careful, deliberate, and age-appropriate.

Parents try to shield their children, to protect them from the world’s harshness. The question for us to consider is whether such an approach serves a purpose?

Arguably, exposing our children to the world’s harsh realities is essential in helping them develop their understanding of the world in which we are preparing them to live.

We must also consider children’s developmental issues. We know that both the way we present materials to children and their capacity to absorb the lessons are critical components. Balancing these two is delicate, but ignoring them risks doing more harm to the psyche than good.

I understand the desire to protect children, particularly from the gruesomeness of evil. And the Holocaust is unspeakably, unimaginably evil. But if we pretend the horror did not happen, or if we sanitize it, erasing the brutality, we have likely made the case against evil no more compelling than the choice of school lunch.

We need to be vigilant in the fight against anti-semitism, and it would not be surprising to learn that anti-semitism motivated some people in the discussion surrounding Maus. But even with that, we cannot turn away from the critical conversation about what we teach our children, not as facts, but as values and how we do it without inflicting harm or destroying the humanity we are trying to nurture.