CATASTROPHE

Kol Nidre, 5785

Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz

“For Jews the world over, the past [year] has been little more than a series of catastrophes”. So writes Israeli-American journalist Benjamin Kerstein.

Is this an exaggeration? Sadly, I think not. Not at all. And so it behooves us on this Yom Kippur to delve into those catastrophes. This has been a year like no other in recent Jewish history. To pretend otherwise is a dereliction of duty.

The first catastrophe, of course, was Oct. 7- the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust; the searing tragedy of terrorism akin to 9-11, but with the added elements of mass mutilation, rape and hostage taking. Neither the trauma nor the reckoning in Israel is over. Not even close.

As horrific as it was, Oct. 7 was not the sole catastrophe for the Jewish people this year. In fact, it was only the beginning. Nobody expected Oct. 7, but neither did we expect the aftermath.

The Gaza war has been a catastrophe. Even if you believe that it has been a justified war of necessity, as I do; a war of legitimate self-defense against a viscous death-cult enemy sworn to Israel’s destruction, and one that hides behind and willingly sacrifices civilians… Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe.

The death of hundreds of IDF soldiers, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Israelis from their homes in the north and south, though less talked about, is also a catastrophe.

The ominous salvo of rockets launched by Iran and by its proxy Hezbollah, and the threat of a wider two-front or three-front war with this axis of evil, is a catastrophe.

The gaping political division that has opened wide in Israel is a catastrophe.

And what is happening to the Jews of the diaspora, here and around the world, is a catastrophe.

I do not use the word lightly. A catastrophe is a serious calamity that does lasting damage. Every one of the catastrophes I just mentioned deserves its own sermon. Right now I can only give one.  

So it is the last catastrophe that I want to speak about this Yom Kippur morning; about what is happening here in the diaspora; here in our country.

Actually, I already began to do so on Rosh Hashanah, when I spoke about how young people, including way too many young American Jews, are turning away from Israel. That too is its own catastrophe.

At the end of May I was at a conference on Reform Judaism in NY. Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the ADL spoke. He said, we are not facing a new wave of antisemitism, we are facing a tsunami. He gave the statistics to back it up. We don’t need the numbers to know what is happening. We see it and feel it in our bones. We see what is happening on college campuses. We see what is happening in big cities across the country. We see what is happening in town councils and high schools.

And I want to suggest to you that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Why do I say that? Because for every overt act of antisemitism in this country there is a covert act of antisemitism. A banal act, that doesn’t make the headlines. Or a silence that speaks volumes.

Hannah Arendt wrote famously about the banality of evil. She was referring to how ordinary people could perpetrate extraordinary evil. Her ideas arose from her witnessing of Adolf Eichman’s trial in Jerusalem. Bureaucrats could be Nazis. Your next-door neighbor could be their sympathizers, and your betrayers. They could also acquiesce by their silence.

Today we are witnessing a new chapter in the banality of antisemitism. We are seeing both the loud antisemitism of terrorists and their supporters, but also the “quiet” antisemitism of intellectuals and their accomplices. We are witnessing both the classic racist tropes of the past, and the novel vilification of Jews and the Jewish State as persecutors.  

As Noah Feldman puts it, “The core of this new antisemitism lies in the idea that Jews are not a historically oppressed people seeking self-preservation but instead oppressors: imperialists, colonialists, and even white supremacists”.

This new doctrine is a deceptively toxic brew of half-truths, mis-directions, revisionism, and willful ignorance.

The new antisemitism has been lying just below for some time, sporadically bubbling up to the surface in the guise of anti-Zionism. Then it exploded, in one of the great ironies of our time, after Oct. 7. As heinous as the Hamas attacks were, straight-faced academics and protestors alike intone that Israel is not innocent; that Israel’s oppression going back the Nakba of 1948 must be considered; that the Jewish usurpation of Palestine is actually centuries if not millennia old; that it is the Palestinians who have the right to return “from the river to the sea”; that the Zionists have now turned into genocidal avengers.

Here’s my response, my J’Accuse:

If you deny Israel’s right to exist… you are an antisemite.

If you deny Israel’s right to self-defense… you are an antisemite.

If you fail to condemn the evil of Hamas… you are an are antisemite.

If you tacitly support those who want to eradicate Israel… you are still an antisemite.

If you distort history to fit only your anti-Zionist narrative… you are still an antisemite.

And if you remain silent with regard to all this…you are on your way to becoming an antisemite.  

We are seeing the banality of antisemitism all over the place. Earlier this year I wrote an op-ed piece in the Jewish Standard about one of the world’s most respected refugee organizations, the International Rescue Committee and how utterly lacking their response to the atrocity of Oct. 7 was. I wrote that the founder of the IRC, Albert Einstein, would be turning over in his grave. For me this is personally wrenching as I have contributed to the IRC not for years, but decades.

Just when we thought that antisemitism was confined to the far-right, we now see it mushrooming with the far-left.

Just when we thought that the criticism of “woke” ideology at American universities had gone too far, the failure of three Ivy League presidents, among others, to unequivocally condemn calls for genocide against Jews and reign in rampaging protestors is unnerving.

Just when we thought that the so-called progressive wing of a political party many of us identify with was moving to the center for the sake of preserving our embattled democracy, with such a critical election looming, their persistent anti-Israel drumbeat leaves us wondering how a self-declared “antiracist” movement somehow has room for antisemitism.  

Benjamin Kerstein goes on to contend, “American Jews have discovered that no Jewish community is ever immune to history. American Jews are reeling from this terrible realization. Above all, the first antisemitic mass movement in American history has arisen. There have been antisemitic movements in America before, of course. But never have they been this large, [and] politically influential….”

Is this an exaggeration? I don’t know if what we are witnessing is a “mass movement”. And let us remember that the solid majority of Americans remain pro-Israel; that America remains Israel’s closest ally; and that most of us still feel secure about our identity in the melting pot called America.

Still, warning signs are there, and we as a people have developed a keen radar about these things.

And so how do we respond to catastrophe of the past year here in our corner of the Jewish world?

How about a 3-V strategy?

Vigilance—Jefferson said that the price of democracy is eternal vigilance. There is no substitute for staying alert to each and every act of anti-Zionism and anti- Semitism. Wherever it comes from; however it is disguised.  

Voice—It is Isaiah that we read on this holy day who commands- Raise your Voice like a shofar. Prejudice; hate speech; hate crimes- they need to be called out every time. I know we would like to just ignore it. But we’ve learned that racism of all kinds grows in the dark; thrives in the shadows. We need to shine the light and call it out. Go to the meetings; write the op-eds; call your congressmen; advocate for Israel; stand up to the extremists.

Vote—Voting is the ultimate ticket in a democracy. How else do you hold politicians responsible? How else do you legislate? You yourself may never miss an opportunity to vote. But who can you convince that otherwise might sit on the sidelines?

Vigilance. Voice. Vote.

When our children ask: where were you in the horrible aftermath of Oct. 7, may we say:

We stood up.

We stood with Israel.

We stood with our people.

We stood tall; we stood proud.

We stood up!

Yes, this was a year of catastrophe.

But we stood up!