In 1894 something happened that forever changed the Jewish People and the world. From that year until 1906, a Frenchman named Alfred Dreyfus, a captain in the French military, was accused, convicted of, and punished for the high crime of treason. There would be multiple trials and retrials and eventually his name was cleared but the damage was done. It was made clear that even in France, one of the great birthplaces of enlightened thinking and democracy, a Jew was an outsider and always subject to suspicion. After all, it was in the early 1800s that Napolean Bonaparte emancipated the Jews and declared them to be equals and loyal Frenchmen. It was at one of Captain Dreyfus’ trials that a 35 year old correspondent for an Austrian newspaper witnessed the antisemitism first-hand and determined in 1895 that there could never be a time or a place where Jews could truly be free and safe other than in their own homeland. Theodore Herzl had never been an engaged or serious Jew. He felt that Jews who shook off their stigmas and their otherness would assimilate into the majority culture. All that changed when he witnessed enlightened people displaying the world’s oldest prejudice, antisemitism. He would later write in his book: Der Jedenstaat.
“[I]f France – bastion of emancipation, progress and universal socialism – [can] get caught up in a maelstrom of antisemitism and let the Parisian crowd chant ‘Kill the Jews!’ Where can they be safe once again – if not in their own country? Assimilation does not solve the problem because the Gentile world will not allow it as the Dreyfus affair has so clearly demonstrated.”
These words were published in 1896, 130 years ago, and foreshadow where are we today. Over the past month, we’ve seen two examples of Jews who have made statements and choices regarding Israel that would make many of us sick… we’ve seen them fail the litmus test that demands hatred of everything and anything Israel and by extension Jewish… here in America. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen the most Jewishly populated city in the world outside of Israel nominate three people who have made statements so beyond the pale that I refuse to repeat them anywhere. The mayor of that same city called us monsters and refused to accept any opportunity to apologize or explain his statements any differently.
At camp this summer I had the privilege to teach our next generation. One of the sessions I taught was about the State of Israel. One day I overheard an intense political argument between two older campers: one was conservative and the other was liberal. I tried very hard to ignore them and then decided I needed to use it as a teachable moment. I brought the whole group back together and explained that we, the Jewish community, cannot afford to be the subject of debate. We cannot allow our views and our support to be seen as a reason that one side wins or loses. When we, the Jewish people, become the conversation, it will never end well for us. There’s no denying there’s a very strong and dangerous voice rising on one side that’s forced many Jews to make difficult decisions. At the same time, an equally extreme voice has grown on the other side saying almost the same awful antisemitic things.
The reality is we’ve fallen into a trap of only noticing it when it comes from the side opposite of our own. These are difficult times for the Jewish people. We’ve lived in America since before it was founded. We’re natives to this country and have never been outsiders in need of emancipation. We’ve served in almost the highest of high levels of leadership. We’ve always assumed we were safe and would never be treated as we had been over the generations of history… we were wrong.
The Jewish People have again become the outsider struggling to be accepted as an equal without any precondition. For those who thought assimilating was the way to go, I offer the examples of a Brooklyn coffee shop and a Pride Parade in the Bay Area. Their experiences are no different than Captain Alfred Dreyfus’. To those who think the sky is falling and that America will never be the same for us, I offer the reality that there is in fact a pendulum, and it will swing and correct itself at some point. To those who think we can just ignore this and do our own thing, I offer the reality that we’ve spent far too much time with our heads down and now is the time to lift up our heads and walk proudly as the light we are to the world, even if they choose to remain in darkness.
This is America’s 250th anniversary. There is documentation that Congregation Mikveh Yisrael, a Sephardic community in Philadelphia, served kosher food at a celebration of this incredible country’s twelfth birthday in 1788. We need to celebrate this unique and incredible country that’s exceptional in so many ways. At the same time, we need to celebrate our own unique and exceptional identity. The two are not mutually exclusive. America is still a work in progress and while for us, we’re at a low point, may it be that we will be a part of the people who help bring us back out of this darkness and into the light.
Happy 250th Birthday America.
