There is an old joke about a Jewish man who bought the weekly antisemitic newspaper. His friends were confused and eventually asked him why he was purchasing the antisemitic newspaper. He replied that whenever he reads a Jewish newspaper, it is filled with depressing news about the threats facing the Jewish community and our vulnerability. But when he reads the antisemitic newspaper, it’s filled with stories about how the Jews are powerful and control the media and global finance and are vanquishing all of our enemies. It’s much more pleasant to read the antisemtic newspaper and see how others perceive us.
It can be challenging to devise a definition of antisemitism because Jew hatred has been a consistent element of western society since antiquity. How can one find a concise definition of a diseased and distorted perspective that has been motivated, through the centuries, by a diverse range of ideologies from Christianity to Communism and that has taken on whatever language or political alliances that would be most potent in any given circumstance?
I think perhaps the most helpful and concise definition of an antisemite is someone who dislikes Jews…more than is reasonable.
But there are more sophisticated attempts at definition. The most recent episode of the shul’s Straw Hat Podcast featured a very extensive panel discussion between ASBI members Professor Sara Hirschhorn and Joel Braunold about precisely how challenging it can be to devise a description of antisemitism that covers many of the forms that it takes in the contemporary world and that is also not overly broad. There are two competing definitions of antisemitism right now and I encourage each of you to listen to the podcast; I learned a lot from the conversation.
But whatever definition of antisemitism someone wishes to adopt, some things are undeniably antisemtic. Assaulting Jews, because they are Jewish, whether in kosher restaurants or on the street or in a shul is antisemitic. The motivation of the assailant is secondary to his or her choice to target Jewish victims. Last Thursday morning I took my first bus ride in over a year and a man who was twice my height and four times my weight sat down next to me and began to mutter obscenities about the Holocaust and the Jew who had taken his seat. He seemed to be cognitively impaired in a serious way and so I don’t have a clear sense of who he is as a human being. But I know it was intimidating to inch along Belmont next to someone who was so threatening.
This week, I had a few conversations with local reporters about the graffiti in our neighborhood, including a large “Free Palestine” that was spray-painted 150 feet from the entrance to the shul on the corner of Melrose and Broadway. The reporters wanted to know if I thought the grafiti was antisemitic. I told them that it depended on whether or not the image of a crying man that was part of the message was intended to be a caricature of a Jew. Some people who saw it thought that was absolutely true. Some people looked at it and did not interpret it that way. So I guess that is a matter of artistic interpretation. The image was sandblasted away earlier this week but you can see a faint residue and go decide for yourself.
But then I told the reporter that while “free Palestine” was a perfectly legitimate political message, spray painting it just steps from our shul, at such a fraught moment, in the aftermath of a small war in Israel and numerous high-profile violent assaults on Jews and Jewish buildings in the United States, was bound to cause anxiety among the members of our community.
And I think many of us have been feeling anxious. If not because of the grafiti then maybe because of viral images of assaults in New York and Los Angeles. If we aren’t anxious about that, maybe we are anxious because of the sudden and precipitous erosion in Israel’s reputation among many segments of American society which raises unsettling questions about our own place among our erstwhile friends and colleagues.
And this is where our Torah portion becomes relevant.
When the spies returned from scouting Eretz Yisrael they recounted how intimidating it was to see the giants who lived there and whom they would need to eventually confront and defeat. We were so puny and small in comparison to those giants, the spies say: וַנְּהִ֤י בְעֵינֵ֙ינוּ֙ כַּֽחֲגָבִ֔ים – we were like grasshoppers in our own eyes – compared to the inhabitants of Canaan.
And then the spies say something else: וְכֵ֥ן הָיִ֖ינוּ בְּעֵינֵיהֶֽם׃ – and we appeared like grasshoppers in their eyes too.
What a curious addition. Abarbanel says that human nature tends to lead us to overlook our flaws and our weaknesses. If someone admits to feeling as puny as a grasshopper despite our natural tendency to inflate our own power…it stands to reason that others also see you as a puny grasshopper. Rashi says that the spies overheard the giant people of Canaan speaking about the spies, “look at those grasshoppers over there” and that’s how they knew.
But I think this line is just another example of the catastrophizing that the spies gave into when they faced a legitimately frightening situation. They interpreted their own subjective fears as though it were an objective reality and then imposed that onto their imagination of how others perceived them. This was a dangerous mistake for our ancestors and had disastrous consequences for the generation that was condemned to die in the desert. And this is a mistake that we should not repeat.
The ADL has reported double-digit increases in antisemtic attacks in the past month. That is very alarming and I hope that a lot of smart people and a lot of good people will spend a lot of time thinking of ways to reverse those trends. But when you start with a very small number, and then you increase it by 20 percent or 40 percent, the end result…is also a very small number. This rise in antisemitism should be a cause of concern, but it should not frighten us away from living our lives as proud Jews.
Last spring we shut down our shul before any government agency told us we had to and we waited two weeks until we reopened the shul after receiving permission to do so from the government. We don’t believe in bold and reckless gestures that put our lives at risk. It is still safe to walk the streets of our city with a kipah or other sign that identifies you as a Jew. I have four sons who wear kipot, three of them walk the streets of our city without any adult chaperons and I never considered asking them to modify their behavior in the past two weeks.
Grasshoppers are small and weak. They do not contribute to their community or to their surroundings. They do not live lives of solidarity or ,lives of meaning or lives of dignity. If we feel small and vulnerable, let’s reinvest in all the ways we are not similar to grasshoppers. Jewish life can offer us community, solidarity, dignity, and ethical excellence. We can support one another in hard times and celebrate together in joyous times. We can contribute to our neighborhood and leave the world a better place.
When communities in southern Israel faced a barrage of rocket attacks last month, we quickly raised money to relocate hundreds of civilians with hosts up north for a few days of desperately needed respite and peace. When they heard about a spike in antisemitic violence in the United States, some of those same people sent videos offering their support to us. The shul emailed some of those videos earlier in the week and I encourage you to watch them if you have not already done so.
When a confrontational message was spray-painted on Melrose Street earlier this week, we asked Talia Seidner, seventh grade member of ASBI and proprietor of “Seid_Walk_Chalk” to decorate the sidewalk in front of the shul with a beautiful message of Peace, in Hebrew and in English, contributing some beauty to our neighborhood and showcasing how proud we are to be Jewish in Lakeview.
Calev, in his dissent from the spies’ report tried to encourage the other Isralites: כִּֽי־יָכ֥וֹל נוּכַ֖ל לָֽהּ׃ – “we can do this” he cried. And that is the message we should hear this week. We can do this. We can continue to live safely as proud Jews here in Lakeview. We can show gratitude for the ebbing pandemic by returning to minyan and supporting our friends and neighbors saying kaddish. We can learn Torah and open our hearts to its message so that our impact on the world brings light and holiness and justice to the world.
We do face challenges, as Jews, both in Israel and in America. But the lesson of the spies is not to be so afraid that we ensure defeat.
כִּֽי־יָכ֥וֹל נוּכַ֖ל לָֽהּ
We’ve got this.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 