I
write this with trepidation, it is deeply personal and will undoubtedly
upset many people. But it needs to be said and there has never been a
more opportune time.
It
is heartening to see many Jewish people showing solidarity with black
Americans in their struggle to end mistreatment by the police.
But
to be honest, I think it is a relatively easy cause for the community
to support. We are not the police, so it doesn't force us to do
introspection (heshbon nefesh). Why not jump on the bandwagon with this
popular cause - what do we have to lose?
However,
there is another disgraceful situation in which we are complicit if not
personally responsible. I am referring to the persistent casual racism
in the Jewish community.
It
is not victimless and it is not harmless - it is exactly the biblical
prohibition of Onaat Dvarim - hurtful speech. As a child of a black
convert to Judaism I have been personally traumatized by this many
times. So many refined people have been wonderful friends to me
personally and to my family, and I would never want to seem ungrateful
for that. Yet there are also far too many incidents of racism for me to
ignore. I will share some that come to mind.
In
our elementary school we had a rabbi who, when telling stories, would
invariably play the role of the "bad guy" in his parody of black
american english.
In my
high school, we had a rabbi who was "more religious" than our local
community, he was from the Chofetz Chaim tradition, which places a
special emphasis on "purity of speech". This did not stop him from
telling jokes about "shvartza"s to the class. He was never held
accountable. To this day I don't know if anyone besides me saw a
contradiction in his behavior.
During
my first year as an american yeshiva student in israel, friends joked
about how they would take pictures of themselves with an ethiopian girl
posing as their girlfriend, to "give their parents a heart attack".
At
Yeshiva University, I was in the class of the most prominent rabbinic
leader in the institution, he spoke derisively about the hispanic
residents of washington heights while I was in his class, and years
later was recorded making crude remarks about "shvartza"s. He was never
held accountable. He continues to be the most revered figure for the
modern orthodox Jewish community in NY.
(This
is not exclusively about black people, and not exclusively an American
phenomenon. In our synagogue in Alon Shvut the rabbi regularly speaks
about Arabs as inferior beings in his sermons. I am not aware of anyone
besides myself who ever walked out in protest from such a sermon. Far
from being an outlier, our rabbi is probably within the mainstream in
Israel.)
These are just
some examples that come to mind. They are very far from an exhaustive
list of what I have heard firsthand. While I don't appear black, I
consider myself enough a part of that heritage to be personally hurt by
such comments. To wonder whether the speakers might view me as inferior.
To feel I don't belong in a place where such language goes unanswered.
One can only imagine what "fully" black people might feel if they heard
such remarks.
Our
community needs to hold people accountable for this outrageous,
disgraceful and hurtful speech. We have no business marching to protest
the police, before we hold ourselves to our own standards, to kavod
habriyot (respect for all people), to derech erets (being civil).
People
are in denial about how destructive such comments are. About how much
pain it inflicts on marginal members of their own congregation or on
their neighbors when they cover for prominent people who speak this way.
About what it teaches their students and children when they look the
other way. I can never fully respect the rabbis and teachers who speak
this way. I can never feel fully welcome in places where they are
admired. One of the traits that drew me to Yeshivat Har Etzion was that
this type of racism was an anathema to its founders, Rabbis Lichtenstein
and Amital. But unfortunately, they stood out as exceptional among some
of their peers.
This is
something I have carried inside my whole life and never spoken about
publicly in such a direct way. I write it with great pain, as someone
who loves our community, and has been loved by it, and who is not, on
balance, a victim. But having said all that, there are things which are
unacceptable and need to change.
Please,
I beg you, if you agree, don't just read this post and throw on a like.
Act on it. Ask uncomfortable questions about your congregation, your
yeshiva, your rabbi's sermon. Call people out on it when they speak this
way, or when they invite people who do to be guest lecturers. Keep
pushing until you get satisfactory answers.
No comments:
Post a Comment