Global Anti-Semitism

It is a great honor to be given the privilege of talking from the bimah. I feel obligated to give several, well at least two, disclaimers. First, this is not a dvar torah. And, secondly, I am far from being an expert on global anti-Semitism.

As a digression, let me tell you how I came to be asked to give this presentation. To be honest, the answer is simple, I attended a meeting at my own home. So, now I'm here.

Let me explain. My wife is an activist. She is very active at the Holocaust Museum and
she serves on the newly formed Jewish Community Relations Council committee on
global anti-Semitism. With all the violent acts of anti-Semitism that have befallen
our people recently, JCRC has urged the dissemination of information. Thus, we had a meeting at our home. Myrna invited the acting director of JCRC, Batya Abramson Goldstein, and the co-chair of JCRC's committee on global anti-Semitism, Ilene Ordower, to be speakers.

Myrna then invited a group of friends to listen to these two speakers. We were honored that one of the friends that came was Rabbi Miller. He was a productive, active participant in the discussion that followed the presentations. Afterwards he invited Myrna and me to give this presentation. My love and respect for the Rabbi are such that I couldn't say "no". So, here I am.

As we Jews tried to heal from the Holocaust and as we gained strength from the birth and blossoming of the state of Israel, a frequent mantra was "never again". For some, this was a fervent prayer. For some, it was a testimony that surely mankind had learned well from this evil period and would successfully guard against a repetition. And for many others it was the lesson that Jews would never again be passive and never again allow any anti-Semitic acts to occur without vigorous protest. It spoke to confidence and sometimes arrogance. "Never Again".

Indeed, our confidence that anti-Semitism was a thing of the past - "Never Again" - was well expressed by Barry Rubin, a professor at Bar Ilan.

In 1995 he said, "the starting point for any honest discussion of anti-Semitism today is the phenomenon's unimportance. Never before, at least since the time Christianity seized power over the Roman Empire, has anti-Semitism been less significant than at present". Boy, was he wrong.

Not all scholars were as blind and sanguine. In 1991, eleven years ago, Ruth Wisse, a professor at Harvard said, "Anti-Semitism has proved to be the most durable and successful ideology of the century". Thanks to the mobility of people and the speed and completeness of communication - hooray for the Internet - anti-Semitism is now a global phenomenon. Anti-Semitism crosses all types of boundaries - geographical, national, political, religious and cultural.

A century ago, anti-Semitism was a European phenomenon. But now we see it in the Arab media with vicious nazi-like stereotyping of Jews, conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial. The product of such media propaganda is hate.

Such hate overpowered the Durban Conference last year on racism and turned it into a bashing of Zionism, Israel, and Jews. Many feel this conference justified and was the impetus for the current intifada.

France has over a half million Jews, the largest Jewish population on the continent. But France also has over 5 million Muslims. Ten times as many Muslims as Jews. Anti-Semitic comments and violent acts are now common in France. Indeed of the over 700 olim that made aliyah to Israel last week, the largest group came from France, one hundred and fifty-seven . But it would be a mistake to single out France. Acts of violence are occurring frequently in most countries in Europe, including the Scandinavian countries and Great Britain. An April 28, 2002 article in the Boston Globe listed details of multiple anti-Semitic attacks in Britain, Germany, Ukraine, Italy, Greece, Holland, and Slovakia.

Ilene Ordower, the second speaker in our home last week, recently spent two months in Germany. During that time she personally experienced no anti-Semitism. However, she shared a list of multiple anti-Semitic attacks for the months of March and April, 2002.

While this list is less than complete, and it represents events only in Germany, very similar events have been occurring all over Europe.

• A Molotov cocktail was thrown at a synagogue.
• A monument near the site of the Dachau Concentration Camp was desecrated.
• Gravestones at a Jewish cemetery were overturned.
• Graffiti on a synagogue proclaimed,"six million is not enough".
• A young Jewish woman wearing a Star of David was attacked.
• Two American, Orthodox Jews were beaten.
• A swastika was painted on a Holocaust memorial.
• There was an explosion at the entrance of a Jewish cemetery.
• Swastikas were painted on the gates of a Jewish school.
• Buildings were attacked, monuments were attacked, and people were attacked.

What I do not know is how the police, how community leaders and how the clergy responded to all of this. How vigorous was the effort to catch the culprits? What I do know is that these same kinds of attacks are occurring all over Europe.

The political atmosphere in Germany is changing. There was a long-standing taboo. It was not proper to make anti-Israel comments. This taboo has now been seriously eroded. German Jewish leaders have protested and labeled anti-Israeli comments as anti-Semitic and these German Jewish spokesmen have also commented that while many of the political parties are not overtly anti-Semitic, they have come to tolerate anti-Semitism. People are no longer ashamed to reveal their anti-Semitism. This brazen lack of shame has been noted in France and Great Britain.

One of the guests at our house for last week's meeting was a survivor of the concentration camps. After coming to America after World War II, he has had a very successful, prominent career in
St. Louis. He vigorously passionately shared his perspective about anti-Semitism in Europe. He echoed Ruth Wisse's statement. He said there has always been anti-Semitism. He views the history of Europe as one in which when they weren't killing Jews, they were killing each other. His solution is simple. The Jews of Europe should flee to Israel.

What he didn't say, but what was painfully obvious was how different life would have been for him and his family if they had fled Europe in the early 1930's.

I don't have the wisdom to tell you that if you scratch a European, you expose an anti-Semite. However, in May and June of this year, the Anti-Defamation League did a survey in Europe which consisted of 2500 telephone interviews. There were 500 interviews in each of five countries. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.4% with a 95% level of confidence. The anti-Semitic response varied. The five countries were Britain, Denmark, France, Belgium, and Germany. The British and the Danes were least likely to harbor anti-Semitic prejudicial views.

In these five countries, 30 percent of the 2500 surveyed harbored anti-Semitic stereotypes as compared to 17 percent in America, on a similar survey also done by the ADL.

The good news is that 69% of all Europeans said they are "very-concerned" or "fairly concerned" about violence directed against European Jews.

The bad news is that not enough people of goodwill have been willing to stand up to reject anti-Semitism.

This survey certainly reinforces the concept that anti-Semitism is not a rare phenomenon. It keeps reoccurring. It is not only in Europe and the Middle-East. As noted in the ADL survey, America has its share of anti-Semitism.

Let me share two personal experiences from my childhood. I remember how frightened and upset my mother was over 50 years ago when we drove up to a resort in the Ozarks. The big sign out front, "No Jews, No Negroes". I also remember, and I must have been six or seven years old, when a bigger kid from a nearby Catholic parochial school punched me out for being a dirty Jew and a Christ killer. You know, it's amazing how persistent the litany of evil slurs. Jews are Christ killers. They kill children before Passover to make their matzohs. The ADL surveys I noted above asked people if they agreed or disagreed with these stereotypic statements.

A. Jews are more loyal to Israel than their own country.
B. Jews have too much power in the business world.
C. Jews don't care about anyone but their own kind.
D. Jews are more willing than others to use shady practices to get what they want.

The label Jew has taken on a pejorative connotation. And to make sure the message is conveyed, it is often phrased "Dirty Jew".

As I mentioned before, I don't know how common and how virulent is anti-Semitism now. But keep in mind. It does not take a majority of society. It only takes a few passionate, violent zealots to cause great evil. There are leaders who are aware of this. Some of them are leaders in Europe. Thank God for all the wisdom and goodness on the American political scene.

In the United States Congress right now there is a meaningful sentiment against hate. An example of this is House Resolution 393. A bipartisan list of thirty-five sponsors signed on. The bill decries the anti-Semitism in Europe and calls on governments to take steps to insure the safety of the Jewish community and to cultivate an atmosphere of cooperation and reconciliation. It was unanimously passed. A similar resolution has been introduced in the United States Senate. Speaking of the Senate, ninety-nine senators, it would probably have been one hundred, but the other senator was undergoing heart surgery and was not available to sign the letter - ninety-nine senators signed the letter to President Bush urging him to raise anti-Semitism issues at the highest level in his dealings with foreign governments and to point out that governments have a responsibility to take measures to maintain civil peace and insure every citizen's security regardless of faith.

The message needs to be said over and over again. Society benefits when there is civility equally extended to all. Jews are the canaries in the coal mines of civilization. You know, a century ago when miners went down, they took a canary with them. If the canary died, they knew that poisonous gas was building up and they fled the mine. So, we use this analogy, Jews are the canaries in the coal mine of civilization.

When Jews become the objects of hate and savagery, it means it's only a matter of time. The same hate and savagery will be turned on others. Such evil destroys stability and decency. It might start with prejudice and hatred against Jews, but it never ends with Jews. It always goes on to other groups. In other words, the use of power in a prejudicial way always corrupts.

We may well ask ourselves why time and time again do we Jews have to withstand the onslaught of anti-Semitism? I don't want to trivialize. I don't want to in anyway minimize the tzuros we have withstood through the ages. But I invite us all to listen to the concept, it doesn't stop with the Jews.

What starts as Jew hating does not end there. However, when there are no Jews to hate, prejudicial behavior is inflicted on other peoples. The recent war in Congo and Rwanda claimed 2.5 million lives. The ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia was horrific. The mass graves testify to that. If I were a better historian, I would be able to recite an enormous list of great evils of man's inhumanity to his fellow man.

Why have we Jews survived? Maybe one of our sacred duties is to be the canaries in the coal mines of civilization. We have always had compassion for those mistreated because of prejudices. In America, during the Civil Rights Movement, a disproportionately high percentage of white allies for the down-trodden blacks were Jews. Sixty years ago my dad was proud to be a member of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE, NAACP. So what are we to do? There are no easy surefire answers. However, there is one vital take home message. We must not be indifferent. Let me offer up a few suggestions.

Do what my wife did. Myrna called Batya Abramson Goldstein at the JCRC and she had a gathering at our home. You can do that. We can all write congressmen to thank them for the wisdom and goodness to fight anti-Semitism and also for the wisdom and goodness to fight other forms of hatred.

We can be sensitive to stereotyping, to prejudices. It is easy for us to bristle when someone says, "he Jewed me down". Shouldn't we be also as sensitive and offended when frugality is termed being "Scotch" or when stupidity is labeled "as dumb as a Polack".

Our challenge is to keep our sensibilities, and our sensitivities to uphold dignity for all men. We have to accept the noble, burdensome obligation to be society's canaries.

We have to train ourselves, the canaries, to protest early and vigorously when the air is just starting to get poisonous.

DR Jay Meyer