Friday, October 28, 2022

Antisemitism : We Must Not Be Silent Proper 26C

 Antisemitism: We Must Not Be Silent

Where to begin? Kristallnacht – the Nights of Broken Glass, November 9-12, 1938 as right-wing Nazis destroyed synagogues and Jewish businesses, urged by Hitler and his officers, to stage it to appear as “spontaneous demonstrations,” resulting in violence and death to Jews in cities throughout Germany? The August 10-11, 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, where young white men and women marched through the night streets chanting Nazi slogans: “Blood and Soil,” and “Jews will not replace us!” while carrying Nazi and Confederate flags? Or, last week, Kanye West tweeting, “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE…You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda”? [i]

 

For centuries it has been like what the Hebrew prophet, Habakkuk, 600 years before Christ, cried out to the Almighty: we see destruction and violence, wrong-doing and trouble, strife! “So, the law becomes slack, and justice never prevails.” Help us, Lord![ii] The Lord God YHWH responds, “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.” [iii]

 

The message from YHWH is plain to those of us who claim to live by our faith: Erect a billboard, and write it plain and write it large so that anyone driving or running by will be able to read it: Antisemitism is a Problem for Us All !

 

There have been mixed corporate responses to West. The sportswear company, Adidas, immediately cancelled West’s estimated $1.5 Billion contract, and took all his licensed merchandise off the market. Twitter and Instagram took down and blocked his accounts. Yet, Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, posted, “Welcome back to Twitter, my friend.”[iv]

 

The facts. Since Charlottesville, attacks on synagogues and Jewish citizens have been steadily increasing. Historically, antisemitism is often accompanied by attacks on other minority groups. In the U.S, there have been increased attacks on Muslims, the LGBTQ community, Asians, businesses in majority black neighborhoods, and other minority groups and individuals, according to the U.S. Justice Department’s and Anti-Defamation League’s listings of Hate Crimes just for 2022. [v]

 

It is imperative for the Church to be involved, as some of our New Testament texts, and preaching throughout the Church’s history by figures like Tertullian, Origen, John Chrysostom, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Martin Luther on up to our day, has been used to justify antisemitism. Christians as early as 1349 in Strasbourg, France, have led pogroms, organized massacres, rounding up Jewish citizens, killing them and destroying their towns and neighborhoods. I’ve known Jewish people in our time who were chased by Chrisitan youth during Holy Week every year accused of being Christ killers. And many Christians were complicit, or worse, silent, throughout the years of the Nazi Final Solution: The Holocaust. [vi]

 

Fortunately, for Episcopalians, The Rev. Canon Leonard L. Hamlin, Sr., Canon Missioner and Minister of Equity & Inclusion, Washington National Cathedral, recently posted an essay, Sorry, Kanye West. You’re wrong about ‘the Jews’. [vii] He observes that often we tend to look past such incidents as simply another celebrity or politician saying something outrageous. Yet, he points out that: “Equally troubling, however, was the scene that played out on a Los Angeles overpass where his supporters raised their arms in a Nazi salute and unfurled banners that said “Kanye is right about the Jews. No. No. No.”, he writes, “Kanye is wrong about “the Jews.” He goes on to remind us that such figures of faith as Martin Luther King Jr, and Elie Wiesel warn that silence is not taking a neutral stance. I’ve heard Elie Wiesel repeatedly say, “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” People of faith must speak out against hatred, division and strife.

 

I have spent much of my undergraduate years, seminary, and life in parish ministry, attempting to erect that billboard to make it loud and clear, “Antisemitism is a problem for us all!” I have invited Holocaust survivors and their families to speak to congregations. We have engaged in Jewish-Christian Dialogue in our communities. Yet, here we are several generations later, and there are those who either think The Holocaust is a hoax, or have simply never heard about it, let alone learn the lessons we need to learn. Looking through years of my papers and sermons on the subject, I ran across the story of a university teacher I had read about in Harper’s Magazine, who, when teaching college freshmen about Nazi Germany was met with students who could not understand what Hitler had done wrong. One of her students described Hitler in a term paper as “a kid with a dream, who, like a really big-time rock star, enjoyed a pretty good run at the top of the charts.” This was in the mid-1980s!

 

The Good News is that when I posted Hamlin’s essay on Facebook page, a former member of a parish I serve commented: “Yes, it is VERY dangerous. My grandfather was German and he told me the early signs of the rightism which surfaced there when the German people were starving and vulnerable. This kind of propaganda finds victims at a nation’s most vulnerable times, then the hate starts to spread like a cancer! We must ALL be aware!! LOVE is the ONLY answer during these turbulent times. Love will cause helping, understanding and sharing and ultimately win over evil and hatred. We need AWARENESS.”

 

Habakkuk comes to such an Awareness. The prophet understands that the Lord urges us to take sanctuary in the vision - If it seems to tarry, wait for it; salvation will surely come… Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith. A faith in which Love is at the center. As the priest Saint Maximillian Kolbe, who gave his life in Auschwitz to save another man’s life, put it: Hatred Destroys, Love Alone Creates. Like Kolbe, Habakkuk, and Jesus, we cannot remain silent. This is our Faith – it is the Faith of Jesus the Jew. If we make one choice today in the midst of ongoing hatred, division, and strife, let it be Love. Amen.

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