RELEASE FROM HATRED - D'var Torah for May 15, 2020
For several weeks now, the Anti-Defamation League has been holding a series of webinars under the general title, “Fight Hate from Home.”
This week, the ADL released its annual of audit of antisemitic incidents in the United States for 2019.
I don’t think I have to give you the actual numbers for you to know that there has been an increase in overt expressions of hatred against Jews in American communities.
You have probably heard of the violent attacks, harassment, episodes of swastikas and hateful messages sprayed onto synagogues and other buildings housing Jewish institutions.
Antisemitism is coming from all across the spectrum of ideology, sometimes inadvertently, if you can believe it, but, most often, based in perspectives of grievance that see Jews as perpetrators of the world’s ills, now including the Coronavirus, and as manipulators and puppeteers controlling national and international events.
Such views were already present before the arrival of COVID-19 in our country. As in past centuries, when plagues have taken many lives and Jews were blamed for the deaths, some of that is happening now.
Perhaps the worst image to appear at an open up rally was in Columbus, Ohio. Demonstrators carried a poster bearing a rat portrayed in blue, decorated with a Star of David and wearing a kippah. Blue stripes were laid out above and below the rat. It was a morphed Israeli flag. The words on the placard read, “The Real plague.”
In response to this image, Ohio State Representative Carey Weinstein spoke about how he had served in the Air Force to defend the right of people to express themselves and to advocate for his right to speak out in opposition, if he disagreed. He said, “There’s a long history of Jews being blamed for plague, for disease, being scapegoated for problems like this ... and it’s not happening – not here, not now, not today not ever while I’m around….Our people have learned the lessons of what complacency could look like in the past or allowing hatred to percolate. ... or allowing it to become mainstream. It can never become mainstream. It requires a strong response.”
Some of these expressions continue to this day. Holocaust imagery has been finding its way into many recent expressions whereby people facing stay-at-home directives have compared themselves to Jews in World War II who were confined in Ghettos, or deported to Concentration Camps, and murdered by the Nazis.
The Torah portion for this week recounts the practice of the Sabbatical year, when the land would lie fallow, and the Jubilee year, proclaimed every 50 years, when land would return to its original owners.
I had hoped that, during these times when we are facing challenges of health and well-being, these hateful expressions would be given a rest.
My hopes have been dashed, but not surprisingly, because I know that people often look for someone to blame for what they see as their predicament.
People need support. People need reassurance. People need to be unified by our leaders.
No one needs hatred.
As we pray each Shabbat, I try to allow the values expressed in our worship – rest, learning, patience, appreciation, gratitude, and peace – wash over me and reinforce the work that I do within our congregation and with the greater community.
Let us be partners in making peace and understanding possible, because we will be better able to stay healthy and safe only if we join with each other as partners who truly care about one another.
The Torah reading speaks of proclaiming a release, DROR - sometimes translated as liberty - throughout the land.
May we have release from those who can only hate, and may we use our freedom to spread the love that will see us through this trying time.
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