“Son,” my father of blessed memory said to me, “I want to show you the most valuable thing in the whole world.” And he proudly displayed his American passport.
And why not? My father lived at a time when America stood as a beacon of freedom and democracy, having recently saved the world, and, not incidentally, the Jewish people, from Hitler’s murderous rampage—may his name be blotted out. Dad lived at a time of vast upward mobility. A child of the Depression, my father was able to go to the University of Scranton, affectionately known in the Scranton dialect as “da u,” because he was able to get an interest free loan for $1500. A few years after our passport conversation, he was able to send me to the most expensive university in the country.
But it was more than simply the raw economics. Jews had arrived. He witnessed “No Jews or dogs allowed” become a thing of the past, except in places where no self-respecting Jew would go anyway. He saw Bess Myerson become Miss America and Hank Greenberg become the home run king. Betty Joan Perske from the Bronx had become the sultry Lauren Bacall, married to Humphrey Bogart, no less—and you don’t get more American than that. Together we heard Martin Luther King give his Dream speech, and even though racial problems remained, the trajectory of the future was clear. The arc of the moral universe was indeed long, but as King predicted it was “bending toward justice” before our very eyes. We were living under the protection of the Warren Court, with people like Thurgood Marshall and William O. Douglass seeking to expand our rights. The United Nations was spoken of in hushed respectful tones, standing as a monument to the best hopes of humanity, with its Foucault’s pendulum and gigantic tapestry entitled, remember this, Triumph of Peace, and the soaring lines of Niemeyer and LeCorbusier’s monumental building—and, not least, the Isaiah Plaza, where etched into its walls was the iconic, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares.” Our Jewish prophetic sensibilities had now become the world’s. Anti-Semitism was most certainly frowned upon, espoused openly only by looney-tunes like Farrakhan and David Duke, cartoon southern sheriffs and bearded overweight losers in pick-up trucks with Montana plates and “Live Free or Die” bumper stickers.
How far had we come in the fight against anti-Semitism? Schindler’s List could be shown on television sponsored by, of all things, the Ford Motor Company. The massive 7 point earthquakes on the other side of the world that followed shortly thereafter were probably the result of Henry Ford turning over in his grave. TV stations would sign off (yes, kids, once upon a time TV stations did sign off) by asking: “Did you visit your church or synagogue recently?”—church or synagogue, because, while we did not make up anything close to 50% of the American population, we did make up 50% of the American imagination. At that moment, one could rightfully say we were experiencing the most sublime moment in the 2000 year history of the Diaspora.
That was then. This is now. And now, for all too many of us, when we think about our passports, the question is not what our dreams are for a glorious future in America. Instead the question is, and you probably know it…“Where can we go if we have to leave?”
Maimonides, in his meditation before the shofar blowing, exhorts us: “Wake up from your slumber!” That is my theme for these High Holy Days, and waking up to our actual position in America today is my first topic.
As Jews we are beset, from both left and right, with anti-Semitic attacks. On the left, the attacks are seemingly about Israel, but ultimately are about Jews, plain and simple. Demonstrations take place in front of synagogues, not just in front of Israeli consulates. The mob doesn’t usually ask “Who are the Zionists here?” Instead, “Who are the Jews here?” The chants that are heard are not just “Free Palestine,” which is understandable, but “Hitler was right,” which is disgraceful and dangerous. The feeble attempts to distinguish between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are laughable, as ridiculous as saying, “I have nothing against Swedes. I just hate people who are blond, six feet tall, and speak Swedish.” And when someone chants “We are all Hamas,” they want you dead.
Wake up from your slumber and believe them.
Back in the day, Jews dreamt of going to schools like Columbia and Harvard. Now, Jews are afraid to walk across the Columbia campus without a security escort—a fact related to me by one of our own congregants. The former president of Harvard, that storied pinnacle of academia, could not confirm that threatening Jews with genocide was against school policy. “It depends on the context” she famously—or infamously—declared. Here’s a thought experiment: in what context could it conceivably be acceptable to say, “I want all Arabs dead.” Any Jew who said so (G-d forbid) would be summarily run off an Ivy League campus on a rail. But such is the moral rot at Harvard, and at Columbia, and at Penn, and at most elite schools throughout the United States—that it is open season on Jews, particularly openly identifiable Jews. Recently, someone said that freedom of speech is never so free as when it is used for attacking Jews. To understand what passes for intellectual rigor these days, one need only think of the hare-brained college coed who, in tearing down posters of kidnapped hostages in Gaza, defended her actions by saying, “These posters are an act of violence.” The posters, not the kidnappings themselves. Most of these students don’t know the difference between West Bank and West Palm Beach. And the only thing more obvious than this muddled thinking is the rank hypocrisy. Students at Princeton have valiantly tried to boycott Sabra hummus, but they don’t have any problem eating Moo Goo Gai Pan despite a million Muslim Uyghurs in Chinese concentration camps.
And to whom should we Jews turn for help? The supposed adults in the room, like administrators and professors, are often as not the source of the problem, not the solution. We need only remember the Columbia deans who were texting snide comments to each other while Jewish students were describing their painful experience of anti-Semitism on Columbia’s campus. “Should be a good fundraiser,” commented one. Gee, I wonder where he got that trope. Or the professor at Cornell—home to 3,000 Jews—who described his response to the Oct. 7 pogrom as—wait for it—”exhilarated”.
That’s from the left. It’s no better on the right, where you have an ever-growing array of vicious Nazi-like barbarians. Whether Ye (Kanye West) going “death-con 3 on Jewish People”, or the gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina describing himself as “a black Nazi”—I’m not making this up—or Nick Fuentes making Holocaust jokes and then denying the Holocaust, it is as if someone left the gate open at the anti-Semite zoo and the entire menagerie escaped.
I lift my eyes up to the mountains. From where will my help come? Not from any of our supposed allies, I can tell you that. Wake up from your slumber and see it clearly. From our progressive friends? Not hardly. Many of us insisted that black lives matter. Have you seen any BLM leaders proclaiming “Jewish lives matter?” No one has been more insistent than we have been on resisting violence against women. But when Jewish women were being raped in the hundreds on Oct. 7, it was “Me too unless you’re a Jew.”
And it’s no better on the right. For every Ilhan “It’s all about the Benjamins” Omar, and Rashida Tlaib on the left, there’s an openly anti-Semitic Candace Owens, or Jack Posobiec, or Laura Loomer, on the right. Wendy Rogers, an Arizona state senator, has been posting Nazi song lyrics on X. No friend of ours, for sure.
Awake from your slumber. We have enemies in Congress, and we have enemies at Mar-a-Lago. Hatred for Jews is, unfortunately, bipartisan.
Our Christian friends? Well, the liberal churches have been major figures in the BDS movement, and the evangelical churches have begun espousing Christian Nationalist themes, so no help there. Our Muslim brethren? I stood on this bima and said that, if Muslims were forced to register, then as an act of solidarity and protest we Jews should register as Muslims as well. Remember that? Well, here’s the payback. One of our local Muslim civic leaders has been involved in demonstrations declaring, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” Whatever she means by that, on Oct. 7 Hamas showed us what they mean by that. And that’s what matters. Although she will go unnamed, to protect the guilty, it is worth noting that she had been active on the South Brunswick Human Relations Council. Not exactly inspiring.
And the vaunted UN, that in my youth had such quasi-sacred status? The UN recently had an exhibition on victims of terrorism, citing examples, 21 in total, from Indonesia to the Boston Marathon, from Kenya to 9/11. And what was the one nation beset by terrorism that was not mentioned in the U.N.? No, not Israel. Israel, of course. Because it is so obvious that the UN has been tainted with antisemitism top to bottom. Instead of Triumph of Peace, it’s Triumph of Jew-Hatred.
Wake up from your slumber. This is not okay. The kids are not ok. We are not okay.
What threatens us today is bigger than simply a back slide into anti-Semitism. It is a breakdown of the kind of world, the kind of America, that we Jews have been trying to shape for centuries. Franklin Foer expressed this perfectly: “America’s ascendant political movements—MAGA on one side, the illiberal left on the other—would demolish the last pillars of the consensus that Jews helped establish. They regard concepts such as tolerance, fairness, meritocracy, and cosmopolitanism as pernicious shams. The Golden Age of American Jewry has given way to a golden age of conspiracy, reckless hyperbole, and political violence, all tendencies inimical to the democratic temperament. Extremist thought and mob behavior have never been good for Jews. And what’s bad for Jews, it can be argued, is bad for America.”
Instead of the West Wing, we have the Wild West, complete with riots, insurrection, death threats and assassination attempts. A total breakdown of civility. And if history teaches us anything, it is this: when civility breaks down, Jews are in danger.
I am not for a second suggesting that we should abandon America. But we would be fools to ignore when America is abandoning us. Before our very eyes, we are witnessing a sad affirmation of the biblical truth that even here in America, Israel is a nation that dwells alone. And in danger.
Wake up from your slumber.
The Rebbetzin, of blessed memory, always reminded me that, in a High Holy Day sermon, it isn’t enough to describe a situation. It is important to tell people what to do about it. So here are 7 takeaways when we wake up from our slumber.
- Every day, promise to love being Jewish ten times more than anyone hates you for it. (after Jewbelong)
- Object loudly when someone else tries to tell our story. Nobody gets to tell us who the “good Jews” are.
- Don’t pretend you didn’t hear it. Call it out. And for G-d’s sake don’t hide.
- We can’t tikkun olam our way into the hearts of those we thought were our allies. They have abandoned us. Deal with it. Put on your own oxygen mask first.
- “We have to be as intolerant of anti-Semitism from our political allies as from our foes.” (Bari Weiss). It doesn’t help for Republicans to call out Ilhan Omar and Democrats to call out Marjorie Taylor Green. Call out the people who are on your side of the aisle—but definitely not on your side.
- People these days are all bent out of shape about cultural appropriation. Remind them that comparing every bad thing that happens to the Holocaust is the most extreme and inappropriate cultural appropriation of all. And accusing us of Holocaust behavior—Holocaust inversion—adds insult to injury.
- Finally: Open your eyes and ears. Hear what’s being said. Don’t go out of your way to put positive spin on it. If it sounds bad, that’s probably because it is bad.
Tomorrow, I will take up the single most important thing we can do to protect ourselves, and for that matter, to protect our nation. But for now, allow me to conclude with this: The worst form of delusion is self-delusion. If you think you can safely sleepwalk through what is happening to us right now, I urge you, I implore you: consider the prophetic urging of Maimonides: “Awake from your slumber.”
Before it is too late.