MLK Day Lessons from Mississippi and Pirkei Avot

Like many of my generation, I grew up venerating and admiring Dr. Martin Luther King.  I think he is one of the reasons I became a human rights advocate.  Many Jewish leaders supported Dr. King and marched with him.  We are mindful of and grateful for his support of the Jewish community and our struggles against antisemitism and hate crimes and discrimination.

We especially appreciate his support for Zionism as the legitimate movement for the self-determination of the Jewish people and its rights to its historic land in Israel and its rights to defend it.   He called out anti-zionists as the antisemites they are. So should you!

As a precocious Baby Boomer child of a Shoah survivor, I and my family were very aware of politics and current events and the civil rights struggles and social changes going on around us.  Somehow we knew instinctively that an offense against the human rights of any of us is an offense against all of us, and that all of us must stand together.

When I came of age and graduated from my Jewish Hebrew dayschool in the 1970s, I chose a quote from Pirkei Avot, The Ethics of the Sages, that sounded to me like a compelling and urgent call to action from Dr. Martin Luther King or the flamboyant and stylish Jewish feminists like Gloria Steinem I looked like at the time with my long blonde hair, aviator glasses, and jeans and sneakers.

Hillel said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?  If I am only for myself, what am I?  And if not now, when?”  (Avot 1:14).

I have learned some of my most important lessons in ethics and political life from this key ethical tractate of the Talmud from the time I was a child of ten at Hebrew school, and am still learning from it today.  You can find Pirkei Avot in most Jewish prayer books, the greatest hits compilation of the Jewish tradition, and accessible to everyone.  Read it!

I highly recommend Rabbi Rami Shapiro’s wise annotated modern translation of Pirkei Avot. http://www.skylightpaths.com/page/product/978-1-59473-207-2

For the traditional Jews, here’s a concise link from the Sefaria online Jewish library.  https://voices.sefaria.org/sheets/35125?lang=bi

I am an avid student of social history and politics and share the struggles of various marginalized communities for equality, respect, and human rights and dignity.  I live in a city about one hour west of Toronto with Canada’s highest national rate of hate crimes by population against vulnerable minorities, Jews, Blacks and People of Color and Indigenous People (BIPOC), and members of the LGBTQ community.

Sadly, hate crime attacks on visible minorities and LGBTQ folks are often far more violent with limited police support, but this is not a contest about who has been more victimized.  We know that violent attacks on Jews and synagogues are taking place.

I find it upsetting when comfortable uptown Jews and their institutions and media who are understandably upset and chagrined by the resurgence of contemporary antisemitism and harassment and hate crimes often seem silent about  the challenges faced by other minorities.

Our media are often inconsistent.  They call for increasingly uncivil ‘free speech’ for themselves, but not other historically disadvantaged minorities, and advocate against Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) practices, women’s rights, trans rights, and LGBTQ rights, and call anyone who cares about these things ‘woke’ as if that is any argument.  Call them what they are – regressive and oppressive and really no great friends of ours.

Our recent news coverage from Winnipeg of increasing acts of vandalism against Jewish synagogues including painted graffiti swastikas, also victimizing secular community centers, schools and churches, and the coverage of stolen Mezuzahs in senior citizens’ apartment complexes in Toronto, however upsetting, often lacks a sense of proportion.

There is a justifiable cry of anxiety, anguish and restrained outrage, with the requisite statements from victims and Holocaust survivors and rabbis and Jewish advocacy organizations, and demands for accountability, but the hate crimes continue.  There is also the risk of attracting copy-cat hate crimes by over-reporting these crimes to media.

One increasingly feels that the brief period of relative inclusion and equality the Jewish community enjoyed in Canada and western democracies in the mid to late 20th century was a short blip in history rather than a linear indication of lasting progress and equality, equity, and inclusion.  These interfaith ‘dialogues’ don’t seem to be working somehow.

These days, all media outlets read and echo one another online, and we can expect distressing photos and reports of hate crimes and quotes from victims, sometimes by well-meaning but overly exploitive media who seem to demonstrate a suspicious fascination with attacks on distressed Jews, and sometimes by allies who are trying to signal their sympathies to the community by over-reporting.  One cannot control these factors.

The recent arson attack on Beth Israel Synagogue in Mississippi brought these lessons home to me very painfully, along with the pride and defiance of Dr. King. The images of the fire bombed synagogue reminded me of the worst Nazi attacks on synagogues in the Holocaust, whose sentiments remain alive and well today in antisemitic extremism on the far left and far right and related escalating hate crimes.  I was deeply distressed.

Torah scrolls were lost in the fire, and the library and its books were torched.  The arsonist bragged to his father about his attack on the synagogue.  I chose to do what I could and urged my contacts to support Beth Israel’s rebuilding fund and extend their sympathies to the congregation.  Here is the link:  https://www.bethisraelms.org/

This synagogue, one of Mississippi’s oldest, was previously attacked by arson in 1967, as was its rabbi,  in a state known for some of the most brutal attacks on visible minorities and murders of Black and Jewish civil rights workers.

Say their names and look them up on Wikipedia, Goodman, Schwerner, Cheney.  Look up the police brutality and coverups and white supremacist groups’ complicity in their deaths.  Remember them and learn from their examples.  We are as much at risk today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Chaney,_Goodman,_and_Schwerner

In the context of so many vicious antisemitic attacks on synagogues and Jewish centers, our well meaning political leaders and media and professional contacts, who are non-Jewish but hoping to express their sympathies, are often at a loss as to what to do.

They know that their churches and Sunday schools and businesses are not similarly being attacked, and that their world views and religious and political perspectives are still largely reflected in their neighborhoods, schools, media, universities, social clubs and workplaces.  They mean well.  But they are not as urgently motivated as we are.

Some are a little more cynical and exploitive and seem to regard the Jewish community as a monolithic ‘voter bloc’ to be assembled on cue for these increasingly unsafe community gatherings with the requisite dignitaries expressing their photo-op sympathies, fruitlessly, accompanied by the Chief of Police and media coverage, in an election year, to no avail.

Here’s what I said after the news of the firebombing of Beth Israel Mississippi.  I shared it with political leaders and media contacts and community contacts in the Jewish and wider civil rights and equity seeking communities.  I wrote it in pain and anguish.

I don’t know what effect it had.  But I noticed that the often anti-semitic but leftist and wellmeaning CBC removed the most horrifying pictures of the arson attack on Beth Israel from its website.  It was a relief.  We all worry about similar attacks on our synagogues and Jewish dayschools and how often these have happened in Canada.  Too often.

Here is what I said:  I am getting tired of the hand-wringing statements of sympathy from our non-Jewish colleagues and allies whenever Jewish sites (now under extreme threat) are attacked.  Please, just put your money where your mouths are and do the right thing.