ANTISEMITISM: THE REALITY OF THE CHALLENGE

Mark Finkelstein of the Jewish Community Relations Board of the Des Moines Jewish Federation was kind enough to ask me to prepare a statement on the topic of contemporary antisemitism which he hoped in include in the proceedings of two statewide meetings on antisemitism. He asked this of me because I have been very concerned with and have posted extensively on Facebook, about the frightening growth of antisemitism around the world and here in the United States for several years, and especially since 2014.  He asked that I limit it to 2 pages, so of course, I wrote 3.  Truth is, even in the 3 pages I wrote, I was only scratching the surface of what needs to be said.  Nevertheless, I now wish to share this statement with you.

But before I proceed, let me tell you a little about myself. I was ordained a Reform rabbi in 1975, from the New York City campus of the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. In 1985, I assumed the pulpit of Temple Emanuel of the Quad Cities, from which I retired on July 1, 2017 with the title of Rabbi Emeritus. Since first coming to Iowa, I also have served as an adjunct professor on the faculty of the Theology Department of St. Ambrose University. During my time at St. Ambrose, I have taught one course a year on the Holocaust. For the last several years, that course has been “The Holocaust in Film.” Twice, I have been accepted to participate in seminars for university faculty at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, having studied there with such noted scholars as Victoria Barnett and Deborah Lipstadt. So I am no stranger to the issue of antisemitism and to the struggle to eradicate it.

Along with my teaching about the Holocaust, over the years I have been deeply involved in the struggle for social justice in the Quad Cities, especially focusing on combating the forces of hatred. In November 2016 I was one of the founders of a local organization which we named “One Human Family QCA.” The mission statement of our organization is “To Welcome and protect the life, dignity, and human rights of all people in all places of our community.” Fundamental to our organizational philosophy is that we are dedicated to coalition building. We believe that those who hate tend to be “equal opportunity” haters. They do not focus their hate against one targeted group but have more than enough hate in their hearts to target multiple groups. They are not just antisemites but also racists, Islamophobes, homophobes, xenophobes, misogynists, and the list goes on. Therefore, we believe that if hate is ever to be defeated, we cannot maintain a singular focus on only one of its manifestations, such as antisemitism. We must come together as a coalition of targeted groups and people of conscience and stand up, protecting each other in times of distress. For our enemy is not just one manifestation of hate but rather hate itself. If we fight for each other as well as for ourselves, then we have a far better chance to drive back the darkness and bring on the light of a society in which all groups are respected.  As the 1st century Jewish sage Hillel said:  “If I am not for myself, who will be for me.  But if I am only for myself, what am I?  If not now, when?” (PIRKE AVOT 1:14)

It was not long before One Human Family QCA found itself embroiled in a struggle with a nationally based hate group. Early in August of 2017 the White Supremacist group known as the National Alliance began conducting a recruitment campaign in the Quad Cities. They targeted various neighborhoods with their flyers calling upon the people of the community to join their fight to keep our country “racially pure.” Our struggle with them continues to this day. From the Jewish perspective, they made it abundantly clear that the Jews were the masterminds behind a plot to destroy American racial purity. (see their flyer attached to this end of this text)

While it is vital that the Jewish community stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other targeted communities in our battle against the purveyors of hate in our society, that in no way means that we should abandon or minimize our struggle against antisemitism. Quite the opposite. We need to lead the fight against antisemitism, bringing it to the attention of our neighbors (and to our own people) and educating them as to just how toxic is this form of hatred. There are far too many people – Jews as well as non-Jews – who refuse to see the virulence and danger that antisemitism presents. They have a tendency to see us, and we tend to see ourselves, as safe and secure in American society. At one time, not that many years ago, that might have been true. But over the past few years, American society has experienced a massive sea change in which the many faces of hate have been empowered to arise from the shadows and from under their rocks and to become, in a sick way, an acceptable form of public expression. Top of the list has been none other than antisemitism. In the most recent statistical reporting, both by the FBI and the ADL, incidents of antisemitic acts of hatred have topped their lists. In New York City last year, there have been more reported acts of antisemitic hatred than all other acts of hatred combined.

When I started tracking antisemitic activities reported in the media, the overwhelming majority were taking place in Europe (leaving out the Middle East conflict), with but a smattering taking place on our shores. It was in 2014, with the Israeli-Hamas War, that I began to notice a truly frightening change. In various cities, both in Europe and the U.S., pro-Palestinian protests seem to seamlessly move from expressing anti-Israel sentiments to expressing antisemitic sentiments. One protest in Paris ended up besieging a synagogue on Shabbat while another, in Berlin, had marchers chanting “Jude, Jude, feiges schwein, kom heraus und kampf alein – Jews, Jews, cowardly pigs, come out and fight alone” and yet another, in New York City, chose as its venue Manhattan’s Diamond District, in which a large number of the jewelry exchanges are Jewishly owned, and there they chanted, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine must be free!” The “River” being the Jordan River and the “Sea” being the Mediterranean – in other words, all of what was formerly Palestine, including what today is Israel in its pre-1967 borders. Now, let me make this clear:  I am not one of those who automatically equates criticism of the policies of the State of Israel with antisemitism. As someone who has much to criticize about the policies of my own current government, I firmly believe that there are times when criticism of governmental policies can be legitimate. I concur with the sentiments of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman who wrote: “Criticizing Israel is not antisemitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction – out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East – is antisemitic, and not saying so is dishonest.” The events of 2014 brought into crystal clear focus for me just how easy it is for some folks to allow their criticism of the policies of the Israel government to morph into expressions of blatant antisemitism and for other folks to use their criticisms of Israel as a vehicle in which to disguise and sanitize their latent antisemitism.  Along these lines, I cannot help but reflect upon a powerful presentation Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, made to a group of British school children.  He asked them whether or not it was acceptable to criticize some of the policies and actions of the British government, to which they agreed that it was.  He then asked if it was acceptable to call for the destruction of the British state, to which they all readiness said it was not.  He then pointed to that very same distinction when it comes to the State of Israel.

It was in 2014, with all that was going on in morphing criticism of Israeli policies into virulent antisemitism, that I started publishing a regular Facebook post which I called “Antisemitism in Action.” Over the years, I quickly found that I often had more than enough material to publish this posting on a nearly daily basis. It is frightening to realize that almost every day there is an antisemitic incident worthy of publishing. With the passage of years, while antisemitic incidents in Europe have remained very high, there has been an alarming increase in antisemitic incidents here in the U.S. So much so, that in my reporting they have almost eclipsed my sharing of the incidents out of Europe.
Also with the passage of time, it has become increasingly clear that we Jews are being attacked on two fronts; from both the extreme right and the extreme left. When the White Supremacists marched in Charlottesville, they chanted “The JEWS will not replace us!” Meanwhile today we are struggling with our torn values challenging us to either support the Woman’s March or stand up against the antisemitism so clearly expressed by its national leaders. To the followers of Louis Farrakhan, we Jews are not just White but Whiter than White and the leaders of White suppression against the Blacks. Yet to the White Supremacists and the Neo-Nazis we are anything but White. We are the intended destroyers of the White Race.

I firmly believe that we as Jews can no longer afford to claim that this hatred of us is a passing phenomenon or a manifestation of those who exist on the extremes of our society. We are under a very real and serious threat, in a time when expressing hate in all its forms has become socially acceptable. As we watch our own government go after the Latinos among us – documented as well as undocumented immigrants – and the Black athletes who drop to their knees, as if in prayer, in opposition to the indiscriminate shooting of their brothers and sisters, and the members of the LGBTQ community, as those at the highest levels of our national government try to legislate these Americans out of their citizenship right, and the indigenous Americans who continue to be stripped of their land whenever the wealthy see fit to do so, I cannot help but think of the famous “Martin Niemoller quote:

“First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

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When Purim Invades the Headlines

The Jewish world will soon be observing the holiday of Purim.  I said “observing” when truth be known, we Jews don’t just “observe” Purim; we CELEBRATE it!  We dress in costume.  We hold the most raucous, noisiest worship service of the year.  We sing and we shout and we stomp our feet.  We eat and we drink (and I am not just talking about iced tea or punch but the hard stuff, for on Purim the Talmud commands us to drink so much that we can no longer tell the difference between “cursed is Haman and blessed is Mordecai.”^[1]).  And then, of course there is the Purim Seudah (feast – in our case, a pizza dinner) and the ever popular Carnival.  We eat hamantaschen, send shlach manot (food gifts to our loved ones) and matanot le’evyonim (gifts to the poor).  It is Mardi Gras, New Year’s Eve, that December season of giving whose name we never mention, all rolled up into one.  It is one heck of a party and we fondly carry our childhood memories of it with us throughout our lives.

Yet somehow or other, in the midst of all our partying, we can often forget why we party so; what is the cause of the celebration?

The answer is wrapped in a sinister cloud.  It is dark and it is painful.  For Purim commemorates our victory over antisemitism.  It celebrates the defeat of Haman – the Hitler of his day – whose goal it was to accomplish nothing short of a genocide of the Jewish people.  So we party hardy as an affirmation of life in what was supposed to be the face of a certain and horrible death.  Purim is the personification of the old saying, “The definition of every Jewish holiday is:  They tried to kill us.  We won.  Let’s eat!”

Today, most of us intentionally avoid these more somber thoughts when it comes to Purim.  We choose to focus on the joy rather than on the fear.

Unfortunately, this year, at least some of that fear seems to be unavoidable for we have been forced to confront the fact that antisemitism is real and alive in our nation as well as in the rest of the world.  Over the last 72 hours the news media has “discovered” that antisemitism really exists in the United States. The dramatic vandalism of the Jewish cemetery in St. Louis, with the desecration of over 100 gravestones, along with the addition of 11 more bomb threats to Jewish community centers (bringing the number up to 59 if my math and facts are correct), coupled with the President’s bizarre reticence to address the very issue of antisemitism or to even mention Jews in his statement about Holocaust memorial, and his finally condemning (though weakly) the acts of antisemitism, have forced not only the President but the mainstream media to acknowledge this elephant in the room, if only for the moment. But as we all should know, this issue is an even greater one that many are willing to admit.  And these are only the stories that the mainstream media has picked up on.  For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you know that since 2014 I have been reporting, almost on an daily basis, various acts of antisemitism that have taken place in our country and around the world.  I know that there are those that have found my “Antisemitism in Action” reports to be somewhat irritating and alarmist for our lives have been good lives and we generally don’t live in fear.  But still, these attacks upon our people are real and they have been real for some time now.  Unfortunately, they will continue to be real after this current news cycle ends and the stories of antisemitism once again fade from the headlines.

Obviously, there is nothing new about antisemitism. It has been with us for at least 2,000 years. Over that time it has taken on nuanced changes but at its core, it has essentially remained the same and, of course, its impact upon the Jewish people has most certainly remained the same. It matters but little what excuse the antisemites give for despising us, for degrading us, and for persecuting us, in the end it all results in the same suffering, ranging from humiliation to extermination.

That being said, today what we are experiencing in America is not the same singular hatred that has marked most of the history of antisemitism. Rather, today’s American antisemitism is but one component of a complex dynamic of American hatred that has found its voice and has felt profoundly empowered over the past year, especially in the wake of the recent presidential campaign. For today’s American antisemitism is intimately and inextricably connected to a web of hatred which includes racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, xenophobia, and sexism (and probably a few other bigotries I forgot to mention). For quite some time now I have been fond of saying, “Those who hate tend to be equal opportunity haters.” Today in America those “equal opportunity haters” are sensing a new liberation as they are stepping out of the shadows and coming out from under their rocks to assert their prejudices upon our society, and Jew hatred is but one of those prejudices.

But all this should not get us down.  After all, soon it will be Purim and we will be celebrating; celebrating vigorously.  Why will we be celebrating while bomb threats may be continuing to roll in and perhaps other Jewish cemeteries will be desecrated?  We will be celebrating because, just as our history has shown us, no matter what they try to do to us, in the end we will win.  We will win because it is our right to win.  We will win because there are too many good people in this world to allow evil to prosper.

There is an old Midrash about two men on a lake in a rowboat. One of them takes out a drill and starts boring under his seat. The other, in distress, calls out to him: “What do you think you are doing?” The fellow replies: “What do you care? It’s none of your business. I’m drilling under my own seat!” The moral is that we are all in this boat together – sink or swim. We cannot afford to focus solely on the prejudices that attack us personally. We must ban together – all victims of prejudice, along with all people of good conscience – and confront the current hatred in all of its forms, standing up for each other and standing with each other in common purpose.

If we ban together with others of good conscience in opposition to ALL forms of bigotry, including antisemitism, then we will win because we will not let the purveyors of hatred win.  We will stand up to them and we will defeat them, in much the same manner that Mordecai & Esther defeated Haman.  Each of us will just have to choose to be the Mordecai and the Esther of today.  HAPPY PURIM!!!!!!!

 

[1]   Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Megillah 7b.

Quad Cities Equality Rally Remarks

On Saturday afternoon, January 21st, as 100’s of 1,000’s of men, women, & children were gathering in Washington DC and in communities throughout the nation to protest the objectification of women and the growing dangers of bigotry and hate that have infected our land, in the Quad Cities, a rally was held to show our solidarity with all those throughout the country who were marching.  The rally, which was called an Equality Rally, focused both on the recent challenges to women’s rights and on how that challenge is inextricably connected to a complex of challenges to the rights of many targeted minorities in our society.  The rally was held in the meeting hall of the United Steelworkers Union, in Bettendorf.  The hall was filled beyond overflowing, as a mass of supporters were forced to stand out in front of the hall, due to lack of space inside.  Several inspiring individuals spoke, expressing the pain of women, Muslims, the LGBTQ community, African Americans, Hispanics, Indigenous Americans, and people with lifelong physical and mental disabilities.  I was among those honored with an invitation to speak from the perspective of our community’s newest human rights organization – One Human Family QCA (Quad Cities Area).  Below is a transcript of my remarks.

First off, thank you for the honor of allowing me to share these remarks with you today.

Before coming here today, my wife and I were attending a memorial service for Reverend Tom Kalshoven. Tom was the Executive Director of Churches United of the Quad Cities Area from 1973 to 1991. Those of you who knew Rev. Kalshoven know that he was a person profoundly committed to the causes of social justice. He marched with Dr. King. He served as the conscience of this community. I cannot help but think of how thrilled he would have been to see so many of you gathered here to affirm the cause of justice in our community.

We have come together because we are deeply concerned about what has been happening in our nation over the past year or so, and what might very well happen as we journey into the future. Let’s face it. Many of us are more than concerned. We are downright afraid, and with good cause.

This past Monday, I was similarly honored to offer a pastoral prayer at a local Martin Luther King Day celebration. There, too, those who were gathered shared our concerns and our fears. Being Martin Luther King Day, I built my prayer around one of the inspiring teachings of Dr. King. He said, “The arc of history is long, but bends towards justice.” Yet we seem to be living at a time when that arc has been diverted far off of its course, as it travels, not towards justice, but far away from it.

And that is what frightens us, for we have witnessed the forces of hate as they have freely crawled out from under the rocks which have hidden them for so long and have joyously reasserted their ideology of bigotry, and not without the encouragement of some of our nation’s most highly placed individuals. A dark and ominous cloud of prejudice is engulfing our nation. A virulent virus of discrimination is infecting it as the fever of intolerance burns hot in the minds and souls of far too many of our fellow Americans.

Part of what frightens us is that we see the profound dedication of people who hate to their hatred; people like Dylann Roof who is willingly ready to martyr himself in the cause of hate. Part of what frightens us that we have come to recognize that those who thrive on hate tend to be equal opportunity haters. They hate African Americans. They hate Muslims. They hate Jews. They hate Latinos. They hate those who do not share their sexual orientation. They hate those with lifelong mental and physical disabilities. They hate the defenders of the environment. They hate intellectuals. They may not hate women but they sure don’t look upon women as the equal of men. Rather, they prefer to look at women as mere objects placed on earth, primarily to fulfill the physical pleasure of men.

And now such people feel empowered. Now such people are empowered. And we are left with the question, “What are we going to do about that?” Of course, our natural instinct is to respond, “Protest!” but what does that really mean? We sign petitions. We post our feelings on Facebook. We gather for rallies, just like this one. But all these things; they are not really protest. They are but a prelude to protest. For true protest requires us to take action. Not for an hour. Not for a day. Not for a week. But ongoing action until we have achieved our goals. We need to work for change, with the emphasis on work; work until the job is done.

Nor can we stand alone. No one group of us can stand alone in our efforts to drive back the darkness. We need to stand together – men, women, young, old, laborers, professionals, people of every color, every race, regardless of sexual orientation, regardless of national origins, regardless of religious identity, regardless of political affiliations. We must cross lines and lock arms in common cause. On Monday, I shared with my fellow Martin Luther King Day celebrants, and I share with you now, the classic wisdom of Rev. Martin Niemoller, one of the founders of the Confessing Church in Germany, who bravely stood up against the Nazis. He said, “First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the incurably ill and I did not speak out because I was not incurably ill. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out.” We do not have the luxury to think of ourselves as separate from others; as our plight being separate from their plight. Once again, to quote Dr. King: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” If we do not choose to stand together then we will not stand at all.

In our community, we have birthed a new organization. We call it One Human Family QCA. Some of you here today already have joined our ranks. Our stated mission is “to protect the life, dignity, and human rights of all people in all places in our community.” We are not looking to re-invent the wheel but to work cooperatively with many of the agencies and organizations that already exist to address issues of common concern. And when it comes to certain issues, for which no agencies or organizations exist, then we are ready to open new doors of dialogue and advocacy. Our organization provides but one opportunity to take your concerns and your values and put them into action in order to effect positive change and drive back the darkness that is engulfing us. There are many others dedicated to this cause; organizations like Quad Cities Interfaith and Progressive Action for the Common Good. The point is, when you leave here today, do not see this as an end to your protest but rather as a beginning of the very hard but important work of bringing the arc of history back on course toward justice. To quote a sage from my own Jewish tradition, Hillel the Elder, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” Our time is now and our cause is just. We only need to choose to act.