The Hatred that Won't Die

Several months ago, a member of our congregation came to me with a question. She was concerned about some recent news items. Five days prior to our conversation, a man had burst into the Jewish Federation in Seattle and begun shooting. Five people were injured and one killed. The person killed was the Federation's chief fundraiser, and she was a member of a Reform congregation, and a convert to Judaism. A couple of days after that, a police officer in Malibu, CA pulled over actor and director Mel Gibson. The inebriated Gibson asked the officer if he was Jewish. Then he began spouting antisemitic slurs, blaming the Jews for the all the wars in the world. Meanwhile, Israel was in the third week of its conflict with Hezbollah. As missiles landed in the streets of Haifa, several countries condemned Israel. Others openly encouraged Hezbollah. Meanwhile, the president of Iran, a country advancing on its development of nuclear weapons, reiterated his call for Israel's destruction.

With all this in the background, our member said to me: Rabbi, I've never experienced antisemitism in my life. I'm part of an interfaith family, so my husband has never experienced it either. My children have not. It’s really never been an issue for us. But I’m concerned. I want to talk about it. I want to do something about it. What can I do?

Her comments and her question made me think of those famous opening lines of Charles Dickens: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” For American Jewry it is, in many ways, the best of times. We are the most successful, largest and best organized community in Jewish history. As the comments of our member suggest, we are an integral part of our country. The Jewish community is strong. Jewish studies flourish at every major university. Here in Chicago, we have the beautiful new Spertus Center for Jewish studies arising on Michigan Avenue.

Yet, in some ways, this is one of the most dangerous times in our history. Hatred toward Jews, and the entire Western world, is endemic among certain people and groups. It has not been an easy summer, or year. We are frustrated. We are worried.  

How do we respond? How do we forcefully combat hatred and maintain our progressive ideals as liberal Jews? On this day of the year, we seek to learn from our Torah and from our tradition. We look backward and forward. If we look closely, we can learn from the early life of our first great Jewish leader, Moses. When we first meet him, Moses is a baby, sent down the Nile River in a basket by his mother and sister. He grows up an adopted prince in Pharaoh’s household. It is only when he is a young man that we see him begin to act on his own. Let us look at his first three actions. First, he leaves Pharaoh’s palace and encounters an Egyptian slave master beating an Hebrew slave. Moses is enraged, and he intervenes to save the life of his kinsman. Then he encounters a Jew fighting with another Jew. Once again, he intervenes and calls the wrongdoer to task. Finally, he is banished from the royal palace, and he journeys to a land called Midian. There he encounters seven sisters at a well. The Torah tells us that a Midianite shepherd was harassing them. No Jews are involved at all. Yet, once again, Moses intervenes and defends the Midianite sisters. (I am indebted Ahad Ha’am’s 1904 essay “Moses” for this observation.)

Each of these scenes is different. Yet each teaches a way to respond to hatred. Let us return to the first. Moses defends a Jewish slave against an Egyptian taskmaster. This is the paradigmatic example of antisemitism. First, there is a power differential. The slave master is beating the slave. Second, there is no cause or reason. The text gives us no explanation or direct cause for the beating. Third, only intervention can stop death. Had Moses not defended him, the slave would likely have died.

Each of these features is common to antisemitism throughout history and today. Jews have always been a tiny people and the minority in the countries in which they lived. Frequently, like the Hebrew slave, they lacked power.  Even today, Israel is a tiny state among the nations of the world, and Jews constitute about .7 percent of the world population. Milton Himmelfarb once joked that the entire Jewish population of the world would be considered a small statistical error in a Chinese population census. Antisemitism also lacks reason. In the modern era, Jews have been depicted as both predatory capitalists and disloyal communists. We’ve been called rootless cosmopolitans and overzealous patriots. Just this past year, University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer made headlines with an article placing blame for the war in Iraq squarely on the shoulders of the manipulative and disloyal American Jewish pro-Israel lobby.  This irrationalism and obfuscation is what makes antisemitism, and other forms of hatred, so bewildering and devastating.

As Moses illustrated, and as history has taught, the only way to combat such hatred is to respond strongly to it. The response need not necessarily be one of force. We can push for better public education. Studies of antisemitism by the Antidefamation League have shown that it drops in direct correlation to the level of one's education. We can serve as ambassadors and teachers of Judaism to other religious and cultural groups. Yet, as history has also shown, even the most educated can be virulently antisemitic. Force is sometimes a necessary evil. The great champion of dialogue and the Israeli Left, Martin Buber, wrote that “the human capacity for evil is so great that in the case where there is no other way of preventing the evil destroying the good, I trust I shall use force and give myself up into God’s hands.”

Aside from self-defense, why is combating antisemitism so important? Well, it is not just a Jewish issue. Those who hate Jews often hate much much more. Fighting antisemitism is one of the ways we fight hatred more broadly. If good people remain silent in its wake, evil will be done. This is the message of the unforgettable words of German Pastor Martin Niemoller:

“First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak up - For I was not a Communist;

Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak up - For I was not a Socialist;
Then they came for the labor leaders, and I did not speak up - For I was not a   labor leader;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up - For I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me - And there was no one left to speak up.”

When we fight hatred, however, we strive to ensure that it does not infect us. The hated cannot become the hater. This, I think, is the message of the second scene in Moses’ early life. The scene where he finds one Jewish slave battling with another. He does not stay quiet simply because both are his own kinsmen or because they are both slaves. He chides and calls out the wrongdoer. He fights hatred among his own people.  

As we see the violence around us, we may be tempted to lash out at others. As in the days after 9/11, we might make generalizations about Arab-Americans, Muslims or Arabs in general. When one has been a victim, it is easier to hate. Yet, Judaism urges us to resist this inclination. Leo Baeck was the leading Reform Rabbi of Germany in the 1930s. Though offered numerous opportunities to escape to Britain, he refused to leave his people. He was imprisoned at the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp during the war. In 1946, he emigrated to America. In 1948, he was invited back to Germany to speak. Few Jews wanted to step foot in that country. Yet, to his rabbinic colleagues' utter shock, Baeck accepted. Bringing the Nazis to justice was one thing, he argued. Shunning and hating Germans was another. We fail to learn the lesson of the Holocaust if hatred becomes a vicious cycle. Revenge is not a Jewish value. Remembrance and Reconciliation are. Hatred anywhere is a threat to peace everywhere.

Indeed, Judaism at its best conveys a universalist vision and mission. We feel the pain of others, and we take it upon ourselves to act with and for people everywhere. That is the purpose of the third scene in Moses’ life. The scene where he encounters a Midianite shepherd harassing seven Midianite sisters. The sisters are not Jewish. Yet, Moses rises to their defense. He joins with them, and, as fate would have it, ultimately marries one of them.

In the context of antisemitism, I think the message of this scene is clear; we must reach out to others and widen our tent. Antisemitism is a problem for all people of reason and goodwill. Rather than hurt the Jewish people, the greater religious diversity of our community is an asset. Several weeks ago, I came across an article by a Polish Catholic woman married to a Jewish man.  In it she writes,

“Growing up as a girl in downstate New York, I never really thought about antisemitism… I never thought about the little remarks, such as, ‘Jews are rich’ or ‘Jews are cheap’… And, I'm deeply embarrassed to say, I never thought it my job to correct anyone making these remarks, until I became involved with the Jewish man who is now my husband. Then I changed. At work,” she writes,

“We were talking about the holidays and a co-worker announced that he had purchased a Christmas tree that weekend, and that he got a really good deal—‘Jewed him down,’ in fact. I stood there, growing red in the face, unsure how to respond. Then I told him that his remark was offensive to me, that it was antisemitic. He looked agog at me and stated that ‘It's an old Polish expression—not meant to do any harm.’ I had to tell him that it might've been an old Polish expression, but it was based on fear and hatred, and was hurtful to me.” 

How wonderful and inspiring! An interfaith relationship prompted greater empathy, sensitivity and action. When we enlarge our sense of community, when we form real relationships where we see others in ourselves, we breakdown stereotypes and combat ancient prejudices. We foster greater human dignity and understanding. We become not just a house of prayer for all people, as the inscription on our building proclaims—but a house of hope for all the world.

This is the world for which Moses dreamed and acted. This is the world for which we, his spiritual descendants, strive every day. Rabbi Harold Saperstein tells the story of his visit to Danzig, Germany in 1939. It was just after the May elections that brought the Nazis to power. He went to see the historic main synagogue in the town square. When he arrived, to his utter dismay, much of it lay in rubble. Out in front was an election sign that read “Come now the month of May so that we may rid ourselves of the Jews.” With tears welling up in his eyes, Rabbi Saperstein gazed upward. The portals above the front door of the temple were still intact. On them were inscribed the ancient words of the Hebrew Prophets,  “Have we not all one parent? Has not one God created us all.” What he saw were two visions; one of hatred, and one of brotherhood, one of darkness and despair, and one of light and hope. 

It is not 1939 now. But our world, as the member who asked me the initial question knew, is becoming more divided all the time. It may seem too overwhelming or frustrating to confront. We might be tempted to turn away, to withdraw into our own havens of safety and comfort. Moses faced the same temptation. When God called him out of Midian, commanding him to return to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to tell “Let My People Go,” Moses begged God to leave him alone. Yet he soon answered the call. So must we. Now is the time to let the world know that antisemitism is not just a problem for Jews. It is a problem for humanity.

The sound of the shofar heralds the coming of the New Year. Let us make it one where each of us speaks out against extremism and hatred in our community; where each of us is a model of religious humility, combating any attempt to use religion as a means of demonizing or hating others; where each of us joins with people of other faiths and cultures to form coalitions of decency where hatred cannot flourish. This will be our legacy to our world, our community, and our children. Now is the time to make it so. Now is the time to heed Hillel’s famous words, “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?”