By Rabbi Arnold Saltzman
Kol Nidre evening begins the holiest day in the Jewish Year. It is a day of repentance, reflection, fasting, affliction, remembering, renewing and recommitting ourselves. It is the ‘rebalancing day’ of life.
In recent years there’s been an increase in Anti-Semitism. We’re still trying to comprehend it, understand it and fight it. Anti-semitism in Europe? Europe, which is investigating Nazis from 70-75 years ago? Just this week, there was a story about Hitler’ personal assistant dying at the age age of 96. He was the last person to see Hitler in his bunker, and who unrepentantly stated what a pleasure it was to work for him.
Anti-Semitism flourishes in Arab countries; Anti-semitism in Asia, in countries which foster Muslim religious extremism; Anti-semitism in places where no Jews live or have ever lived.
How did this happen? Was it there all along? What has changed? What is the future? What can we do about? Are we in any way responsible? Is our Kol NIdre to ask for forgiveness for something we didn’t do in order to address this issue? How can we think that we can explain or find a remedy for anti-Jewish actions, attitudes, and endless streams of hatred which pour forth from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Yemen, Kenya, France, Great Britain, Scotland…You get the idea. It is a long list, and a terrible fact of our world.
I was reminded that years ago when Israel was being bombed by Hezbolah in Lebanon, Ariel Sharon directed the IDF to invade Lebanon going all the way to Beirut. A former student of mine was in an IDF unit which entered a southern Lebanese town which had been used to send attacks into northern Israel. He wrote that the when they entered the village/town, the Lebanese and Palestinians there, had painted Swastikas on the Water tower and on any surface that was available. Stunned by the overt anti-semitism the unit sent soldiers to paint over these provocative symbols of hatred.
The long list of local mob action and murder during the Crusades, the Inquisitions, is well documented, and the Pogroms of Russia were part of the Czars’ Jewish solution of one third expelled, one third assimilated, and one third Pogrom victims.
The list goes back to ancient Egypt, the Greek-Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans, and the terrible accusation of Deicide in the historic Christian Church, our friends were all too few. Books were burned, records destroyed and people endlessly forced to convert to Islam as well as Christianity. We were not treated kindly in the Koran which has a massacre of Jews being led by the Prophet right at the beginning of the Koran. In the book, ‘The Trouble With Islam’ by Irshad Manji, she wrote courageously “Should Muslims invoke the Koran to justify anti-semitism..what makes us more righteous and everybody else more racist?”
How did we historically reconcile with anyone? Muslim law adopted a second class status for anyone not Muslim, so Jews and Christians could live under Muslim rule, but this came with severe restrictions. This hostility or limited tolerance also varied in from Pope to Pope, and from country to country. Jews were seen as valuable middlemen in collecting taxes since it was forbidden to medieval Christians to charge any interest, Jews were restricted to a few professions, one of them being tax collection and another being money lenders, the worst stereotypes of the ‘Jew.’ Martin Luther wrote a text on the Jews in which he advocated attacking the Jews, and which the Lutheran Church has only disavowed in the last two decades since the recognition that this diatribe against the Jews most probably exacerbated European cooperation during the Holocaust with the exception being the Lutheran Church of Denmark, which was exemplary in the helping to coordinate the rescue efforts.
In much of the rest of the world we are dealing with a new set of problems including that last year a German court outlawing circumcision for children. The court arguing that this can only be done when a person is 18 years of age or older and can fully consent. After international protests, the government of Germany passed a law saying it would not restrict such Jewish customs.
Kosher meat is banned in Sweden, and the Netherlands. It was only a matter of time before we also saw an increase in the number of attacks on Jews as well, such as the rabbi and children gunned down by an ‘independent’ terrorist in France. What were they doing? Arriving at school and being greeted by the rabbi. Hundreds of attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions and businesses have been reported in France annually for the last decade. A rabbi and his family were killed in Mumbai, India which has no history of anti-semitism.
A member of the government of Iran tweets, Shana Tova! Some think that it is great, they love us, and they added that Iran does not deny the Holocaust, only the previous previous government did. We know that Iran is ‘concerned’ about the Zionists! How many Jews are not Zionists? How many of the 300 million Americans are not Zionists? So to me this is a code that they hate us, but according to Iran they do not hate Jews, so Happy New Year while we literally ‘spin’ our own future. The tweeter, a few days later is now being investigated by Iran.
How do we end anti-Semitism? Some suggest more Jews convert from Judaism to another faith. The formula is fewer Jews, or no Jews, therefore no anti-semitism.
Maimonides wrote an Epistle on converting to Islam, indicating that God does not require us to be martyrs and die if our lives our threatened because of our faith. We can still choose life, and be an influence for good. One wonders if Maimonides himself was pressured to do this since he is claimed by Muslims as a Muslim, while clearly he was a rabbi, and buried as a rabbi in Tiberius,’ at the same time he had been Doctor to Saladin.
We know that during the Inquisition, at least one-hundred thousand people converted in Spain and Portugal. Perhaps their descendants still turn the portrait of the Pope to face the wall on Friday, or kiss a doorpost without knowing why. Yet, we still have anti-Semitism.
A second idea for combatting anti-Semitism is Zionism. Zionism is the idea that Jews need a safe place, a haven from persecution. Following WWII most European Jewish survivors went to Palestine/Israel, which brought them to a war zone, and forced them to fight without training. Israel ironically was to be the safe haven from persecution, and now it became a hated Jewish Nation State. Attacked by five Arab armies, Israel survived. With 2400 Holocaust survivors being killed, it ironically became a privilege to fight rather than to be victims. Something to remember in our history.
At this point though, how many nations love the Jewish Nation? There are so many who hate it. Why? What distortions and lies have they been told to hate the little nation of Israel,l which has turned itself into one of the world’s great democratic countries, a great and vibrant society, and which has absorbed the Jews of Ethiopia, Russia, Yemen, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Romania, Iran, India, and wherever Jews seek to be in a safe haven from anti-Semitism, and for many fulfilling the religious promise of an ingathering.
Yet, Zionism has not stopped anti-Semitism. In some ways it is just as bad or worse. One Million Russian Jews have gone to Israel, yet the Russian people still have a hatred for Jews.
What have we done to mankind that is so problematic? Even in ancient times the Sabbath had spread throughout the civilized world, a gift of the Jews. The values and ethics of Judaism, along with language and culture, the Bible itself are gifts to mankind. Why the hatred? Why do half of the existing Jews claim to be unreligious and unaffiliated?
Some say this is a disease, this hatred. Where is the human antidote?
There are sparks of hope.
Israel, the United States, Germany, and France along with other European nations have Holocaust museums, a reminder to their populations of the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis and how the world slowly let it happen, beginning with words, then anti Jewish laws, to Kristalnacht when 1000 synagogues were attacked and burned in two days, to arrests and deportations, to the ‘final solution’ which could be Aushwitz or being shot in a line of thousands waiting for death in the forest or as in Babi Yar.
Converts to Judaism, known as Jews by Choice, build bridges to the greater community. In the United States, for the first time in history, there are a few hundred thousand converts to Judaism. These Jews by Choice have relatives who have had to reconsider their views about Jews due to the courage of a family members.
Jews by Choice combat the anti-Jewish barb that we do not welcome converts, or the stereotype that ‘we’ are superior. The Jewish people is a better people through conversions. The tradition has it that the best Jews are converts since, they did not have to accept the obligation of Torah and the responsibility of the mitzvot, but do it by choice. Therefore reaching out to people already in our community, and to others who would like to become Jewish should be encouraged. We are the better for it, for the fresh ideas, for the dedication and love, and the sincerity of intention brought to the community by a convert.
In the Avot De Rabbi Natan, it is said that Abraham and Sarah were the first converts to Judaism, and they chose to help others become Jews as well under the wings of God.
Reish Lakish said that the convert is dearer to God than the Jews who stood at Sinai who witnessed the miracles at the mountain and in Egypt. Why, because they accept the Torah without those historic moments, but of their own free will.
Why does anyone want to be a Jew? I do. How do I explain that? Judaism teaches how to be the best type of human being, not better than, but among the best, through principles of faith, practice, charity, goodness, and literature, poetry, prayer and music. That is not only my identity, but it is a heritage, an inheritance that I take to heart – the good and the difficult.
How can we end the anti-Jewish wave? That is just too large a question. We can build in such a way that we remember the greatness of this religion and practice, remember the difficulties of our history and try to learn from it, remember that God helped our ancestors and heard their cry and pray that God will hear our prayer as well.
Lastly, in our time we have learned that we must fight anti-semitism. Does anyone think they would have a better life as a Jewish person without Israel? I do not think so. Israel’s willingness to be courageous and even foolish for the sake of its people represents a proud moment in our history when political leaders and military leaders have taken on a new status, over religious leaders. Yet, these leaders are rooted in our traditions and identity. They are like a bee hive not to tampered with. Any analysis of the Mideast, Israel, and the Palestinians which does not factor in anti-semitism is an incomplete analysis at best, and a false report at worst.
This lesson must be used in other places. Fighting back. We Americans of all religions must fight anti-semitism. Only when we all speak out against religious bigotry as the founders of America did, will there be a future which is like the American landscape – Congregation Beit Chaverim this year is observing Yom Kippur in Christ’s’ Episcopal Church in Calvert County thanks to Rev. Howenstine, Hevrat Shalom of Maryland for years observed the Holydays at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, and Sha’are Shalom of Waldorf for years observed the Holydays at St. Paul’s in Waldorf, Maryland. Rabbi Saltzman has an office at St. Paul’s thanks to Rev. Johanna White.
The Daughters of Abraham and the Sons of Abraham bring understanding of each others customs. If Washington’s words to the Touro congregation in Newport, Rhode Island can be an example: “The United States which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution, no assistance”, then perhaps there is hope that the rest of the world might catch up. Until that time we must resolve on Yom Kippur to “be strong, be strong, and together we will strengthen one another” and together fight anti-Semitism wherever we find it.
How to End Anti Semitism
Day of Yom Kippur/ Kol Nidre Sermon
By Rabbi Arnold Saltzman
September 2013
10 Tishre 5774