A New Year’s Sermon
by Bill Lasarow
September 28, 2024
“Happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens … May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”
— George Washington, Letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island 1790
Yitzchok Moully, “Shofar 5782 (2021),” 2021, aerosol on fence. Courtesy of the artist.
Hey, Happy New Year. Well, Shanah Tovah more specifically. This coming week is the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. It’s on the late side this year because when we started marking the New Year it was all tied to the lunar calendar. Hell, no one back then knew that the earth revolves around the sun. In those days it was normal to assume that the sun goes around the earth. So Jewish cosmology of several thousand years ago rewarded us with a New Year holiday that continues to be not only celebrated, but remains at the very center of Jewish holiday gatherings. But it jumps around on our modern calendar. Together with Yom Kippur we have over a week that goes by the solemn name of the High Holy Days. Excepting such variables such as illness, Jews show up in person at Temple for this annual occasion if for nothing else. Jewish identity and tradition is firmly planted on the Torah and the High Holy Days. Together with the Torah, they form the twin pillars of Jewish identity and tradition. It’s the basic armature from which the rich particulars of Judaism blossom.
Zinovii Tolkatchev, “Taleskoten,” 1944, gouache, charcoal and crayon on paper.
Courtesy of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Jerusalem.
Whether you are Jewish or not, you probably are aware of our unique, often so very tragic, history — the Nazi Holocaust if nothing else. Periods of relative tranquility that last more than a few generations are rare. It is fair to mark our period of relative (not absolute!) American tranquility from George Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island in 1790. It was a most reassuring message of religious freedom. That was, let’s see, 234 years ago. Impressive; we hope to maintain and improve on that legacy.
The historical record, however, does show that even long periods of serenity for us Jews come to an end at some point. The central project for the current living generations of Jews is to craft improvements to the larger human project of freedom and tranquility. If the relative peace of our life in America is a gift to celebrate in the context of our High Holidays, it is our moral mission to enable that gift to expand to include other minority communities that have not been so fortunate. At the same time, we also share another right with all other members of our species: the right to defend ourselves. Tranquility is a product of that right, and will be so as long as humanity struggles to mature beyond the toxic mixture of the technologies of war and the impulse towards aggression. Jewish security can be capsized just as surely as the proverbial canary can be poisoned in the coal mine. Even in America, and perhaps very soon.
Maurycy Gottlieb, “Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur,” 1878, oil on canvas.
Courtesy of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv.
As Jews we become natural targets for some who do not know a thing about Judaism or Jews. People who are bigots in general and antisemites in particular tend to share this ignorance. Bigotry springs forth from such ignorance, replacing it with evidence-free stereotypes. Jews are among the smallest of such minority groups. That can be a wonderful advantage. Your Jewish presence can be easily hidden. You probably wouldn’t peg me as Jewish unless you asked me. And I’d tell you; I’m happy and quite proud to be and to be seen as Jewish. I think it’s great that there are a number of types of Jews. I does bother me to know there are some segments of our own people who would refuse to accept me, your nice Jewish writer, as a member of the tribe, because I’m not Jewish enough. You mean that if I’m not Jewish in the same way that you are, I’m not Jewish at all? (Say that out loud a few times; you’ll start to feel like an idiot.) Perhaps I don’t follow their dress code, leave my beard and sideburns untrimmed, or observe the Sabbath the prescribed fashion. To some Jews these are unforgivable transgressions. Don’t scoff, think about women’s dress codes in Iran. The mentality is about the same. Islamic women’s simmering contempt will blow up again at some point.
Jonathan Horowitz, “Power,” 2019.
Courtesy of Jonathan Horowitz and Sadie Coles HQ, London. Photo: Robert Glowacki.
So here’s the way the antisemites see us: we are the lynchpin of an international conspiracy to not only overturn their status as the rightful owners of the land, but to strip away their entitlements and replace them altogether. This is a ludicrous and suicidal theory. There are around 16 million Jews alive today, about .2% of the global population. No, we have no interest at all in replacing anyone. What a dumb idea, it would be a fool’s errand to even try. But antisemites fantasize that, right up to the death camps, that Jews pull all the levers. Trump’s tale of an invasion of immigrant zombies, sorry, people of color, pouring uncontrollably into America through this paranoid fantasy of an open border for the purpose of doing away with White Christians. About 14% of our population is made up of immigrants, of which 11-12 million are undocumented. In the past there have been times in which about 15% of naturalized Americans were immigrants. The percentage fluctuates, and today it stands within that historical range. In 1970 that percentage stood at a historically low of about 5%, and even then many Americans felt the country to be inundated.
Trump greatly, as always without shame, exaggerates the numbers to stoke the illusion of a crisis. Haitian immigrants, living here legally in the small city of Springfield, Ohio, comprise around 12,000 legal residents. This number become inflated to 32,000, all illegals. In a second Trump presidency his planned mass deportations will brook no distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. These mostly people of color form the very backbone of our multicultural democracy. For them wokeism is merely being aware that racism and bigotry are still a factor to contend with in America. Trump’s cult has been brainwashed to believe that these communities are well organized. And by whom? The Jews of course. We blend into the White world, able to secretly gather intelligence with which to orchestrate the grand replacement conspiracy. Without us, the story goes, there is no way these shithole communities would pose a threat.
Ben Shahn, “We Fight for a Free World!” ca. 1942, gouache and tempera on board, 13 x 29”.
Courtesy of the estate of Ben Shahn and Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York.
The bigots have got it utterly wrong. We Jews, like so many others, seek the freedom to pursue happiness as guaranteed by the Constitution. For us the ideas of “equality” and “opportunity" serve as aspirational beacons. We want this not just for ourselves but for everyone. We want even the bigots to succeed, just not in their bigotry. The beliefs that justify their hatred and their fear are false and harmful to everyone, not least of all themselves.
