It seems that one candidate for the highest office in the land and his supporters would likely call me a “crappy Jew” because of my positions on a variety of issues that are not in line with them. I know they view me as the enemy, evil, and an unworthy partner in charting the future of this country, which they believe they must impose based on their plans and designs because their way, in their minds, is an expression of a divine destiny grounded in following a “chosen one” who is actually just a human being with a very checkered history, and who is more of a “chameleon,” in some ways, than those whom they accuse of changing their identity midstream. If these people were election workers (I actually trust the people who work in the polls where I vote, at least, so far) who might not believe in our democratic process of voting, they would red flag me in a minute if they knew about my rabbinate that was full of working for interfaith and multicultural understanding, justice, and peace. I believe some people would try to take me off the rolls.
But, sorry, my grandparents didn’t immigrate to the United States over 120 years ago (133 for one set of grandparents) to be ostracized and denigrated. Our first president wrote to multiple religious communities that were not Protestant and told them that all that mattered was that they be good citizens and that that they had much to add to the welfare and uniqueness of this country, which, echoing the words of the president of the synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, should give “to bigotry no sanction, and to persecution no assistance.” Sadly, we have never gotten that quite right, but we still can, if we maintain our faith that people who disagree can find a way to work together and compromise for the betterment of our country.
In the meantime, the more I hear from a candidate and local officials about not certifying votes means to me that they would not certify MY vote and the votes of citizens whom they would unjustly remove from the rolls because of various aspects of their identity.
Freedom should not be about power and control, expressed through disdain, ridicule and bullying of opponents, seeking to divide our communities into “us/them.” It should be about finding ways to lift each other up as best we can, that is, if “we” can really be “we.”
I first voted in 1972, amid accusations of a break-in at a certain office at a famed Washington DC hotel.
And as I approach the conclusion of yet another decade of my life, I am not giving up on maintaining the possibility of engendering unity among us.
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