Among a handful of topics I find the least appealing to address is the issue of anti-Semitism. I primarily don’t like it due to its abuse by Jewish professionals who have used it to galvanize Jewish community. After all, when Jews feel threatened, we tend to regroup, band together, and lift our voices in protest. Hatred generates fear in the hated, and fear compels the vulnerable to seek security in numbers. It’s good to belong to a group.
Anti-Semites would undoubtedly agree: it’s good to belong. In their case, they seem bound by a common hatred, directed against us, which provides an easy way for disparate personalities and groups to coalesce. Hatred is a fellowship generator. And it’s so easy. Hatred requires doing nothing for the hated, it accesses one’s righteous anger to produce feelings of superiority, and it’s free. Hatred works. Community organizers know that. Politicians know that. Terrorist groups know that. And by this time in our lives as a people, we should know that too. When we actively combat hatred, we are telling people that the group they belong to is founded on a false premise, which means that the whole group is bound by a lie. That’s a threatening message to deliver effectively. It not only calls into question a person’s belief system, it questioning the group itself, the very mechanism that creates fellowship. Even when your group is based on a lie, it still feels good to belong.
We have reason to be concerned with the fate of our nation. With the waning of the Judeo-Christian ethic in the western world, America’s Christian love has faltered and created a void. It seems that people’s sociological lives abhor a vacuum as does nature, and a host of hatreds have moved in to fill the void, with results markedly different from the effects of Judeo-Christian love. One may argue that given a long history of religious wars and crusades, the whole Christian love thing didn’t work out so well, a point well taken. The difference is this. When people talk of love while beating up their neighbor, it creates a dissonance which may lead to a reconsideration of how one thinks and acts. But when people preach hatred and beat up their neighbor, there’s nowhere to go. It’s honest and consistent, despite it being unconscionable. God’s love was meant for all humanity, and humanity is still grappling with the ramifications of that principle. People who are serious about their love for God must also be serious about their love for God’s creations.
If you are a Mexican, Moslem, Black, or female, you have been hated.
If you are a law enforcement officer, a politician, a Democrat or a Republican, you have been hated.
If you are an evangelical, a scientist, an Asian, or a white male, you have been hated.
And, of course, if you’re Jewish, you have undoubtedly been hated.
Actually, if you don’t belong to a group that has been the target of someone’s hate, you should feel insulted. If it all didn’t erupt into violence now and then, anti-Semitism would be comical, but there is nothing funny about it or hatred.
When I want the Jewish people to gather, I want the impetus to be positive. I want them to gather for a celebration, for prayer, for study, for justice. I want Jewish passion to ignite over the fact that we are each 3500 years of age, and bear a message of a life lived with justice and godliness in a world with a deficit of both justice and godliness. But that, of course, is part of the problem. How often have we heard that anti-Semitism persists due to ignorance and fear? When we remain divorced from our neighbors, it’s far easier for them to indulge in fantasies about how horrible we are.
I’m not a huge football fan but I did take note in the exchange between the Patriots Jewish Julian Edelman and the Eagles’ DeSean Jackson after Jackson posted anti-Semitic comments on his Instagram story. Edelman offered to take Jackson to the Holocaust Museum and offered to go with Jackson to the African American History Museum, both in Washington DC, and afterwards “grab some burgers and…have those uncomfortable conversations.” Edelman’s response was a touchdown. With a click of the “post,” social media allows millions of people to send nonsense and abuse to millions of others out there in invisible and anonymous cyber-land. But real dialogue requires two visible bodies, with two sets of eyes that are connecting, and conversation emanating from two mouths. Social media is a kind of body slam to true dialogue, but people like Julian Edelman have the courage to help it get back on its feet.
I know some Jews who have gotten really angry about the anti-Semitism that is surging these days. Their anger is understandable, but it remedies nothing. Anti-Semitism has been around for over 2000 years. It’s not going away any time too soon. But if you want to be in the business of combatting antiSemitism, here are three positive actions to take:
1. Support the Anti-Defamation League that combats anti-Semitism, hatred and bigotry of all forms;
2. Support AIPAC in its defense of the State of Israel, the hatred of which is anti-Semitism in disguise;
3. Take to task, politely, those who use anti-Semitic tropes, or engage in stereotypic slurs, that is, take a tip from Julian Edelman;
And finally, and perhaps most importantly, keep the door of your sukkah unlocked. Ahhh—you thought I forgot the whole sukkah connection by now. I didn’t. Sukkot are famously open for anyone to come and visit and for all of us to generously invite guests into. Of course, this year may not be the best to overindulge in such invitations but the fact is that the sukkah is an abode for everyone to come into and sit, eat, drink, talk, discuss, bond, laugh…eat some more…and wonder about the miracles in our lives. God has given us a world full of mysteries and jaw-dropping beauty. We may be guests in God’s world but we should never be strangers to each other. And should the sukkah become a place for burgers (kosher) and an uncomfortable conversation, that’s a sacred task to be fulfilled—a mitzvah we should all be immersed in, just like sitting in the sukkah.
