The Morning After
My mother was born in Poland. She was one of the lucky ones emigrating with her family to the United States before the Holocaust in 1925. They were among the luckiest of the lucky because by 1924 the gates of immigration to the United States, which had welcomed close to 3 million Jews and 35 million others from 1881-1924 were closing. Only 10,000 Jews were permitted entry in 1925. They came, like the millions before them, in pursuit of the American Dream. They came to be free at last in a country where as our Judaic tradition tells us again and again and again it is only when people are treated with dignity and equal rights that we can become who we are meant to be, to express our humanity more fully, to embody Torah values and always if possible to live our lives in service to God. Why else would we be here? What is the purpose of human life? Is there one?
Like so many of you, though, I lost many relatives in the utter murderous destruction of the Holocaust. It wasn’t just the murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others; it was an annihilation of a Jewish civilization that had been centuries in the making. More books on Judaica were rolling off the printing presses in Europe of 1939 than at any other time in our vast history. A whole civilization was destroyed. Who knows what the victims of the Holocaust would have contributed to our world?
Relatives on my father’s side were from the Riga area of Latvia. They were part of a Northern European Jewry, centuries in the making. I can see them, getting an amazing glimpse into their world. They feel so familiar; I can almost touch them. There they sat at an Erev Shabbat table in 1940. An enlargement of the photo I recently discovered shows a dining room table well set, with a challah and the weekly Shabbat dinner and in the background you can see a Yiddish newspaper. They appear to be thriving but how strange that in my family tree they all die in the same year—1941, 1941, 1941, 1941, 1941, 1941, 1941, 1941.
We did not come this far only to come this far. I can hear our ancestors who lost their lives due to anti-Semitic murderous hatred pleading with us to speak out and speak out loudly. I can see this in their eyes.
I have watched as you have over and over again these last 5 years the legitimized diminution of our American/Judaic values, the kindnesses we extend to strangers and to people who may look different than us, the integrity of our dealings with others. But we didn’t need the full 5 years to understand. I spoke about this on Yom Kippur just months before the 2016 election, about how words matter, about how words create new realities. All it took to know for me was observing a ride down an escalator and a blast of prejudicial words about Mexicans, all it took was a horrifying imitation of a handicapped person, all it took was a nod to white wing supremacists as very fine people, all it took was a proposed travel ban. If we are honest with ourselves we all knew then and we all know now.
This is not something we have to intellectualize. We, as Jews, if we have benefitted at all from a knowledge of our Jewish past, of our history, can smell discrimination and prejudice miles away. We know where words of hatred can lead. We know this. And so, as we have lived through the morass of these last 5 years, we shouldn’t be surprised when we watch with horror the storming by right wing, anti-Semitic domestic terrorists and lovers of hateful conspiracies incited by a deranged nihilistic leader to stage an assault and insurrection on American democracy. We shouldn’t be surprised as we watched the attack on the beacon of American freedom, the storming of the People’s House, our Capitol. It reminded me of the Reichstag burning as Hitler ascended to power. Such an utter desecration of such sacred space, the very symbolic embodiment of our freedom and ideals that we crossed the oceans for. The Statue of Liberty is weeping.
I have learned to be tolerant of different viewpoints, differences of opinion over policy. After all, reasonable people can disagree. Should the US Embassy be moved to Jerusalem or not? What would be the repercussions, we asked? How refreshing to have a President who actually delivered on campaign promises many of us understandably said even as we may have disagreed with some of his policies and mannerisms. How amazing to have such a good friend of Israel in the White House. Many of us, decent and good people, ignored his behavior because he has been so good to Israel. We may have told ourselves all of this as we held our noses. It’s understandable.
But this is not Torah, nor is this what Jewish history teaches us time and time again. Torah teaches us how to behave, how to treat others, how to honor others and treat them with respect regardless of differences, never to bully anyone, never to divide and polarize because of the color of our skin, our ethnic and religious differences and so much more. When we get a whiff of prejudicial behavior we should know better. It’s not like the Holocaust happened that many years ago.
Perhaps now the delusional spell is broken. Perhaps now we know beyond question that the demagogic emperor who espouses and legitimizes hatred and incites others to hate and attack has no clothes. What more does it take for us, for all decent people, to understand when someone is unfit for office? What more does it take for us to understand that a leader who propagates so much hatred is so dangerous to our survival, to everything Judaism stands for, to the survival of our nation and its ideals? We didn’t cross the ocean for this. We have seen this behavior before in other leaders throughout history and we wonder as their victims how could they have arisen to power and duped so many as if they cast a spell that so many couldn’t resist? We should not be wondering anymore because today we all understand. All of our eyes have been opened.
I am listening to my ancestors pleading with us to speak out, calling this out for exactly what it is.
Today is the dawning of a new day and we pray a new era.
Like so many of you, though, I lost many relatives in the utter murderous destruction of the Holocaust. It wasn’t just the murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others; it was an annihilation of a Jewish civilization that had been centuries in the making. More books on Judaica were rolling off the printing presses in Europe of 1939 than at any other time in our vast history. A whole civilization was destroyed. Who knows what the victims of the Holocaust would have contributed to our world?
Relatives on my father’s side were from the Riga area of Latvia. They were part of a Northern European Jewry, centuries in the making. I can see them, getting an amazing glimpse into their world. They feel so familiar; I can almost touch them. There they sat at an Erev Shabbat table in 1940. An enlargement of the photo I recently discovered shows a dining room table well set, with a challah and the weekly Shabbat dinner and in the background you can see a Yiddish newspaper. They appear to be thriving but how strange that in my family tree they all die in the same year—1941, 1941, 1941, 1941, 1941, 1941, 1941, 1941.
We did not come this far only to come this far. I can hear our ancestors who lost their lives due to anti-Semitic murderous hatred pleading with us to speak out and speak out loudly. I can see this in their eyes.
I have watched as you have over and over again these last 5 years the legitimized diminution of our American/Judaic values, the kindnesses we extend to strangers and to people who may look different than us, the integrity of our dealings with others. But we didn’t need the full 5 years to understand. I spoke about this on Yom Kippur just months before the 2016 election, about how words matter, about how words create new realities. All it took to know for me was observing a ride down an escalator and a blast of prejudicial words about Mexicans, all it took was a horrifying imitation of a handicapped person, all it took was a nod to white wing supremacists as very fine people, all it took was a proposed travel ban. If we are honest with ourselves we all knew then and we all know now.
This is not something we have to intellectualize. We, as Jews, if we have benefitted at all from a knowledge of our Jewish past, of our history, can smell discrimination and prejudice miles away. We know where words of hatred can lead. We know this. And so, as we have lived through the morass of these last 5 years, we shouldn’t be surprised when we watch with horror the storming by right wing, anti-Semitic domestic terrorists and lovers of hateful conspiracies incited by a deranged nihilistic leader to stage an assault and insurrection on American democracy. We shouldn’t be surprised as we watched the attack on the beacon of American freedom, the storming of the People’s House, our Capitol. It reminded me of the Reichstag burning as Hitler ascended to power. Such an utter desecration of such sacred space, the very symbolic embodiment of our freedom and ideals that we crossed the oceans for. The Statue of Liberty is weeping.
I have learned to be tolerant of different viewpoints, differences of opinion over policy. After all, reasonable people can disagree. Should the US Embassy be moved to Jerusalem or not? What would be the repercussions, we asked? How refreshing to have a President who actually delivered on campaign promises many of us understandably said even as we may have disagreed with some of his policies and mannerisms. How amazing to have such a good friend of Israel in the White House. Many of us, decent and good people, ignored his behavior because he has been so good to Israel. We may have told ourselves all of this as we held our noses. It’s understandable.
But this is not Torah, nor is this what Jewish history teaches us time and time again. Torah teaches us how to behave, how to treat others, how to honor others and treat them with respect regardless of differences, never to bully anyone, never to divide and polarize because of the color of our skin, our ethnic and religious differences and so much more. When we get a whiff of prejudicial behavior we should know better. It’s not like the Holocaust happened that many years ago.
Perhaps now the delusional spell is broken. Perhaps now we know beyond question that the demagogic emperor who espouses and legitimizes hatred and incites others to hate and attack has no clothes. What more does it take for us, for all decent people, to understand when someone is unfit for office? What more does it take for us to understand that a leader who propagates so much hatred is so dangerous to our survival, to everything Judaism stands for, to the survival of our nation and its ideals? We didn’t cross the ocean for this. We have seen this behavior before in other leaders throughout history and we wonder as their victims how could they have arisen to power and duped so many as if they cast a spell that so many couldn’t resist? We should not be wondering anymore because today we all understand. All of our eyes have been opened.
I am listening to my ancestors pleading with us to speak out, calling this out for exactly what it is.
Today is the dawning of a new day and we pray a new era.