Personal Reflections on Antisemitism

Shanah Tovah,

Knowing just how hectic things can get in the week before Rosh Hashanah, I had prepared my sermon several weeks ago. And yet, last night I woke up in the middle of the night with the realization that this was not the sermon I had to deliver this year. It was not the sermon you deserved to hear this year. And so in the early hours of this morning I shelved my carefully prepared sermon and set to work on what I believe is the more urgent and more important message for these troubled times.

This past year has been incredibly difficult for the Jewish community. We have witnessed unprecedented and alarming levels of antisemitism. Caught between the scylla of the resurgence of neo-Nazism on the right and the charybdis of a virulent strain of antisemitism on the progressive left, we feel trapped, as though the world is closing in on us. I have never experienced anything like this in my lifetime.

My generation is the generation that bid farewell to antisemitism. Our parents’ generation still remembers blatant antisemitism in the workplace, in university quotas, in neighborhoods where Jews couldn’t buy a home. And many in my parent’s generation - fortunately not my own parents - are children of survivors and refugees with deep inherited trauma and anxiety.

But that was not my generation. We never knew of quotas or antisemitic hiring processes. There was no place where we were not welcome. And while, as a Kipah wearing Jew, I did experience the occasional slur, I took comfort knowing that the person shouting antisemitic abuse out of a passing car was both a coward and an aberration and that such behavior and sentiments were not acceptable in broader civilized circles.

If I’m being honest, and a moment like this demands honesty, I struggled for years with parts of our liturgy, particularly the prayers composed during the middle ages shot through with sentiments reflecting our despised, marginalized place in society.

Here is just one example from the additional supplicationary prayers as part of the Monday and Thursday weekly liturgy.

Look down from heaven and see how we have become an object of scorn and derision among the nations.

We are regarded as sheep led to the slaughter, to be killed, destroyed, beaten and humiliated… Please do not forget us.

Guardian of Israel, guard the remnant of Israel, and let not Israel perish…

These heartbreaking prayers did not reflect my reality. Yes, Jews were degraded, abused, slaughtered, but all that was history. What relevance did these prayers have for me, in the closing decades of the 20th century and the turn of the 21st?

I saw these prayers as literary artifacts.

Until last year. Then everything changed. How arrogant of me to believe that what our people experienced for over two millennia miraculously passed us by! I learned suddenly and very painfully that my generation did not witness the end of antisemitism – it only experienced a fleeting respite. And that respite has now swiftly faded into the past. These prayers have suddenly taken on a profound and urgent relevance, resonating in ways I never imagined.

One of the most pernicious effects of antisemitism is - and in this it is similar to other types of abuse – that the victim beings to internalize the hate. At best, it causes one to feel shame about their Jewish identity, to try to minimize or conceal it. At worst, it can lead to self-hate, and inner loathing. Often this occurs on a subconscious level, but the effects are very real and they can be deeply traumatic and devastating.

And so, as we close out last year and stand on the threshold of a new year, I cannot promise a decrease in antisemitism. It may only get worse. As a Jew I have no control over how others choose to see me. But what I do have control over, is how I see myself. And I am, and always will be, a proud Jew, deeply in love with my faith, my culture and my people.

I am so proud to be a Jew.

I am proud that I belong to a people who introduced monotheism to the world. At a time when people worshiped celestial bodies, trees and stones my people conceived of a single, transcendent, unified source of life, what we call God.
I am proud that, at a time when humans saw gods in transactional terms my people conceived the idea of a covenantal relationship with God.
I am proud that in a world that saw history as a tightly closed circle, of endless repetitive seasons the Hebrew bible imagined history as a linear trajectory leading to progress and a brighter future.
I am proud that my people gifted the world the Hebrew bible – a work of exquisite depth and beauty that has the power to continue to shape our lives and the lives of billions of humans.
I am proud of the Hebrew prophetic tradition of tikun olam, where as Jews, we are called on to partner with God in repairing our fractured world.
I am proud of the rabbinic tradition of arguments for the sake of heaven. And that the more you love someone the more animated your argument can be!
I am proud of our people’s tenacity - we are the descendants of those who held on, or opted in, in the face of overwhelming odds.
I am proud that despite walking in the valley of the shadow of death, my people fiercely celebrates life.
I am proud to belong to a people who despite so much sadness, finds so much joy.
I am proud to belong to a people who despite being shunted aside and excluded for millennia still cares about the wider human family and insists on contributing to it, well out of proportion to our small numbers.

And I love Judaism

I love the feeling on a Friday with all its frenetic energy getting ready for Shabbat.
I love the indescribable feeling of inner calm that comes with powering down eighteen minutes before sunset on a Friday afternoon to welcome in the Shabbat.
I love the fact that I belong to such a small people that wherever I am in the world I feel an immediate connection and kinship with another Jew.
I love our holiday liturgy, tunes, foods, rituals.
I love sitting early in the morning with a coffee studying Torah – in that moment the generations collapse and I’m part of an eternal conversation.
I love that in Judaism, how you live, and practice is more important than what you believe.
I love that for all our synagogue ritual, we are essentially a home-based religion and that the Jewish home is the locus of the divine
I love the value we place on children and the next generation.

So, I invite you this Rosh Hashanah, to take stock of what being Jewish means to you. What do you love about it, what brings you Jewish pride. And once you have defined this, cling to it with all your might.

Do not let antisemites define your Judaism!

Don’t hide your Judaism because of antisemitism. And don’t perform your Judaism as a reaction to antisemitism.

Celebrate your Judaism because it is who you are. And do so with pride, joy and love.

A future with proud thriving Jews is essential not just to Judaism but to all humanity.

May we all be blessed with a sweet new year!