Worried About History Repeating Itself? We Have an Advantage.
In 1935, Herbert Lehman, then the Governor of New York, issued Rosh Hashanah greetings in The Jewish Advocate, extending to American Jews a “cordial and heartfelt good wishes for a happy and contented New Year.”
But Lehman — himself Jewish — also offered a somber note: “We cannot, however, fail to be deeply saddened by the tragic situation in Germany. There, 600,000 persons of our faith have been marked out for destruction. There, fanaticism, hatred and intolerance have reduced a loyal and patriotic people to the depths of despair and misery. Tyranny has taken the place of democracy and intolerance given full sway. They need our help as never before.”
Kristallnacht would not happen for another three years. The invasion of Poland and the beginning of World War II would follow. And the deadliest years of the Holocaust, and awareness thereof, was not until the early 1940s. But Lehman with his foresight understood that times were dire, with serious potential to get worse.
During the High Holidays the mood had been particularly poignant as we reflected on the past year since October 7th, mourning those lost and yearning for the return of those still being held hostage in Gaza.
The atmosphere in the United States feels changed as well. Anti-Israel militancy, especially visible on college campuses. Far-right extremism online. Politicians who engage in, or turn a blind eye to, concerning rhetoric or seem to only condemn antisemitism when it is convenient to do so.
While antisemitism was a far greater threat and more rampant in 1930s Germany, which Lehman was concerned about, we cannot help but draw parallels to today as we worry about history repeating itself. The Anti-Defamation League just reported “the highest number of [antisemitic] incidents ever recorded in any single year period” since they began tracking in 1979. And with binary thinking and media bubbles, people have become extreme, angry, and intolerant, just like Lehman feared with Germany. Democracy is threatened as well, in the form of foreign and domestic attacks against Israel and the United States.
Some might feel that things will inevitably get worse. After all, we are most familiar with the times when it did. But, whether one believes we are in 1930s Germany, 1920s Germany, or the Russian Empire at the turn of the 20th century, or some other dark period in Jewish history, there is one key difference that overrides all of these potential parallels. It is an obvious one, but it carries enormous power: the future has simply not happened yet. The power that we have, unlike those before us such as in Lehman’s time, is that for us, practically speaking, nothing is set in stone.
Unlike what occurred in the years that immediately followed 1935, what is before us is yet to come. This gives us, in a sense, an advantage — the advantage of antideterminism. That is — nothing is determined. Things can always change. Just as our personal slates are believed to be cleaned each year, so too with the direction of current events. We have yet to know what will happen, and we have the opportunity to do what we can to avoid a negative trajectory and produce positive outcomes.
Robert Paxton, a historian and expert on fascism, stresses that what happened in Hitler’s Germany was not inevitable. He believes that one of the main factors that allowed for Hitler’s rise to power were those who enabled him.
In his book, The Anatomy of Fascism, Paxton explains that “equally important” to the “strength of a fascist movement” is “conservative elites’ willingness to work with fascism; reciprocal flexibility on the fascist leaders’ part; and the urgency of the crisis that induced them to cooperate with each other.”
According to Paxton, understanding Hitler and Mussolini’s rise to power is, indeed, an “exercise in antideterminism.” History did not have to unfold as it did. “Conservative leaders rejected other possibilities,” he notes, such as “governing in coalition with the moderate Left” (woe is me!) or “governing under royal or presidential emergency authority.” Instead, they worked with the fascists.
Of course, it is difficult to predict how things will unfold. But if influential decision-makers had known how catastrophic Hitler’s reign would be, it is fair to assume they likely would have sought an alternate path. But there’s the rub; hindsight is 2020.
However, even with our limitations as predictors, we can take advantage of our antideterminism and wield our knowledge of the patterns of the past. Patterns that show how dangerous not only the extreme actors are, but their enablers as well. Patterns that show the real crisis we are in when a society is so polarized, allowing concerning movements to establish a foothold simply by saying that they are better than the other guys.
Channeling this hindsight, we should support leaders and influential figures who are most willing to combat antisemitism on either side of the political spectrum. Also, staying closer to the middle in our politics and being willing to hear multiple sides of an argument could help avoid the polarized climate often so detrimental to the Jewish people. Meanwhile, education can be a powerful tool to counteract malicious libels against Israel. And many Jewish organizations do a phenomenal job building relationships with those in power and advocating for common causes.
By learning from precedent we can work to truly ensure “Never Again” prevails — that our story is different from the select ones we fearfully learn about. Today we might relate to Lehman’s concerns. But with prayer and a proactive mindset, any such parallels have the potential to end there.