Kol Nidre - 2023-5784 - Antisemitism

Kol Nidre - 2023/5784

Antisemitism

Last week, in my 1st Day Rosh Hashanah sermon, I said that I wanted to turn our focus inward on these High Holidays. This past year, there have been many events in the world around us and in our personal lives that have affected our emotional well being. Last week I spoke about how the after effects of COVID, climate change and the lack of civil discourse in society to name only a few, may be taking a toll on our physical and mental well-being.  I also spoke about  illness and caregiving and feelings of despair and loneliness. I shared that one antidote to these negative circumstances and events could be compassion.

Most Issues that are negatively impacting our lives are universal. Everyone in the world, no matter their ethnicity or religion, is confronting those very challenges. But there is one serious issue that is unique to the Jewish community - antisemitism. We as a Jewish community not only have to deal with issues in our personal lives, and  with these other global conflicts and crises, but we also have to confront the very real rising tide of antisemitism.

 The latest report by the ADL, released last spring, detailed antisemitic incidents that occurred last year. “In 2022, the ADL tabulated 3,697 antisemitic incidents throughout the United States. This is a 36% increase from the 2,717 incidents tabulated in 2021 and the highest number on record since the ADL began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979. This is the third time in the past five years that the year-end total has been the highest number ever recorded.

“Incidents increased in each of the major Audit categories: antisemitic harassment increased 29% to 2,298; antisemitic vandalism increased 51% to 1,288 and antisemitic assaults increased 26% to 111. The vast majority of antisemitic assaults (107 out of 111) were perpetrated without the use of a deadly weapon. There was one fatality. Notably, visibly Orthodox Jews were targeted in 53% of the assault incidents nationally. This year, no assaults perpetrated against the Jewish community resulted in mass casualties.

According to the ADL report, “The dramatic increase in antisemitic incidents in 2022 in almost all categories cannot be attributed to any one cause or ideology. Significant surges in incidents include high volume increases in organized white supremacist propaganda activity (102% increase to 852 incidents), K-12 schools (49% increase to 494 incidents) and college campuses (41% increase to 219 incidents), as well as deeply troubling percentage increases in attacks on Orthodox Jews (69% increase to 59 Incidents) and bomb threats toward Jewish institutions (an increase from eight to 91 incidents).

“This escalation in antisemitic incidents comes just as the ADL has reported on Americans’ highest level of antisemitic attitudes in decades. According to the ADL’s 2023 report Antisemitic Attitudes in America, 20% of Americans believe six or more antisemitic tropes, which is significantly more than the 11% that ADL found in 2019. Although a causal link between antisemitic attitudes and antisemitic activity has not been proven, it would not be surprising if some antisemites have become emboldened to act on their hatred in the current environment. This dramatic increase also occurs just as the FBI released its 2021 hate crime data (a year behind this report) showing that Jews remain the single most targeted religious minority in America.”

We have all experienced this dramatic shift toward antisemitism in our community. Our children have come home reporting on being bullied and being called derogatory Jewish names. We’ve seen antisemitic graffiti on numerous locations in Montgomery County - along a bike trail, on a high school sign and on school desks and walls. We, like many other synagogues in our county and across America, have instituted a security fee so that we can have an armed police officer at our front door. 

The questions we need to ask ourselves now is - what is our response? How do we as individuals and a community react to these staggering statistics? How do we respond to these incidents that we have experienced? Do we rely on our elected officials? Do we rely on our Jewish community organizations - like the ADL and the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) - to advocate for us? Do we react when each event occurs or is it better to be proactive in our attempt to stem this tide?

Over the last month, my involvement and connection with several local institutions has brought this question to the forefront of my mind and caused me to reflect a great deal on the scourge of antisemitism that is unfortunately a more regular part of our world.

A few weeks ago I received an interesting email from the theater director of Our Lady of Good Counsel High School, a Catholic school located here in Olney. The director told me that the fall production of the theater group was going to be The Diary of Anne Frank and she wanted to know if I would be willing to meet with the student actors to help them understand the Jewish context of the play.

My first thought after reading this email was that the ADL or the JCRC might be better equipped to work with the school since they have people on staff and resources that can educate the students. Though I did share those options with the theater director, I agreed to meet with the student theater group.  I figured that many of the students were from this area and that it could be good for them to meet a rabbi from a local synagogue. I also thought that this would be a good opportunity to teach about Judaism, what the Jewish experience was in Nazi Europe and what it’s like to be Jewish today in America. All of that in 60 minutes.

When I walked into Good Counsel High School I was greeted warmly by the staff. A student from the theater group soon showed up and figured out pretty quickly that I was the rabbi, probably because I was wearing a kippah which I wear everywhere I go. We walked to the rehearsal room and I sat in a circle with the 20 students and the director - who looked like a student herself. They went around the room introducing themselves and saying what part they were going to play.

The director wanted me to provide some information first and then we’d open it for discussion. I talked about my kippah, which led to a discussion of Jewish identity which led me to talk about Jews in Europe in the 1930s. The ghetto walls had come down, Jews had been granted full citizenship at least 100 years before the time of Anne Frank, but antisemitism was pervasive in all segments of European society. Many Jews felt that if only they could dress like their fellow Dutch citizens, go to school with them, act like them, then antisemitism would go away. But with the rise of Hitler - despite Anne Frank’s dreams that everyone would get along - it was clear that Jews were hated and doomed to destruction. 

I talked about Jewish history in Europe and spoke a little bit about the Church’s role in maintaining antisemitic sentiment through its teachings and then I opened the floor for questions. As we talked about Anne Frank and other Jewish details of the play, we became more comfortable around each other. One student asked whether I thought it was a good idea for a Catholic school and Catholic students to put on this obviously Jewish play. I responded that though it might seem strange for non-Jews to act in roles as Jewish people, the bigger issue is that the play teaches about the horrific consequences of hatred and antisemitism. The Bible, I said, commands a universal mandate to love our fellow human beings as we would be loved. The Diary of Anne Frank is just one of many artistic means of getting that message across. The play is supposed to help people recognize that hatred lurks just below the surface. It’s our responsibility to be aware of that. The more people hear this message, I said, the better chance there is that we can keep hatred and bigotry at bay.

Around the same time as my visit at Good Counsel, I reached out to Pastor Diane Dixon-Proctor, the pastor of the historically Black Sharp Street Church in Sandy Spring. She had graciously invited Shaare Tefila to participate in their Juneteenth programs the past few years and I decided to reach out to her to explore ideas for deepening the relationship between our congregations. Might it be possible for our two congregations to study some of our important biblical texts together? By studying our sacred literature together, we can learn more about each other, gain a better understanding of who we are and form a deeper relationship. Pastor Diane was intrigued by this idea and after we meet later this week I hope to have more details to share about a study partnership after the holidays.

In just over two weeks, on Thursday evening October 12, we will have the opportunity to see a preview of the new documentary “Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life” before its official release on October 27. The film is about the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and we are partnering with the Sandy Spring Museum to bring the director and the movie to the Olney area. This partnership is part of our participation in ADL’s Kulanu program. “Kulanu, Hebrew for “all of us,” is a program dedicated to empowering congregations to address antisemitism and hate in their communities through education, community engagement, and advocacy”. Thanks to Lisa Hedgepeth, our social action chair, we have been accepted into the Kulanu cohort this year and working with the Sandy Spring Museum is part of our fulfillment of the goal to create partnerships in the fight against antisemitism.

My meeting with the Good Counsel students was important and meaningful. I got to appreciate these talented and mature students and left feeling that they will take their production to heart. I am hopeful that my meeting later this week with Pastor Diane will lead to the development of a text class that we can co-facilitate that will help break down barriers between our communities. I am also intrigued by our partnership with the Sandy Spring Museum. Can opportunities to learn together help make people less hateful and more accepting?  Do initiatives like these taking place all across our country, have the power to stem the tide of antisemitism? Or will these activities be like putting a sandbag against the huge wall of water of antisemitic acts of hatred? Is it enough to participate in events, initiate meetings and advocate for change? 

Just a couple of days before Rosh Hashanah, Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism abroad, published an essay in the NY Times. She titled it, “Want to Fight Antisemitism? Embrace Jewish Traditions''. I shared some of it on Rosh Hashanah but I want to spend a little more time on it so that we fully understand her suggestion. Deborah Lipstadt has been a professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Atlanta for many years. She has been known to serve as an expert witness in trials proving that the Holocaust was real. In fact, arguably her most important case was in England over 25 years ago in which Holocaust denier David Irving accused Lipstadt of libel for her claims that he was a Holocaust denier. The British court found in her favor. 

With all of Lipstadt’s knowledge of history and intimate involvement in antisemitism it is intriguing to read this essay in which she recommends an approach that she believes Jews should use as we combat antisemitism. Dr. Lipstadt first highlights a trip she took this past summer to the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. She said, “[almost] five years had passed [since the shooting], but I saw the bullet holes had not been erased. The building has been slated for a memorial-minded overhaul helmed by the architect Daniel Libeskind, and the congregations that met there have not disbanded. They continue to gather, worship, celebrate and mourn. Some among the survivors believe they have emerged stronger than before.

“Rose Mallinger, at age 97, was the oldest of the victims. Her granddaughter Amy told me that every Shabbat, Rose would recite the prayer for peace. In the spirit of the Jewish concept of m’dor l’dor, from generation to generation, and as a tribute to her grandmother’s memory — and not as a response to her killer — Amy has taken on that custom.”

Lipstadt wrote about this story to teach that one way to combat anti- semitism is to continue observing Jewish tradition. We can’t let antisemites control us and determine our actions. In the face of threats we need to continue with our everyday religious, spiritual and cultural pursuits. If we stop what we normally do, if we alter our routine, then we let antisemitism win. If we continue to be Jewish, to act Jewish, to do Jewish then we show through our faith and determination that we are right, that we are morally and ethically superior.

And Lipstadt makes this further proposal. “We need, to borrow an old phrase, to accentuate the positive among our diverse cultures, and shine a light on how Jews, and anyone confronting persecution, live rather than how they suffer. We need to embrace approaches that are Jewish by tradition yet universal in their application: greeting each new moment with a prayer, gathering for each meal with a note of gratitude, reveling in the dynamic facets of our faiths not out of fear, but joy — whether it’s … a weekly worship service or an apple dipped in honey at the Jewish New Year.

“This shapes [Lipstadt concludes,] my ultimate wish on this Rosh Hashana: that Jews will respond to antisemitism by combining a relentless push against antisemites with an even more energetic pull toward their tradition in all its manifestations. That they will respond by demonstrating pride in who they are and solidarity with others facing persecution for who they are. That it will be shaped by a sincere accounting of the beauty and power and wisdom of Judaism and its values. That this can serve as a model to other groups who face relentless hatred.”

Deborah Lipstadt is a historian. Her academic profession has taught her to follow rigorous methods of research and evaluation. After all her years of study she remarkably and passionately argues that the best way to combat antisemitism is to fulfill our biblical, prophetic mandate - to be an or la-goyim - a light unto the nations. I found this to be astounding. I expected an essay from this noted historian and academic professional to be filled with data from events in the past - namely, this is how the Jewish community responded before; this worked and this didn’t; therefore, this is the strategy we need to follow today. 

But instead, Lipstadt states that the best antidote to the scourge of antisemitism is to be proud of our Jewish identity. We need to embrace our Jewish identity. We need to learn more about who we are as Jews and to happily show others that our rich history, our ethical and moral values, guide us to be the good people we are. Our mission is to be as Jewish as we can be so that we will then be guided to work with other like-minded moral and ethical people to combat hatred. Yes, we need to stand up to hate. But we need to do that while standing on a firm foundation of Jewish knowledge, morality and religious values. 

My meeting with the Good Counsel students, my upcoming meeting with Pastor Diane, and our attendance at the movie on October 12 are all examples of not only doing advocacy, but also showing who we are and what we stand for. They are examples of how confident we are of our Jewish identity and how proud we are of our religious, moral and ethical values. These meetings are ways to be an or la-goyim - a light unto the nations. 

Yom Kippur is about engaging in cheshbon ha-nefesh - soul searching. When done right it can be exhausting and troubling as we confront our moral failings. After we make appropriate amends through our prayers for forgiveness and atonement let us be uplifted by Lipstadt’s message. Let’s allow our soul searching to inspire us to righteous living. Let’s allow the soul searching to make us proud of our Jewish identity. Let’s allow our soul searching to make us into models of social justice. May this new year be one of teaching, harmony and love. Amen.