I feel sorry for us, the Jewish People. I feel this way because we know the world is sitting on a powder keg of hatred, and in our particular case, anti-Semitism, and we are not readying ourselves for it.
I harbour a great sense of melancholy for the Children of Israel. If we were a rotten bunch intent upon hurling the other kids off the hill, or were conspirators in a Zionist plot to take over the banking sector, then maybe the animosity would be understandable. But we are not. We are a nation entrenched in the belief that we are creations of God who exist to make our world better. We thirst and hunger for peace.
We are good folk and hated – a tragic mix.
I am deeply worried for us because it is so clear that we do not take full responsibility for our own future. I am troubled because we are not doing everything we can to make sure our children, our seniors, our Israeli brothers and sisters, and we in the Diaspora, are safe.
While there are many efforts going on both in Canada and across the world to fight anti-Semitism, they are not enough. Yes, in our fine country, B’nai Brith, Friends of Simon Weisenthal Center, Canadian Jewish Congress, Jewish federations, UJA and others are battling anti-Semitism, but mostly at a policy level and always through a handful of people. This will not accomplish what needs to be done.
These organizations are trying, but their success will be limited – because anti-Semitism lurks in the streets, laneways and basements of Scarborough, Rosedale, Saskatoon and Quebec, places the short arms of these entities cannot reach.
The war we are struggling with today is against fundamentalism. Within that world, be it Christian or Muslim, you will find believers in suicide who will hurt our people because “God said it’s the right thing to do.”
This way of thinking creates angry, and often sociopathic behaviour. Just look at the eyes of the Taliban leaders. They are fiery blazes of wrath. They have troops aplenty who are peering from behind doorposts at you and me.
While anti-Semitism gains momentum from the top down, it is on the ground that the real putsches have taken place throughout history. We are failing in the fight against anti-Semitism from the bottom up.
My Jewish brothers and sisters, what is needed – and this must come from you – is an international investment in an arm of the Jewish world overseen by a broad spectrum of Israeli and Diaspora leadership, financed by our philanthropists, with an unlimited budget, whose mission statement is solely to involve every Jew and good human being, at every level, in the fight against anti-Semitism and hatred of all types, and to befriend our friends.
This initiative must be free of Jewish organizational infighting and operate with the creativity of the Israel Defence Forces and the efficiency of the businesses our accomplished community members oversee.
You know Israel will be at war again. You know we will have to kill many of our enemies, and innocents will be standing in the way. You know the world will condemn us unceasingly. And you know anti-Semitism will once again explode over us.
If you know this, why aren’t you doing anything?
Congregants, tell your rabbis; rabbis, tell our organizational leaders; leaders, build this international protective shield. Do so in the memory of our beloved felled by anti-Semitism. Do so for my child and yours. We absolutely must try harder.
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