Thoughts For Yom Kippur - 2014

At the start of my Rosh Hashanah sermon, I promised a Yom Kippur sermon filled with references to Hamas, ISIS, the fluctuating crisis in Israel, Global Anti-Semitism, Tense American-Israeli relations, skewed coverage of Israel in the press, anti-Israel lobbies and pro-Palestinian academics on College campuses... I know these are difficult subjects to cover in under eight minutes, but just stating this laundry list of tzuris is important...Why? Because sticking our heads in the sand won’t make them go away.  Vigorous debate won’t make them go away. Logic, and protests and letters to the editor won’t make them go away. And certainly, reading opinions that mimic our own beliefs won’t make them go away. 

        This is what it is to be Jewish. This is, with all of our intellect, with all our contributions to society, to science, music, to literature, to medicine, to building blocks of the technological age...with all the gifts of law, and justice that the Jewish people have given the world... this is what it is to be Jewish... to experience, once again, the “surprise” that the world doesn’t get it.  To find out, once again, as we did in Europe before World War II that civilization doesn’t necessarily move forward. And when faced with dogmatic ideology, logic doesn’t usually work.

        My words today are not meant to stir debate.  I have no interest in debate, and I’m not very good at it. My words today are not even a call to action.  I just want you to think.  To think very hard, what you will tell your grandchildren and your great grandchildren about this time in our history.  When they ask “what did you do” or “what did you know”, or “how could it happen” or even “what were you thinking.”.. what will you answer?” Philosopher, essayist and poet, George Santayana, wrote "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.".  How strange that with all the volumes written on Jewish History, history still repeats itself, again and again. But for some unaccountable reason we think it will be different. This time we should know better. And maybe this time we shouldn’t be our own worst enemy.

        When future generations look back at this pivotal time in history, perhaps they will read the text of the prophetic speech that Benjamin Netanyahu delivered tin New York at the United Nations this past week. Speaking to a nearly empty room, he gave us a glimpse of the future should we not head the threat of militant Islam’s mission to upend the world as we know it.

To say that American Jews, are uncomfortable with current events is an understatement. But in many corners, the silence is deafening. Friends of mine from Miami went up to New York City to spend the holiday with their children.  On the first day they accompanied one daughter and spouse to their Reform congregation.  On the second day, they accompanied their other daughter and spouse to their Modern Orthodox congregation.  I could tell from my friend Paul’s hesitant tone on the phone that something was wrong.

“There wasn’t a mention of Israel at either service.  Not a prayer for Israel.  Not a word.  The Reform congregation was so far left, I got the feeling that if the rabbi had started to say a prayer for Israel, half the congregation would have walked out.” 

        The Orthodox service left him just as cold. But as a Jew and as a Rabbi I can’t remain mute on the subject of Israel, anti-Zionism and it’s wicked off-spring, Anti-Semitism. I can’t for one simple reason. History. How will History interpret this period of time?  How will future social historians explain our actions, our inaction, our beliefs and our disbeliefs both as Americans and Jews?  And who will write that history? Maybe the same historians who say the Holocaust never happened, or that the number of victims is grossly inflated.

        There are three places where anti-Zionism enters mainstream America and quickly metastasizes, often with the assistance of the media: Politics, Art and the college campuses. In each of these venues, there are Jews –however they define their identity who, in the name of free speech, open debate and first amendment rights, disregard the danger to Israel, Jewish Americans and themselves.

        Our kids have just headed off to college for the fall semester. This should be a time of exploration,  learning, and fun... that is why we sent them. Campus Watch, an organization that shines a light on Middle East policy on American campuses does a good job on keeping us informed. The message coming from their monitoring of campus climate pretty much across the board is this: “Don’t become pro Israel, or we’ll become anti-Semitic.”  

Young Jews on campus come face to face with the hateful and skewed beliefs of BDS, a policy of Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions against Israel. Hundreds of anti-Israel academicians have called on their colleagues to “boycott Israeli academic institutions and pledged, not to collaborate on projects and events involving Israeli academic institutions, not to teach at or attend conference and other events at such institutions, and not to publish in academic journals based in Israel.

How can professors who are so biased against the Jewish state accurately or fairly teach students about Israel or the Middle East? And what will pass for truth in their classrooms?

Even more troubling, however, is how many of these academics are affiliated with National Resource Centers (NRC) on their campuses. These Middle Eastern studies centers are located at Duke, two at Georgetown and at NYU. They are Federally funded by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

         The State of Israel is also deeply worried about what is happening on American campuses.  In anticipation of the likelihood of anti-Israel campus activism getting worse in the new academic year, Israel’s Jewish Agency is sending some 70 Israel Fellows as emissaries to serve on 80 campuses in North America . They will help to support the students and will provide advocacy programming and materials.

        I would like to go from the campus to the arts.  On September 21, hundreds protesters gathered outside the Metropolitan Opera House for a demonstration calling for the company to cancel its production of John Adams’s 1991 opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer,” which is to have its Met premiere next month. The opera depicts a 1985 cruise ship hijacking by members of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the killing of a wheel chair bound Jewish American passenger, Leon Klinghoffer. I’ll let you Google this one.... but leave it to say, it isn’t called the MURDER of Klinghoffer... but rather the DEATH of Klinghoffer.  The Palestinian terrorists are given a voice to sing their grievances and promote their cause. The terrorists and are given a moral equivalency in the libretto, and from what I’ve read, the Palestinians get the best tunes. The lyrics, in the Death of Klinghoffer are about as controversial as you can get. I shall illustrate the point. One of the terrorists sings: “Wherever poor men are gathered /they can find Jews getting fat. You know how to cheat the simple, exploit the virgin, pollute where you have exploited / Defame those you cheated / and break your own law with idolatry.” It is beyond my capacity to understand how anyone could actually write, let alone SING such anti-Semitic lyrics.  I can barely wrap my head around the knowledge that these were were written by a Midwestern American Jew, Alice Goodman, a poet, writer and librettist who felt that she had written something great in Klinghoffer.  She hasn’t been hired for a commission since. Halfway through writing Klinghoffer, Alice became a Christian.  She lives in near anonymity in England and is now an Anglican Vicar. And her twisted, misinformed words will live on forever.

        The final words of the opera are sung by Klinghoffer’s wife. Here are Alice Goodman’s eerily prophetic lyrics:

If a hundred People were murdered/ And their blood Flowed in the wake Of this ship like Oil,  only then Would the world intervene.

        I leave you today, with a story, a timeless fable found in almost every culture and therefore a fable known to every member of the United Nations. Forty-seven years ago, the Reader’s Digest published this version of the fable from Lebanon.  

        A scorpion on the banks of the Nile asks a frog to ferry him to the other side. The frog, being totally aware of the danger, logically rejects the request. "Oh no," You would sting me and I would drown.”

"That's ridiculous," the scorpion replies,’ with great conviction ‘where’s the logic in that, if I did that I too would drown!" Convinced by the sincerity of the response, and not wanting to appear prejudiced, the frog took the scorpion on his back and began to swim across the river. In midstream, the scorpion's lethal urge became too strong and he plunged his stinger into the frog's neck. The sinking frog groaned, "Why, why?" The scorpion gave his final shrug and replied, Because, this is the Middle East."

        Like the frog in our fable, even though logic tells us we will be stung.... we forge ahead thinking that this time it will be different.   But no amount of compromise, discussion, or logic can influence or change the outcome. And that is one of the morals of our fable: When it comes to those who are wholly irredeemable, there can only be one outcome. It is the nature of the beast.  But there is a second moral to the story which is, that blame for the demise is not laid upon the perpetrator, but rather on the victim for choosing not to accept what his logical mind recognized and understood to be true but chose not to believe: "You knew what I was when you found me."