STOP. STOP. STOP.
Now. Please. Before it's too late.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? - Rabbi Hillel
This week, a young American-Israeli couple, due to be engaged next week, was shot to death outside a Jewish young professionals event at the Capitol Jewish Museum in Washington, DC. Both were employees of the Israeli Embassy working diligently for peace. They were targeted for no other reason than being Jews.
Ironically, one of them, Yaron Lischinsky, 30, a German immigrant to Israel, identified as Christian, and frequently wrote about the benefits of being a Christian Israeli, saying that “Israel was the only place in the Middle East that he could thrive as a Christian.” Lischinsky was also a peace advocate and wrote this on LinkedIn shortly before his death: “I’m an ardent believer in the vision that was outlined in the Abraham Accords and believe that expanding the circle of peace with our Arab neighbors and pursuing regional cooperation is in the best interest of the State of Israel and the Middle East as a whole. To this end, I advocate for interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding.”
The young woman, Sarah Milgrim, 26, was a graduate of the UN’s University of Peace and conducted research on behalf of a nonprofit, Tech2Peace, that trains Palestinians and Israelis to work together in the tech sector. Also on LinkedIn, she wrote: “My passion lies at the intersection of peacebuilding, religious engagement, and environmental work.”
The suspected murderer, identified as Elias Rodriguez, 31, from Chicago with a history of left-wing activist protest who made online calls to “Escalate for Gaza,” and shouted “Free, Free Palestine” after the shooting, didn’t know these things about his victims. He didn’t care. They were just Jews in his crosshairs, and, in his mind, they had to die.
In the immediate aftermath, the internet exploded. Many politicians, even those who are anti-Israel called this hateful action out as antisemitic and expressed sympathy for the victims, but in online forums, some people were cheering and celebrating these cold-blooded murders.
Point blank, this is unacceptable. Shocking, heartbreaking, frustrating, sickening, and completely, utterly untenable. What kind of blind hatred would induce someone to intentionally shoot down two young people walking on the street? Or to celebrate their murders? Only someone who was completely convinced that in doing so, they were righteous and justified. Only someone who had decided that those innocent young people were the paragons of evil…simply because of their religion or nationality.
Personally, my shock and grief has reached yet another incomprehensible level, and I’m going to take a strong stance here to vociferously, unequivocally condemn this act and the culture that produces it. When here, in America, a country that champions religious plurality, tolerance, democracy, love and compassion, one religious, national or ethnic group is targeted, we have crossed the line from tolerance to hate, democracy to ideological extremism and fascism. This is true whether we are talking about members of any racial, ethnic, gender, religious or otherwise identified group.
But when that group are Jews (or are perceived as Jews), it’s a symptom of a far-greater sickness that crosses ideological lines. As many scholars of antisemitism have noted, hatred of Jews is the canary in the coalmine: throughout history, Jews have been the scapegoats for all of society’s complaints. Jews aren’t the (sole) problem, but they are ascribed all the guilt, shame, anger and fear a society doesn’t want to face within itself. When antisemitism (or even it’s cynical misappropriation as a weapon) rises in any culture, far worse things are about to follow: the collapse of the entire socio-political order and fabric that holds a nation or society together. It has happened over and over.
In other words, we have a HUGE problem brewing, but we aren’t acknowledging it. Meanwhile, Jews around the world are paying the price, just because they are Jews. The young couple in DC did.
I don’t want to get into the rightness or wrongness of the war in Gaza. I will not debate history, real or imagined, and I refuse to get into the game of naming or shaming. However, it is clear that people’s perceptions of that war – and the emotions they feel around it – have contributed to rise in hate-crimes against Jews, which the ADL and other monitoring groups have tallied at over 9,000 in the US this year alone! 9,000!!!!
But the war brought to the surface something far more insidious: a willingness of people to project the worst of themselves onto others, and the belief that if they eradicate that “other,” they will rid themselves of the evil in themselves. These days, that gets projected onto Jews, Israelis, and by extension, Israel itself.
This is the definition of “scapegoat,” the Biblical reference being that when the Israelites celebrated Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, they chose a goat to carry all their sins away. Interesting to note, they didn’t kill the goat, but sent it out into the wilderness, exiling sin from from their midst.
Historically, this has happened repeatedly to the Jews. Whether forcibly exiled from Palestine, Rome, England, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and countries of North Africa or the Middle East, or purged from the face of the earth by murderous pogroms in Eastern Europe, Russia, China, or Germany, for close to 3500 years, Jews have been the scapegoats for the ills of almost every culture --Pagan, Christian, Muslim, or Communist. In all these cases, intolerance, hatred, exclusion, expulsion or murder of Jews was the first symptom of a culture’s turn towards fascism or totalitarianism, and it wasn’t long thereafter that there was civil war and political collapse. As go the Jews, so goes the rest of the culture.
And now, it’s happening here in the US. (it’s actually been happening for years, but it’s become much, much more public, common, and acceptable).
When I wrote about the danger of activism turning into Holy War last week, I hinted at this. When, in the desire to bring about a specific form of Justice, we deny the humanity of others, we do the opposite of creating a just world. And, when we are unable to see ourselves in the other or project onto this other all the things we don’t want to see about ourselves, we are in a Shadow War in which both sides lose.
When we make an “other” into the carrier of all our sins, refusing to deal with our OWN failings, we are nothing more than fearful hypocrites, pushing our shadows onto others. When we can’t see that there is no “other,” and we are ALL “made in the image of God,” as all traditions teach at their core, then we denying our own humanity and divinity. And when we think that getting rid of the “other” will purge us of our own failings, we will always find an “other” rather than looking at ourselves in the mirror, until at some point, there are no more “others” to scapegoat.
Jews have been hated as the “other” from day one. And, again, scholars of antisemitism note that it doesn’t matter what Jews do: it’s the most mutable hatred in the world. Jews are hated for being weak or for being strong; for being rich or being poor; for being too visible or the hidden controlling “deep state;” for having a state or being stateless; for assimilating or staying apart; for being “chosen” or or for failing in moral purity; for being a “race” or being a religion; for being smart or being stupid, etc. These days, antisemitism itself has even been misappropriated as a weapon against “woke,” (and is, in fact, feeding real antisemitism). Anything - anything and everything - a people deems negative, or refuses to see or accept in themselves, gets leveled on the Jews.
I’m just going to put myself out there and say that if you call yourself spiritual or are dedicated to self-improvement, compassion, justice and mercy; if you believe in a world where all people are free to practice their religion or their sexuality or their exercise of free speech, movement and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of race or ethnicity; if you believe that the purpose of life is to love, and you are NOT calling out the real antisemitism and its dangers in our midst – no matter which side of the aisle it comes from - and standing with the Jewish people in this time of increasing hate and brutality, you lose my vote. I simply don’t believe you. And I don’t trust you.
But I need to warn you: be careful. You might be next.
Again, I don’t want to get into the politics of the current war in Gaza/Israel. We can – and should - advocate for an end to war, terror, and suffering no matter WHO is involved. And we are free to criticize the actions of our own governments or others who are causing suffering. But if we have decided that one side is blameless, and the other side wholly evil, and then feel justified in harassing, canceling, exiling or killing people (or contributing to, supporting or celebrating such acts) simply because they are members of that society, religious group, or culture, we have lost the thread of humanity. We need to look in the mirror. We probably won’t like what we see, but if we can’t see it, we can’t change it.
Woe unto us.
I refuse to sit quietly while this is happening. I’m done. I will stand unequivocally, vocally and publicly with the Jewish people AND I will stand with everyone else in the world who wants to live in peace, equality, and love with all, no matter who you are. I don’t want to see America slide into a totalitarian state on its way to collapse. I don’t want us to keep turning on each other, one group against another, gunning our young people down in the street. And I don’t want to see us – individually and collectively -- unwilling to look ourselves in the mirror, take responsibility for our own failings, and change course before it’s too late.
My heart goes out to the family and friends and colleagues of the two beautiful young people murdered on the street in DC. My heart goes out to all of us, witnessing this kind of brutality and hate in our own communities, feeling powerless and full of despair. And my heart goes out to those who might harbor such hate in their hearts.
To those people, I say: I see your pain. I see your fear. I see your desire for justice or for a world free of evil. But hate isn’t the answer. You might think you are in the right, but you are not, and, as history shows, if you continue this path, you will take us all down with you.
Please, in the name of Life, Love, and all that is beautiful and valuable in this world, and all that you hold dear, stop.
Just stop.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
Before it’s too late.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me. - Martin Niemöller
Thank you Lauryn 🙏🕊
Standing entirely with you Lauryn, heart breaking; & pray also for those tortured by their ignorance 🙏🏽