I want you to know, non-Jewish friends, that the Jewish people feel insecure in this world. I want you to know this so you can help with a solution.

The years of persecution, execution, killing, pogroms, taunting, anti-Semitic epitaphs and bullying have taken its toll. I see what has happened to us and around us, and I reach out to you asking that you consider what I have to say.

There are those non-Jews who are responsible for the hurt and suffering we have experienced. There are those who are not. While I know we are not the only people who have been hurt by others, and that we have caused our share of hurt, I speak to you, likely those people who have not been part of creating stress for my people.

And I do because I want you to embrace us, or reach your hand out, or simply to let us know that you are a friend, or an acquaintance, or a supporter. Let us know that you will not hurt us or work against us in tough times and commit to speaking vocally and loudly when you can against those who turn up the volume of hatred levied at us.

I write you because I am asking that you wear our shoes, our sandals for a moment, and consider what it is like to read calls for the return of the ovens, or correlating the Nation of Israel with Nazis or apartheid.

I am staying away from politics because that will only muddy the waters. My point really is calling us Nazis is tantamount to me calling you a child molester. Those who hurl the names and insults know that. They are not willy-nilly choices of words, not at all. Their goal is to cut to the very core of what disturbs us, frightens us and throws us out of our centre.

So to you man, woman or child who is peaceful person – commit to being our supporters.

Let us know we are not alone in the world.

We need to know this as it often feels as if we are, on our own, isolated and without friend. If you have been marginalized, you’ll know what I mean.

Pledge to be a friend of the Jewish people, and we will pledge our friendship to you.

Pledge to fight the bad guys should they ever come our way again. Take this opportunity to create an alliance with us that is strong and mighty.

We need to know how you feel so that our journey is not such a lengthy one, where every crossroads seems to be a stomping ground for anti-Jewish sentiments. Take this opportunity and respond, “yes, I am your friend and I will stay that way regardless of how tough things might get.”

Do that and the world will be better. Do that and our nation will be stronger.  Do that and real peace can be achieved. Do that for my son.

Thanks, b’shalom (peace)

Avrum

Recently, I wrote an article about individuals who act as Jewish emissaries while living or visiting small towns or cities with few to no other Jews. I requested reader feedback on their experiences. Here are some paraphrased excerpts that highlight worthwhile interaction between some of these very committed Jews and non-Jews who are sincerely interested in our ways.

Response 1: I produced CD of Yiddish music that I wanted to take beyond the Jewish community. I was staying In a B&B in a very small, French-speaking New Brunswick town, and rumour had it that there was a Juif (French for Jew) in town. A woman knocked at my door. She had never seen a Juif and wanted to see what I looked like. I welcomed her, calling on my limited knowledge of French and all my hospitality. She confided she had only heard bad things about Jews and was glad I was warm to her.

I also went to Japan as a Canadian representative of a singing troupe. I was on a bus, and people in our group were encouraged to sing to pass the time. I sang the Yiddish song Tumbalalaika. After a woman asked if I would sing the song for her friends, we were whisked off to a huge home in Tokyo. Her friends turned out to be Zimbabwe’s ambassador to Japan. There I was in Tokyo, singing a Yiddish song to the Zimbabwean ambassador to Japan. It was an unforgettable evening of camaraderie, education and heimishe frendlichkeit. – Honey

Response 2 – I grew up in Kitchener-Waterloo in the 1950s and 1960s. I remember feeling an awesome responsibility representing the Jewish people in a postwar community with many newly arrived Germans. I was often the only Jewish person that my fellow students knew. When questions were raised about Jewish beliefs, I felt a responsibility to represent my people. Yet, I was aware that I was quite ill-equipped to do so.

Around this time, Kitchener welcomed a young, erudite and socially conscious rabbi to lead our congregation. Your father, Rabbi Shragah Phyvle Rosensweig, through his community outreach efforts, took significant responsibility from my young shoulders. –Merle (Levinsky) Kravitz

Response 3 – In September, a neighbour of mine in Keswick, who had badgered me for months about what colour my Christmas lights would be, then asked me why I was home for so many days in a row around Rosh Hashanah. I told her these were my holy days, then explained the tradition of the honey and apples, and even invited her for dinner. She was very appreciative that I took time out of my “holy” time to explain my traditions. –Lil Nobel.

Response 4: I do business with a family-run company in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The owners are very religious Catholics. Two of them once visited us, and we were driving to Montreal together when they asked me if I was also Catholic. I told them that I am an Orthodox Jew. The remainder of our two days together was spent comparing religions and generally educating each other. My family visited them several times in San Pedro Sula, where they were sensitive to our kashrut requirements. We, in turn, have hosted them for dinner on Erev Shabbat and on Rosh Hashanah. – Jack Martell, Toronto

Response 5: I work at a community college and was once chatting with a teacher that I don’t know well. She found out I was Jewish and began asking the strangest questions, albeit in a very kind way. I realized that despite her formal education, she knew nothing about Judaism. When we met again, she proudly presented me with a vanilla latte and told me she had verified that the coffee was completely kosher by phoning Starbucks. Her kindness and respect was such a wonderful gift. – Heather Pollock, Peterborough, Ont.

Laundered Money

I wrote this article for the Canadian Jewish News. It was published in the beginning of August. Please read it and comment. I value your response to my thoughts, particularly having to do with this issue. Thanks!

_________________________________________________________________________

How do I know this?

The Jewish world is humiliated by the Bernie Madoff scam and now the money-laundering and corruption scandal in New York and New Jersey. We are united in shame.

One only has to speak with secular humanist Jews or to right wing ultra-Orthodox community members to uncover a great sense of disgust, embarrassment and humiliation they are feeling because of the actions of these individuals.

Some people have told me Bernie Madoff has brought great dishonor to them and our community, through his rotten Ponzi scheme, one which caused some seniors to leave their old-aged homes, and students to withdraw from college and some retired people to return to work after years of retirement. His abominable transgression caused death. He must have loved money. 

I have heard from some Jews they feel physically sickened by the media pictures they viewed of cuffed rabbis from the Syrian Jewish community involved in the money laundering caper. They said they preferred not to talk about it, as if their child had been arrested for peddling heroine. I have been told by community members of their existential stomach aches caused by the terribly sad reality that ‘religious people’ bought and sold illegal body parts from the remains of our Israeli brothers and sisters. Those peddlers must have cherished money.

These situations simply stink. The fumes of shame and dishonor can be smelled in the vast majority of Jewish homes regardless of their denomination or relationship to Torah.

By happenstance but thoroughly, Madoff and the money launderers, have undraped a powerful bond of unity amongst the Jewish people, one normally reserved for times of intense anti-Semitism.

There is a concept in Judaism called Chilul hashem, literally meaning a desecrating of God’s name. A chilul hashem can be created by an action which puts our people in a bad light in the eyes of the rest of the world. If one wears a kippa and pushes other passengers on the bus they are riding – that is a chilul hashem.

Multiply that by tens of thousands and you will understand the level of chilul hashem Bernie Maddof and the body-part dealers have created.

Interestingly, these chilulai  ha’shem present the Jewish people with a timely and crucial challenge, one that can only be dealt with through unity. How are we as a people to fix our reputation? This is a huge issue, firstly because we are citizens of the world and required to be respectful; secondly because a Jewish community with a perceived low moral standard has less tools to use for protection.

The greatest question, however, is how to do we rekindle a standard of holiness amongst ourselves for ourselves. Obviously there is greatness and sanctity in the Syrian Jewish community as well as the other communities these thieves were allowed to prosper in, but what of the immoral and gross character and activities of so many others? How do we fix this?  

Where has our holiness gone? Where our own expectations of ourselves as honest, ethical and good people? Where has the consecrated Israel gone?  It is not gone. But it is hiding.

It is time for Judaism and the Jewish people to hunger for something loftier than materialism and smash that idol called money. Until then, we will be red faced for a while and keep a low Jewish profile.

The good news is we are indeed one people. United we stand…in shame!

1: I produced CD of Yiddish music that I wanted to take beyond the Jewish community. I was staying In a B&B in a very small, French-speaking New Brunswick town, and rumour had it that there was a Juif (French for Jew) in town. A woman knocked at my door. She had never seen a Juif and wanted to see what I looked like. I welcomed her, calling on my limited knowledge of French and all my hospitality. She confided she had only heard bad things about Jews and was glad I was warm to her. I also went to Japan as a Canadian representative of a singing troupe. I was on a bus, and people in our group were encouraged to sing to pass the time. I sang the Yiddish song Tumbalalaika. After a woman asked if I would sing the song for her friends, we were whisked off to a huge home in Tokyo. Her friends turned out to be Zimbabwe’s ambassador to Japan. There I was in Tokyo, singing a Yiddish song to the Zimbabwean ambassador to Japan. It was an unforgettable evening of camaraderie, education and heimishe frendlichkeit. – Honey

Response 2 – I grew up in Kitchener-Waterloo in the 1950s and 1960s. I remember feeling an awesome responsibility representing the Jewish people in a postwar community with many newly arrived Germans. I was often the only Jewish person that my fellow students knew. When questions were raised about Jewish beliefs, I felt a responsibility to represent my people. Yet, I was aware that I was quite ill-equipped to do so. Around this time, Kitchener welcomed a young, erudite and socially conscious rabbi to lead our congregation. Your father, Rabbi Shragah Phyvle Rosensweig, through his community outreach efforts, took significant responsibility from my young shoulders. –Merle 

Response 3 – In September, a neighbour of mine in Keswick, who had badgered me for months about what colour my Christmas lights would be, then asked me why I was home for so many days in a row around Rosh Hashanah. I told her these were my holy days, then explained the tradition of the honey and apples, and even invited her for dinner. She was very appreciative that I took time out of my “holy” time to explain my traditions. –Lil Nobel. Response 4: I do business with a family-run company in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The owners are very religious Catholics. Two of them once visited us, and we were driving to Montreal together when they asked me if I was also Catholic. I told them that I am an Orthodox Jew. The remainder of our two days together was spent comparing religions and generally educating each other. My family visited them several times in San Pedro Sula, where they were sensitive to our kashrut requirements. We, in turn, have hosted them for dinner on Erev Shabbat and on Rosh Hashanah. – Jack

Response 5: I work at a community college and was once chatting with a teacher that I don’t know well. She found out I was Jewish and began asking the strangest questions, albeit in a very kind way. I realized that despite her formal education, she knew nothing about Judaism. When we met again, she proudly presented me with a vanilla latte and told me she had verified that the coffee was completely kosher by phoning Starbucks. Her kindness and respect was such a wonderful gift. – Heather

(Question: Were you anti-Semitic, racist, a bully? Are you now?)

When I was young, a common playground insult was to tell someone that they had “Jewed” you, an epithet that was equated with cheating someone or being cheap.  As a kid, I had no idea that this phrase was a reference to an actual group of people, or that the insult was attached to a stereotype that Jewish people have had to contend with throughout history.  As an adult, I am disgusted that I so obliviously and carelessly participated in perpetuating a hurtful myth, but I also looking back at that experience as a learning tool, because it helps me to understand how prejudice is often entrenched in our culture in almost casual ways.  People look back on those childhood transgressions like saying “Jewed” or “faggot” or “chink” and excuse it by saying:  “I was young.  I didn’t know any better.”  But how did those words get into children’s vocabulary in the first place?  Who taught us, and shouldn’t they have known better?  This is how the story begins, but how does it end?

People are saying that the situation in Gaza has given rise to a new wave of Anti-Semitism.  As a non-Jew, I don’t claim to be as aware or conscious as I should be of the different ways in which Anti-Semitic sentiment has shown itself throughout my lifetime.  I have certainly noticed a particular virulence in the way hatred is being expressed right now.   People seem quite comfortable spewing generalizations and stereotypes, or advocating discrimination and violence, even in public forums.  A friend recently told me about a pro-Palestinian rally at which people were chanting “Bring back the ovens.”  I am sickened every time I think of it.  It is one thing to disagree with the actions of a government.  I believe that political debate is an integral part of a free society, and that protests are a legimate means of voicing dissent.  But how does someone get to a point where they have so much hatred inside them that they would reference the Holocaust as a means of advocating genocide?  It is beyond my comprehension.  This to me is the scariest form that hatred can take.  It’s beyond reason; it’s almost outside of humanity.  It is like a black hole that sucks the light out of everything around it.

But there are other forms that prejudice can take, perhaps less venomous, but insidious and pervasive in our society.  This is the everyday Anti-Semitism I referred to earlier, and it can be difficult to address because those who perpetrate it don’t see why their views are problematic.  I think of this as the “some of my best friends are Jews” gambit.  It starts with something like:  “I don’t have a problem with Jews, but” and then is followed by:

a) they control all of the world’s finances

b) they run Hollywood

c) they’re all doctors, lawyers and accoutants

When called on their statements, these people will generally assert that they’re not prejudiced, they’re just stating facts that everyone knows.  They fail to see that these “facts” are myths perpetrated by Anti-Semites, and that even “positive” stereotypes, like saying that all Jewish people are professionals, are still stereotypes.   

Some time ago I joined an online group that was supposedly devoted to discussion of equity and restorative justice.  In the midst of articles about the International Criminal Court and the power of forgiveness, I found a piece about Jewish control of banks.  I thought it was offensive, and I wrote to the moderator expressing my concerns.  He refused to post my response or to remove the article in question.  I believe that if he had posted an article which expressed a comparable cultural or racial stereotype: eg. all Asians are bad drivers or all people from racialized communities are criminals or all First Nations people are alcoholics, the piece would have been more strongly censured.  This suggests to me that anti-Jewish sentiments are sometimes so deeply ingrained that people don’t recognize them as prejudice in the same way that they recognize other forms of racial or cultural discrimination.

So what’s to be done?  As a white person of European descent, I recognize that I walk through the world with privilege.  I want to be an ally and an advocate for people facing discrimination and oppression, but I also need to be conscious of the parameters of my role. 

a)  As much as it may be painful, I need to acknowledge my own prejudices and biases and work to overcome them

b) I can stand beside people in their struggle, but not take it on as my own.  It’s not mine to take.

c) To be an effective advocate, I have to listen to the people who are directly affected by discrimination, and take direction from them about how I can participate.  I can’t decide what’s “best” for someone else.

d) As a person with privilege, I am in a position to be vocal in my opposition to discrimination without facing great personal risk.  As an example, I work with people in prison.  I can make a strong statement about the failures of the prison system without dealing with negative consequences. If a prisoner were to make the same statement, they could face harsh reprisals.  Because I can do so safely, I have no excuse not to stand up against oppression whenever I can.

My story may not have an auspicious beginning.  I participated in spreading Anti-Semitism, even if it was through ignorance.  Now, as an adult, I have the power to think critically, to challenge assumptions, to educate myself about the struggles of people around the world, and to work towards creating a more peaceful and equitable society.  I hope to be a better ally to the Jewish people, and to all people who endure discrimination and prejudice.