Author: Rabbi David Wirtschafter

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Immigration Inclusion

Calling Somalis ‘Garbage’: A Jewish Response to Racist Rhetoric

“To condemn a class is, to say the least, to wrong the good with the bad. I do not like to hear a class or nationality condemned on account of a few sinners.”

These words were written by President Lincoln during the Civil War. He was overriding General Grant’s order to expel Jews from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi for suspicion of price gouging and collaborating with the enemy.

Note that the President does not say that all Jews are innocent, that none deserve to be punished, or that there is nothing to worry about. His response to Grant’s overreach is emblematic of religious and democratic values.

The Abraham of Genesis righteously stands up to God and argues on behalf of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah: “Will not the source of justice do justly? Will You wipe out the innocent with the guilty?”

Like his biblical namesake, Lincoln was distressed that guilt by association would lead to unjust consequences. Even during an arduous civil war, he articulates that there is no place for this kind of characterization and treatment of an entire people.

Would that we could say the same of President Donald Trump? As if body shaming were not enough, as if mocking the disabled were not enough, as if trivializing the assassination of a journalist were not enough, President Trump has returned to his familiar pattern of misrepresenting and attacking an entire class of people. We have seen him do it with Mexicans, we have heard him do it with Haitians, and just recently, the target of his wrath has been Somalis.

Let’s start with this: Mr. President, no human being is garbage. Racists are not garbage. Vaccine deniers are not garbage. Climate change deniers are not garbage. Participants in the January 6 assault are not garbage. One can disapprove of their ideas. One can resent their actions. One can work to counter their efforts. All of this is possible without calling them garbage.

I lived in Minneapolis with my wife and children from 2008 to 2015. The Minneapolis Jewish Day School, where I taught and where my children learned, had an interfaith partnership program with a charter school where most of the students were Somali. From 2012 to 2015, our neighbors across the street were a Somali family. I will not stand by and say nothing while an entire class of people are recklessly maligned. Have some Somalis defrauded social benefits programs? It would not shock me. Nor would it shock me to find out that Norwegian, Irish, Swedish, German, Russian, Slovakian, and Ukrainian Minnesotans have committed fraud. The public should care less about the nationality, ethnicity, religious, or political ideology of fraudsters and care more about fraud. Yet we don’t hear the President referring to fraudsters who are white, Christian, and from European countries as “garbage.” We do not hear him saying that these people take advantage of social support programs and contribute nothing. It appears as if the legacy of Lincoln is lost on President Trump.

Leadership demands responsibility, discernment, consideration, and compassion. Past presidents have been anything but perfect. Just as American history itself. But Lincoln’s refusal to accede to Grant’s plan to deport Southern Jews en masse is an example of restraint, consciousness, and integrity.

Contrary to President Trump’s claims, there is no evidence of “Somali gangs terrorizing” Minnesota neighborhoods. We know all too well how unsubstantiated claims lead to suffering on a systemic scale. In just a few weeks, we will begin the Book of Exodus, in which Pharaoh tells Egypt that there are too many Hebrews and asserts without evidence that if they are not quickly subjugated, they may join the country’s enemies in war. Torah and Jewish history are replete with examples of what happens when we are maligned in the name of someone’s political or personal agenda. We have seen this movie before. It does not end well. We have a duty as Jews to call out this behavior for what is: bullying and bigotry. It is unbecoming in anyone but especially the leader of the free world.

At a Somali gathering in Saint Cloud, Minnesota this week, a member of the community sang “America the Beautiful.” The poem, by Katherine Lee Bates, contains the powerful words: “America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!”

May our President devote himself to mending his flawed words and false accusations.

May he replace carelessness with self-control.

And may he, and all of us, remember that our liberties are grounded in the guiding principle that no one in this great land is above the law.

May this be our blessing and let us say: Amen.

Rabbi David Wirtschafter of Temple Adath Israel in Lexington, Kentucky, serves on the CCAR Resolutions Committee and is the CCAR liaison to the Jewish Rohingya Justice Network.

Categories
Holiday News Social Justice

Reflections on Purim in 2021: COVID-19 and Modern-Day Genocide

This year, the lessons of Purim feel truer than ever.

This pandemic will not prevent us from celebrating Purim (socially distanced, of course). But Purim needs to be more than celebrated; it needs to be observed. Exchanging disease prevention masks for Purim masks during online celebrations is not enough. To observe Purim is to protest ethnic cleansing and genocide.

We know—viscerally, painfully—that religious freedom is not a lesson from ancient stories but an ongoing quest even today. While many of us are fighting antisemitism in our home countries, we are also in solidarity with the Rohingya people of Burma, who have been persecuted for decades. A predominantly Muslim ethnic minority in Burma (Myanmar), the persecution escalated to a full-blown genocide in 2017, and in the wake of the military coup just a few weeks ago, their dreams of one day returning to their homeland grows fainter. The military in Burma overthrew the democratically elected government a few weeks ago in a coup—the same military who, for years, has been carrying out the genocide against the Rohingya people and oppressing other ethnic minorities.

Right now in Burma, people from all ethnic backgrounds are joining together in civil disobedience in response to the coup—and their methods look familiar. People are taking to the streets banging pots and pans. The videos of these peaceful, noisy protests are inspiring: ordinary people are making noise. Listening to a m’gillah reading on Purim, we rejoice in shaking our groggers when we hear Haman’s name—making noise to express our solidarity with each other, and to find joy even in the midst of recalling painful stories. People all over Burma are making noise now—maybe not with groggers, but we are connected to them just the same.

With holidays like Purim to bolster us and our people’s recent history to ground us, Jews today know deeply the importance of standing up with and for people who face genocide, who face state-sanctioned persecution because of their religion. The suffering, mass murder, and forced displacement of the predominantly Muslim Rohingya community speaks deeply to us and compels us to act. We know we need to make noise. We need to act.

But we can be grateful to live in a world where action is possible. That’s why the CCAR is now a member of the Jewish Rohingya Justice Network: a network of thirty Jewish organizations from across the U.S. all taking action against the ongoing genocide.

This Purim, we are not only thinking about the Rohingya genocide as we read from the m’gillah once again and shake our groggers. I’m also holding how much the world has changed since last Purim, and what lessons we can learn from Purim in a pandemic.

Holocaust survivor, author, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel struggled with the problematic nature of Purim. How is it that a people who has suffered so greatly can make a holiday out of a state-sponsored genocide plot and the fighting that followed? Why is it that a people that values learning, wisdom, and fine distinctions created a custom calling on us to get so giddy that we cannot tell the difference between “blessed be Mordechai” and “cursed be Haman”?

What does it say about our love of justice that not only the villain, but his ten sons too are killed once the king changes sides in the conflict? It doesn’t sound all that Jewish, does it? We were blessed to have Wiesel for as long as we did, but it would have been fascinating to read the insights he had to offer on the meaning of Purim during a pandemic. We now inhabit a reality where wearing a mask is not reserved for holidays and parties but a discipline of daily life. Like the Persians of the M’gillah, the American public has been fed misinformation about minorities while as recently as January antisemites and racists had ready access to the inner courts of power when they attacked the U.S. Capitol.

What would Wiesel, who spent Purim of 1945 in Buchenwald, struggling to stay alive for liberation a few weeks later, have to say about Purim 2021? We will never know the answer. What we do know is that Wiesel devoted his life’s work to bearing witness to genocide in the hope that future ones could be prevented. A modern-day prophet, he preached a message about the perils of apathy, complicity, and inaction. He told us to make noise when people are suffering because of their ethnicity, their religion. Like the prophets of old, his message was and remains all too often unheeded, and millions of people have paid the price.

Even in the midst of this joyful holiday, we mourn those lost to genocide. And we mourn those we have lost to the pandemic. We must bear witness to their deaths by making the world a more just and compassionate place. We must analyze the systemic failures that kept us from preventing more deaths and scrutinize the missed opportunities that would have saved more lives. So, too, we must be mindful that COVID-19 has not meant a hiatus from genocide and ethnic cleansing. The Rohingya face an uphill battle, as do the Uyghurs in China, and the Yazidis in Iraq, who remain in peril while powerful nations procrastinate instead of using their power.   

To follow Esther’s example requires us to use our privilege and our access to advocate for others rather than just worrying about ourselves. Thank you to CCAR and the Jewish Rohingya Justice Network for giving American Jews a voice against modern-day genocide, so we can continue Wiesel’s work of bearing witness. Today, call your senator and ask them to move forward legislation that would support the Rohingya people, and all ethnic minorities in Burma. When you shake your groggers at Haman’s name this Purim, picture the Burmese people shaking their groggers against modern-day Hamans, and feel the warmth of continued solidarity even across generations and continents. Wishing you a Purim of happiness, holiness and hope.

Rabbi David Wirtschafter serves Temple Adath Israel in Lexington, Kentucky.

Categories
News Social Justice

The Messy Truth of Legacy

Racist Realities and the Need to Stop Romanticizing

All of us are capable of racism. The first family of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are no exception, and neither are we. “Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married: ‘He married a Cushite woman!’” (Numbers 12:1). In a sensitive and thought-provoking Torah commentary, Rabbi Hannah Goldstein acknowledges Miriam’s contributions while still holding her accountable for her ugly behavior in this particular passage:

“Our Biblical heroes are often flawed, and we can learn as much from their missteps as we can from their positive example. This is also true of so many of our historic heroes, as no record is uncomplicated and without stains. I imagine that Miriam’s belittling of her sister-in-law wounded her brother deeply, and it certainly revealed something quite problematic about her character. But Miriam also remained the protective sister who placed Moses in the water and watched over him until his safe rescue from the river. She was the bold musician who confidently led the people in song and dance when they safely crossed into freedom; she was the nourishing force that quenched their thirst in the desert. Few leaders are without fault, but in our reading of the text, we acknowledge the messy truth of legacy. We can both confront the painful shortcomings of our heroes and make room to celebrate their virtues.”

For far too long we have selectively celebrated our contributions to the Civil Rights Movement while conveniently forgetting or ignoring examples of our failures. Yes, there were brave and righteous Jews who marched in Selma, donated generously to the cause, and even gave their lives in the struggle against segregation and Jim Crow. Yet there were also far too many of us who were complicit and complacent with racist regimes. Too many of us were silenced by fear of what would happen if we stood up and spoke out. Too many rabbis were more afraid of losing their jobs than losing their self-respect. We need to allocate more time to reflecting on racist realities and less time to an overly romanticized version of how heroic we were.

Today’s growing chorus of voices proclaiming “Black Lives Matter” compels us to do more than demand an end to police brutality, terrorist attacks on Black Churches, and appalling disparities in income, education, housing, and health care. Like the disturbing sibling story in this week’s Torah portion, our current moment calls on us to consider the unsolicited comments, nasty quips and cruel utterances that we have hurled within our own families and within the greater family of the progressive Jewish world.

Painful testimonials of how congregants, or prospective congregants of color, were spoken to with condescension, suspicion, and ignorance demonstrate that we have tremendous work to do in making Jews of Color feel at home in our congregations. 

Over the past few weeks, the Union for Reform Judaism and the Religious Action Center have made a number of videos and conversations about these experiences available. Improving the way we engage with Jews of Color was already a priority for our Movement but the most recent killings of black citizens at the hands of police and former police have added a greater sense of urgency to this self-scrutiny. 

Just because we Jews have experienced oppression doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of saying or doing racist things. Our history of enduring injustice does not constitute immunity from engaging in it. The fact that Miriam was a slave in Egypt didn’t prevent her from making racist comments. Being a religious minority doesn’t preclude us from enjoying privileges of whiteness, making unwise choices, and saying foolish things. 

God of Grace and Goodness, grant us the humility to admit when we have been wrong, the integrity to confess unflattering chapters of our history, and the tenacity to confront racism and bigotry both within and without the congregations we call home.

 May this be our blessing and let us say: Amen.

Rabbi David Wirtschafter serves Temple Adath Israel in Lexington, Kentucky.