A version of this sermon was delivered on Yom Kippur 5780 at Temple B'nai Torah - A Reform Congregation
An old joke:
Rabbi Altmann and his secretary were sitting
in a coffeehouse in Berlin in 1935. "Herr Altmann," said
his secretary, "I notice you're reading Der Stürmer! I can't
understand why. A Nazi libel sheet! Are you some kind of masochist, or,
God forbid, a self-hating Jew?"
"On the contrary, Frau Epstein. When I
used to read the Jewish papers, all I learned about were pogroms, riots
in Palestine, and assimilation in America. But now that I
read Der Stürmer, I see so much more: that the Jews control all the banks,
that we dominate in the arts, and that we're on the verge of taking over the
entire world. You know – it makes me feel a whole lot better!"
This
joke serves as many jokes in our tradition do, to make light of that which is
difficult, to try to bring some levity to the complexity of life as a Jew in a
world where we are always a minority, the complexity of life as Jews in a world
where there are many who do not like us and who see us in the worst light, all
the time.
In
January, I was forwarded an email sent to a local middle school principal by a
parent in our congregation. I share this
email with the family’s permission. It has been edited for
confidentiality.
Last night, my child reported to me that as he
was leaving school, he was confronted by a young male student who said, "I
love Hitler." My child stopped and
asked the boy to stop saying that because he found it offensive and that it was
a racist thing to say. The boy continued
to repeat the statement. My child
threatened to go to the dean of students and the boy responded by saying that
he would just deny that he had said it.
This type of incident is, unfortunately, more and more common. Some school administrations deal with it better than others, and act to respond, not sweep away. Not a year has gone by that I haven’t heard a story about something like this at one of our local schools. When we brought in the ADL a few years back to help our middle and high schoolers learn how to respond when confronted with this kind of antisemitism, so many hands went up when the facilitator asked who among the young people had experienced antisemitism.
Often these kinds of incidents, particularly graffiti of swastikas, fall into the category of kids pushing boundaries, to see how far they can go, and what they can get away with. Kids push boundaries in lots of ways. When they do so using hate, it’s coming from somewhere. Ignorance and stupidity are not always the motive. Sometimes the motive is truly hatred. It is our responsibility to work with the schools to ensure that they are handling these issues appropriately, that students know and understand why it is wrong and hurtful for them to draw these images and say these terrible things to their Jewish classmates.
Often these kinds of incidents, particularly graffiti of swastikas, fall into the category of kids pushing boundaries, to see how far they can go, and what they can get away with. Kids push boundaries in lots of ways. When they do so using hate, it’s coming from somewhere. Ignorance and stupidity are not always the motive. Sometimes the motive is truly hatred. It is our responsibility to work with the schools to ensure that they are handling these issues appropriately, that students know and understand why it is wrong and hurtful for them to draw these images and say these terrible things to their Jewish classmates.
To understand how this kind of behavior hurts,
let me share another piece from this parent’s letter:
One evening in December, I was driving through
town with my son and I commented on how beautiful some of the homes were with
all of their Christmas lights and decorations. He responded by saying that he
wished that we could put up decorations for Chanukah. When I told him that I would buy some blue
and white lights and a menorah for the window he told me that he doesn't think
that it would be a good idea to decorate because it would bring attention to
the fact that we are Jewish. He said he
worried that someone would vandalize our house or do something to us. I was shocked! I reassured him that we live in a safe town
and that he shouldn't be worried about anti-Semitism here in our town. That's when he told me that I was wrong. That he has been seeing swastikas drawn on
the walls in school, especially in the boys’ bathrooms, both at his middle
school, and at his elementary school before that.
A
middle schooler. Worried about what
might happen to him and his family if they make their Judaism too known to
their neighbors. A middle schooler. Sharing with his father the difficult reality
of his life at school. A middle schooler
targeted by his classmates because he is a Jew.
We all know that this email is not the first
like it that I have received; and it will not be the last. The statistics of antisemitic attacks or
incidents are only reporting what we already know, and what we already feel around
us. According to the ADL,[1]
though 2018 saw a slight downtick in total incidents, it also saw the deadliest
attack on Jews on US soil in American history at the Tree of Life Synagogue in
Pittsburgh. 2018 still saw the third highest
number of incidents since tracking began 40 years ago. The numbers for 2018 are 48% higher than 2016
and 99% higher than 2015. And that’s
just the United States; statistics in Europe are even worse.
Antisemitism never went away, it seems.
For a long time in this nation, and in much of
Western Europe, we did not need to worry.
In the shadow of the Second World War, Jews enjoyed a kind of protected
status, in part based on the west’s guilt.
But no longer. I guess the statute
of limitations is up, if it ever existed, in living memory of the fires of
Europe that consumed more than 1/3 of world Jewry. And because it is so present, it certainly
can feel like the tide is turning against us.
Professor Deborah Lipstadt , in her recent book:
Antisemitism: Here and Now traces the uptick in antisemitism in the last
decade, while also putting it into historical context. Lipstadt defines antisemitism concisely using
the old line attributed to Isaiah Berlin: An anti-Semite is someone who hates
Jews more than is absolutely necessary. “Imagine
if someone has done something you find objectionable. You may legitimately resent the person
because of his or her actions or attitudes.
But if you resent him even one iota more because this person is Jewish,
that is antisemitism.”[2]
Lipstadt goes on to explain how Antisemitism
has a long history, and how it has morphed and changed over the millennia.
In ancient and medieval times antisemitism was
religious in nature. Jews were hated
because they refused to accept Christianity and, later, Islam. In the 18th century, racial and
political rationales were added to the religious one…By the 19th
century, those on the political right were accusing all Jews of being
socialists, communists, and revolutionaries.
Those on the political left were accusing all Jews of being
wealth-obsessed capitalists who were opposed to the social and economic
betterment of the poor and working classes.[3]
Lipstadt adds that adherents of eugenics saw
in Jews both negative and positive qualities.
“Jews were maliciously intelligent, and because they were able to easily
mix with non-Jews, they used those traits to wreak havoc with non-Jews’ lives.”[4]
Yes,
this means that Jews are ascribed contradictory qualities. No, it does not make sense. But logic and sense are not the game of
antisemitism. Rather, conspiracy, forgery,
fallacy, and otherness are the trades of this ever-evolving hatred.
On tour, promoting her book, How to Fight
Anti-Semitism, New York Times Columnist and opinion writer Bari Weiss, who
grew up Jewish in Pittsburgh commented on one theory as to why we are seeing
such an uptick. “Anti-Semitism is not just about the Jewish community, it’s
about the health of a society. When a society becomes antisemitic there is
something wrong in their body politic.” Weiss goes on to say, “Societies where
antisemitism thrives are societies that are either dead or dying. Why? It’s
because antisemitism is the ultimate conspiracy and when anti-Semitism thrives
it’s a sign that the society has replaced truth with lies.”
Lipstadt and Weiss do an excellent job
recognizing and explaining that antisemitism is not a phenomenon on which any
one side of the political spectrum has a monopoly. It’s coming at us from all sides.
In today’s America, we are rightly concerned
by the emboldened white supremacists who march carrying torches shouting, “Jews
will not replace us.” This chant, by the
way, is not about Jews taking their place.
It is deeper and much more sinister. This chant puts into words the belief that
Jews pull the strings of power politically and economically and we have the
ability to replace White people with immigrants and refugees. These are not fine people.
It was concern for fair and humane treatment
of immigrants and refugees, concern that we treat strangers appropriately, as
the Torah commands us again and again, for we were once strangers, which
influenced the Pittsburgh shooter.
Far-right antisemitism, and those that turn a blind eye toward it or
even subtly encourage it are to blame for the martyrs of our people lost in the
last year.
Far Right, Alt-Right, White supremacy, white
power, neo-Nazis, whatever we’re calling them doesn’t quite matter. We have seen this movie before and are not
quite shocked by it.
The hatred from these groups isn’t new. What is new is that the anti-Israel,
anti-Zionist movement championed by some of the left has also become a haven
for antisemitism. A new breed of
antisemitism, perhaps more difficult to recognize because it’s more
subtle. It speaks in the language of
liberation and redemption for oppressed peoples, never considering the
millennia of oppression suffered by the Jews.
No, the Jews are seen as European colonialists and interlopers in the
Middle East, even though as of last count, Israeli Jews hailing from Arab lands
make up just over half the population.
Those Jews, by the way, like my mother from Egypt, were often forcibly
deported, their possessions confiscated, for no reason except that they were
Jews. But again, logic and history are
not the games anti-Semites play.
The Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement, which
seeks to ostracize Israeli business and academia for Israel’s behavior toward
the Palestinians, does not seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Instead they seek to quell dialogue. They seek a one-state solution for the
territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and it is not a
Jewish state. Denying Jews uniquely the
right to national self-determination is an act of antisemitism.
I am a Zionist and a citizen of Israel. I believe that Jews deserve a homeland in our
ancient home. I believe that Israel can
and should be criticized when it does not live up to its ideals. I believe that Israel has had many triumphs
and has made many mistakes, as all nation-states. When Israel is singled out for criticism
unlike any other nation, when Israel, uniquely, is questioned in terms of its
legitimacy as a member of the international community, when Jews in the
diaspora are made to answer for Israel’s actions, or questioned about their
dual loyalty, the conversation is no longer about Israel. It’s about hating Israel, the lone Jewish
state in the world, more than is absolutely necessary.
Whether you see yourself as on the right or
the left, our job as Jews and those who love us is to call this out where and
when we see it, and not only when it comes from the other team. The truth is for all of us, anti-Semites are
always the other team! We would do well
to remember that.
We would also do well to recognize that unlike
other times in our past, the hatred is not state-sponsored. We do not live at the pleasure of a local
duke, fearful of expulsion. We are not
living through an era of state segregation of Jews. Those facts are comforting, but they do not
diminish the reality that something has shifted.
So,
what are we to do? What next? How are we supposed to react to this renewed
antisemitism? It is not enough to just
know about it; how do we deal with it?
Today, Yom Kippur, has an answer. On this day, the liturgy and the rituals are
meant to bring us to recognize the fragility of our lives. We empty ourselves. We fast. We wipe away our niceties and
adornments. We pour out our hearts until
we are left in as close to the condition that God created us. At that moment, when we come face to face
with the impermanence of our existence, when we’ve given God all that we can,
all that is in us, then, God reaches out to us, giving us a hand, through the
miracles of repentance and forgiveness.[5]
The rabbis in the middle ages, at the time of
the crusades, who were well versed in dealing with communal tragedies, made
this day even more potent when they added a section of the service known as the
Eleh Ezkarah: these I remember.
This section of the service is so titled because of the opening poem
which begins: Eleh Ezkerah venafshi alai eshpecha: These do I remember,
and my soul melts with sorrow; for the bitter course of our history, tears pour
from my eyes. Our Machzor calls this the Martyrology. In the last number of years, this section of
the service has been shortened again and again by many. It seemed out of fashion. It seemed unnecessary to dwell on the Jews of
ages long past who were killed because of their Judaism. That’s not our reality. Last year, in this congregation, we skipped
it altogether.
That section of the service was written as a
cry out to God in the aftermath of the martyrdom of so many Jews during the
Crusades. In their cry, they discovered
a kinship with the martyred rabbis of the ancient world, who were killed by the
Roman authorities in the aftermath of a rebellion. These Jews could think of nothing else but to
cry out to God in the sacred act of remembrance for those who were taken, as
our tradition says, al kiddush hashem, for the sanctification of Adonai.
If Yom Kippur is about recognizing our
fragility as humans before the Divine, then the Eleh ezkarah section is
about recognizing the added fragility that comes with being a Jew in this world. This year, perhaps, we feel that even more
keenly. On this day, when we believe
that heaven and earth are at their closest, we cry out to God for those who
were taken because they were just like us.
We cry and wail to God demanding answers to questions that will not
come. We cry and remember that
throughout our many wanderings, more often than not, living as a Jew was a
fragile proposition.
Friends, today, in our nation, we are still in
the one year period of mourning for the martyrs of this soil, who were killed al
kiddush hashem, who were killed because they had the audacity to go and
pray as Jews, who were killed because they were Jews. A little bit later this Yom Kippur, as we
transition into our Yizkor service, together we will remember these martyrs
with a new eleh ezkarah for Pittsburgh and Poway, CA. Together we will do what our ancestors have
always done: sit in our precarious predicament.
Together we will mourn for our people, and together we will accept the
fragility of our Jewish existence.
Toward the end of her book, Bari Weiss makes
the point that protesting won’t change much.
She quotes Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who said: “Non-Jews respect Jews who
respect Judaism, and they are embarrassed by Jews who are embarrassed by
Judaism.”[6] Weiss takes this as a signal that passive
reaction to antisemitism won’t cut it.
It is time to move from “crouching to standing, from defense to offense,
from doubt to confidence, from shame to pride.”[7]
It is only once we come face to face with our
fragility in this world that we can truly see the answers that Judaism has for
us, and the answers that this day asks us to consider. If the underlying theme of Yom Kippur is
fragility, and the specific fragility that comes with being a Jew, what
counteracts it? How do we come back to
that sense of pride? How do we stabilize ourselves on such shaky ground?
We respond with the stability of God, the
stability of our traditions, and the stability of our community.
The stability of God. At the end of this long day of repentance and
prayer, before the tekiah gedolah is sounded, we proudly declare three
lines. The first is the Shema, reminding
us that God is one and one alone. The
second line, we recite three times: Praised be God’s name forever and
ever! And finally, we announce seven
times: Adonai Hu HaElohim! Adonai is
God! Seven times, like the seven
days. A new creation as we exit the fog
of our fasts and afflictions. Though our
bodies bend from our repentance, God remains.
Though we come and go, God remains.
Though we struggle and strive.
God remains. Though we are often
under attack, God remains, as God has been and will be forever.
The stability of our traditions. We have been saying the same prayers for
thousands of years. The hatred directed
toward us may change with the ages, but our faith, our belief, our connection
to our ancestors, and our recognition of our place in the chain of tradition
does not. And it offers us stability of
identity, pride in our Judaism, when those that would do us harm try to
redefine who we are.
Though the Eleh Ezkarah has been a known part
of Yom Kippur for more than 1,000 years, it is not found anywhere else in the
liturgy all year. We only bring this up
on one day a year. We do not dwell on it
liturgically, even if it is always at the back of our minds. Even when we know that we now need extra
security here at TBT, and that we now make a point of announcing where the
exits are, we only dwell on the martyrdom, and the specific fragility for one
day. We are not supposed to dwell on
death. This morning, we heard words from
the Torah reminding us that we are supposed to incline toward blessing and
life, not curse and death. And so our
traditions remind us that we are to always remember the complications of our
existence, but not spend so much time doing so that we become overly engrossed
with it.
The stability of our community. A few years ago, in East Meadow, some high schoolers
came to me to tell me about some troubling antisemitism at their school. Together we determined the best course of
action, that the response to these incidents needed to not be by individuals,
but by the community. The students rallied
support and went as proud Jews to see the principal, who then reached out to
the community rabbis. We are stronger as
a community. And when we make it clear
that we will not tolerate hatred against us or anyone, we make it clear what
our community stands for.
Our parents and grandparents who proudly
donated their time and funds to build these communities understood this. In addition to a house of worship, they knew
that they needed a place to go where they were comfortable and did not feel
like the other. They knew that they
needed a place where their children could come and be free from the fragile
life of being a Jew in the world. Let
our community continue to serve that purpose.
Last year was a difficult year for us,
friends. I pray this one will be easier.
As we enter into 5780, let us not only
have pride in God, our traditions, and our community. Let us also be strengthened by them to keep
going. It was the strength and resolve of
our ancestors’ faith which propelled them through times much tougher than
ours.
May that which afforded them so much
conviction – God, Tradition, Community, Memory – may these strengthen each of
us and all of us in this new year. And
as we are strengthened by each of these, let us strengthen one another. Amen.
G’mar Chatimah Tovah.
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