Dear Friends,
I hope everyone has had a happy Hanukkah so far – despite is awful start with the horrible news from Australia. We cannot allow such atrocity to feel routine and yet it does seem that we have fallen into a tragic pattern of response. We’re not surprised, we grieve, we yell and scream, everyone moves on – and it happens again. Meanwhile, Jews keep dying for no reason other than being Jews.
I know many of you feel particularly close to the community in Sydney, and of course our own Rabbi Rafi and his community are there, and deeply affected. It is impossible not to be struck by such an entirely preventable tragedy. Of course, there are many inspiring stories of heroism and much that makes us cherish the human spirit that encounters such hatred and carries on – but we shouldn’t need to summon that spirit in the first place.
I worry that our passivity in face of the literal murder of Jewish people just reinforces this assumption that it is inevitable. That of course, a certain number of Jewish events, buildings and individuals will be attacked. We’re so good at responding to tragedy, we often jump to memorialising before we’ve really had a chance to digest what has occurred. It is a perfectly sensible and eminently practical defence mechanism, as a people, but it can be counterproductive all the same.
It is not a mystery how antisemitism leads to dead Jews. It is not a mystery where this violence emerges from. It is not a mystery how to stop it. We must quit pretending there is ambiguity when there is predictable, repeatable, clarity. 16 Jews are dead on Bondi Beach, murdered in cold blood by Islamist terrorists, empowered by government and societal toleration of calls to ‘globalise the intifada’ and supported by a considerable segment of the population in the West. If we can’t accept that as the truth of the problem, we have no hope of starting to develop a solution to it.
I had the privilege to attend the lighting of the Menorah at 10 Downing Street on Tuesday – a surreal experience, admittedly. I, as I expect many others who attended, felt a slight sense of unease at being in such a space so close to such a tragedy. Would it all just be brushed under the rug with a call for love and kindness? Would our right to be absolutely furious about the senseless murder of our people be hampered? I’m pleased to say it wasn’t – and actually, that the Prime Minister expressed the same sentiments in more or less the same words that I, and many, were feeling.
In his remarks, Starmer was unequivocal:
“We’ve got to defeat all ideologies of hatred against Jews, and that includes Islamist ideologies of hatred towards Jews—a political ideology distinct from Islam and abhorrent to the vast majority of Muslims. But we have to address that ideology. We have to recognise what it is and call it out for what it is. We’ve got to end the passive acceptance of poisonous words, because we know where poisonous words lead. We’ve seen it over and over again: words here, action over there, and the instilling of fear everywhere.”
Personally, I found this quite comforting. To be in 10 Downing Street, lighting the Menorah with the Prime Minister’s family, and to hear him clearly express what we ourselves are so often afraid to say aloud, was deeply reassuring.
Judaism and Islam have no inherent conflict with one another. In fact, they have an awful lot of similarities. But – the segments of the Muslim population who adopt the politicised Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iranian regime and its proxies, or any other extremist ideology that distorts religious life into a vehicle for terror, must be confronted. Polite deference to the important work of interfaith engagement has frequently clouded our judgement and our clarity, and made us unfairly afraid to identify the issue. Sadly, Islamist antisemitism is not the only sort we need to contend with – we face many fronts – but obviously there is a strain of thinking within Islam which is real, live, and poses a very lethal threat to Jewish communities.
Throughout the last two years, I have often turned to Dara Horn for insight into the challenges we face. Her incredible book, People Love Dead Jews, was an eye-opener for many, and she has continued to be a keen analyst of the Jewish condition. I highly encourage you to read her piece in the Atlantic, published on the first anniversary of 7 October, October 7 Created a Permission Structure for Antisemitism.
The conclusion of that piece – which I’ve returned to many times recently – sticks with me so powerfully:
“American Holocaust educators often ask me what they should be teaching as the ‘lessons of the Holocaust.’ The question itself is absurd. As one of my readers once put it, Auschwitz was not a university, and most Jews who arrived there were immediately gassed and incinerated, making it difficult for them to produce coursework in ethics for the rest of the world to enjoy. But there is indeed something we can learn from the long history of anti-Semitism and the societies it has destroyed: We’ve fallen for this before. After this terrifying year, I hope we can find the courage to say, Never again.”
If there is a lesson to Hanukkah, it is a lesson that is shared with the experience of the last week and the last few years. It is a simple lesson but one that many of us still don’t want to learn: no one is coming to save us but ourselves. Strong words and strong action by the government is critical – but we cannot rely on anyone but us having our best interest at heart. To protect ourselves and literally save our lives we have to be bold, we have to be courageous, and we have to be honest. Honest about where the threats come from and honest about how to address them.
The very end of Theodore Herzl’s Zionist manifesto, The Jewish State, seems so prescient now, especially on Hanukkah, even though it was written in 1896, in the midst of the Dreyfus Trial and soaring antisemitism. It was an attempt to get Jews to wake up to the danger they faced and stop assuming assimilation was the solution. Herzl, despite never seeing it manifest himself, had hope for the Jewish future:
“I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence. The Maccabeans will rise again. Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who wish for a State will have it. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes. The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.”
May that spirit of the Maccabees, of justice and righteousness, dwell amongst us – give us strength and courage to withstand the hatred we face. May it bring good for us, for all the Jewish people, and for the whole world.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Adam
