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Globalize the light
A message to those who seek to 'globalize the intifada': With your unbounded hate, I say, we Jews have been here before and we know how to shine in the darkest places
"For years now, you’ve tried to distort who we are and victimize us. Too often, your vicious chants have made us narrow ourselves and shrink to fit the size of your hate. Jewish adults wonder if they are welcome in their offices and neighborhoods. Jewish students wonder if they are worthy of love if on campuses around the world, people their age imply they are not worthy of life. Jewish children live in fear that their schools and houses of worship could be attacked on any day, even on a holiday.
"But, of course, this is your goal. But not your end-goal. Your end goal is ultimately to end all of Jewish life. Hate like this is not bounded. We have been here before. We recognize the signs. Subtle and incremental at first, the stereotypes soon morph into an unstoppable torrent of violence.
"Know this. While you globalize hate, we will globalize light. We will light our Hanukkah candles more proudly than ever. Isaiah the prophet told us long ago to be a covenant people, to bring light, to go to the darkest places and “open eyes deprived of light.” We will light our tiny flame, and every night it will increase into more light.
"To those who deny terrorism, murder, rape, and the cost to humanity that identity politics has exacted, know that we will never forget that Isaiah also warns against those who call “evil good and good evil,” who present “darkness as light, light as darkness,” and bitter as sweet.
"Language matters. Those who threaten violence with words encourage extremists who commit violence with guns. If you stood in an encampment in Boston, on a street corner in Johannesburg, on a stage in Manhattan, at a soccer game in London, or in a government hall in Dublin with a placard that says “Globalize the Intifada” or “Resistance by Any Means Necessary,” know that you have Australian Jewish blood on your hands right now.
"Helen Fein defined antisemitism as a “persisting latent structure of hostile belief towards Jews as a collectivity manifested in individuals as attitudes, and in culture as myth, ideology, folklore, and imagery, and in actions — social or legal discrimination, political mobilization against Jews, and collective or state violence — which results in and/or is deigned to distance, displace, or destroy Jews as Jews.” Distance. Displace. Destroy.
"The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance makes the connection between a corruptible idea of Jewishness and the taking of Jewish life clear: “A certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
"My teacher, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, called antisemitism a virus that attacks the body and continually mutates while constantly contradicting itself: “In the past Jews were hated because they were rich and because they were poor, because they were capitalists and because they were communists, because they kept to themselves and because they infiltrated everywhere, because they held tenaciously to a superstitious faith and because they were rootless cosmopolitans who believed nothing.”
"Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, in Antisemitism: Here and Now, identifies both intentional and clueless antisemites who have “internalized antisemitic stereotypes” and are guilty of perpetuating “an insidious and insulting ethnic stereotype.” Bari Weiss told us, in How to Fight Anti-Semitism, to be honest about the extent of antisemitism and its costs. She told us to trust our discomfort and not to minimize our pain.
"Our brothers and sisters in Sydney were among the first to light Hanukkah candles in the world this year. In each time zone, we will continue to spread holiday light so that they know they are not alone, even though you’ve tried so hard to isolate us. Know this: We will endure. We will continue to love and worship and believe in humanity, no matter how you betray us and make us small. We are used to being small. That is where our strength lies.
"We will continue to be nourished by the Jewish mystic’s words: “Every single day, a ray of light shines into the world, keeping everything alive; with that ray God feeds the world.” As hard as it is this Hanukkah, we will outshine you."
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About the Author: Dr. Erica Brown is the vice provost for Values and Leadership, Yeshiva University and the director of its Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership. Her latest book is 'The Torah of Leadership: Weekly Essays on the Parsha.'
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