The Danger We Need to Respond To

Rabbi Menachem Mirski

CLICK HERE FOR THE POLISH TRANSLATION

Thoughts on parashat Nasso 5785

In a tiny shtetl in Poland, a Neil, a Jewish farmer, keeps a pig. Scandalous enough. But then rumors start flying that the pig… can read Hebrew.

The rabbi Mirski storms over, furious. “You’re teaching a pig to read Hebrew?!”

The farmer Neil shrugs. “He started with alef-bet. I didn’t think he’d get this far.”

Just then, the pig trots over, curls up beside a Chumash, and snorts out:

“Vayomer Adonai el Moshe…”

The Rabbi Mirski faints.

When he wakes up, he says, “This is an outrage! A pig reading Torah?!”

The farmer Neil says, “Relax, rabbi. He’s Reform.”

No matter if we are Reform, Conservative or Orthodox, there are at least two things that unite us all: 1. A common fate – we are all Jews at the end of the day, whether we like it or not. 2. We have at least one common goal – peace in the world. We differ in terms of visions of how to get there but the ultimate goal is the same and – what’s important – I believe – that the means we, Jews, undertake to achieve it are largely compatible.

Our parasha mentions peace at least once:

Speak to Aaron and his sons: Thus shall you bless the people of Israel. Say to them:

יהוה bless you and protect you!

יהוה deal kindly and graciously with you!

יהוה bestow [divine] favor upon you and grant you peace!

Thus they shall link My name with the people of Israel, and I will bless them.

(Numbers 6:22-27)

And there is a view, expressed by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, that the entire parashat Nasso talks about peace – that this is the underlying idea for all the laws and ideas expressed in it.

Very few things are, however, more worrisome for us Jews than the constant possibility, constant danger emerging towards us from the Gentile community. There is at least one factor causing and fueling it, and at the same time this factor constitutes a warning sign if something bad is going to happen. This factor, this fuel is obviously antisemitism.

Antisemitism has been studied for more than a century as for today. I, myself, studied it for a few years. But precisely because of that I don’t want to engage myself into another theoretical debate about it but rather focus on practical advice that would help us respond better to this problem and threat looming towards us from the general human environment.

The subject has been quite extensively studied and there are many ways to respond to antisemitism in practice, so many that I cannot present them here due to time/space limits (and even if I could, the amount of choices would probably cause another anxiety – it’s exactly what too much of a choice leads to). So let me narrow these ways down to those everyone can get involved in at any time in our everyday in person and our everyday internet encounters.

Here, I believe, are some of them:

1. Don’t engage with strangers. The number one rule here is not to comment on or respond to posts from people you don’t know. Do not amplify these voices by adding another comment.
2. Don’t engage with trolls: If someone is clearly hostile and unwilling to engage in good faith, it’s often best to avoid further interaction, according to the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati.
3. If you have reasons to respond (for example, your good friend is gravitating towards the ideas dangerously close to being classified as antisemitic) don’t be afraid to confront hate speech directly and call things by their names: call out antisemitism if you encounter it. If you encounter an anti-Semitic website, contact ADL and/or the site’s host carrier to complain and request that the site be taken down.
4. Post positive messages of support and factual information on your own pages and accounts. And remember, it’s okay to take a break from social media too.
5. If someone you do know posts something antisemitic, anti-Israel, or false, respond to what they said, but do not attack their character. If you see an acquaintance posting something offensive or false, the best response often starts with an “I” statement: “I disagree with what you’ve posted here because I see it as antisemitic. Here’s why….” Or “I am troubled by this post because it contains false information. Here is what I know about this…” Respond in a way that reflects the values of peace that you are defending.
6. Report hate speech to social media platforms. The Union for Reform Judaism in partnership with the Anti-Defamation League, the world’s leading anti-hate organization, offers digital resources for both congregations and individuals with the tools to respond to acts of antisemitism and hate in their communities. Learn more about this partnership and find helpful links here. The Anti-Defamation League also has a useful guide for reporting hate speech directly to social media and gaming platforms. If this person is a public figure with corporate sponsorships, contact their sponsors to lodge a complaint about the antisemitic or anti-Israel language. These tools are not perfect, but they are something tangible that you can do, and you can encourage others to join you.

In some more general advice I would include:

1. Whenever you create content make it individual: personal stories speak to human emotion better and generally more convincing. (according to FedWeb)
2. Fundraise or support financially all kinds of community programs and events, or more generally, the entire organizations built to fight anti-Semitism.
3. Again, when you create content, broaden to universal human behavior, i.e. when someone uses a stereotype, point out that the behavior applies to many people, not just Jewish people (according to FedWeb).

Remember that not everything we typically perceive as antisemitic is, in fact, antisemitic. There is a spectrum, even here, and remember that people you talk with may be on the fence or may not have opinions at all. Also, if someone is condescending, it doesn’t necessarily mean this person is hostile or hateful. All this is actually promising because it definitely leaves room for our work.

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Mirski