Is It Time To Leave Now?
Is It Time To Leave Now?
Sermon Parshat Bo 5786
Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ
This week, as Anastasha has told us, we read in Parshat Bo about how our ancestors packed their bags in haste and fled Egypt, after living there for over 400 years. It was the first of so many Jewish exoduses in history, in which our people fled oppression in the land of our residence and headed for freedom in new and often distant lands. Most of the ancestors of our congregants here at Beit Simcha fled Europe to come to America; others left other lands, seeking freedom of religion and success here. This pattern has been repeated many times throughout Jewish history. Today we seem to be facing, or at least beginning to explore, a relevant question. Is it time to think about moving on again?
There is an ancient Chinese curse with which you might be familiar; it goes like this: “May you live in interesting times.” Well, my friends, we apparently live in interesting times. Or, to put it another way, this is one of the stranger periods for American Jewish life that I can recall. After over half a century of a golden age for Jews here in the United States, during which we reached heights of success and acceptance never before achieved in our long history outside of Israel, the US Jewish community is now experiencing rising Antisemitism on the left and the right, a dramatic increase in anti-Jewish violence, and a level of insecurity that we haven’t known in decades. For the first time in my life, I have heard Jews saying, “We need figure out where we are going to go next.”
Now, this is an extraordinary turn of events. America has proven over the past 250 years to be a true refuge for Jews from all over the world. Nearly unique among nations, the US has given Jews full civil rights, and has never had any national anti-Jewish legislation, in part because we have to a large degree preserved the separation of church and state. While antisemitism was prevalent in many parts of the country well into the 1960s, both obvious and subtle, it did not ultimately prevent Jews from rising in nearly every field of endeavor, and from inventing entire industries—like Broadway, Hollywood, the music industry, the comic book world, fashion, and lot of the high-tech industry—out of whole cloth. It took some time, but Jews are well-represented in Congress, in the Judiciary and in the Executive branch, and have risen to the top of many name-brand companies. Jewish creativity has long fueled much of America’s dynamic contributions to the arts, and in fields as diverse as medicine, sports, the military, and the environment Jews are leaders and innovators at the highest level.
In our own Jewish institutions, too, we American Jews have developed an incredible religious and cultural infrastructure in the US that is without parallel in our 3800 years of history. There are thousands of excellent synagogues in America serving the 6 million or so Jews who live here, of every denomination, as well as a wide array of Jewish Community Centers, Jewish Federations, Jewish day schools and supplementary schools, Yeshivot, Jewish preschools and early childhood centers, college and university Hillel Foundations, Jewish camps, Jewish retreat centers, Jewish museums, Chabad synagogues and centers, and Jewish universities and colleges. There are rabbinical and cantorial seminaries preparing rabbis, cantors and educators for the next generations of religious leadership. There are Jewish publishing houses as well as major Jewish research libraries. You can find Jewish community campuses in a variety of urban centers all around the US, and Jewish institutions that provide charitable and communal support for Jews in need and for Jewish institutional development in every region and in every major metropolitan area. A veritable fountain of Jewish books, Jewish music, Jewish films and Jewish art and Judaica pour forth every year to supply the needs and desires of this exceptional American Jewish world, and the curiosity of our neighbors and friends.
This is all an amazing accomplishment for a tiny minority population in our giant nation. It is essentially without parallel in Jewish history; there have been great Jewish communities throughout the ages, including a huge, vibrant, and deep Jewish world in Europe that lasted for centuries until it was annihilated by the Nazis. But what we have here in America is even more impressive, and is in fact, spectacular, and our level of acceptance has seemed always to be on a rising arc for decades.
Now, there was a long time when “unofficial” quotas in America blocked Jewish students from entering Ivy League schools, when Jews weren’t allowed into country clubs and when prestigious neighborhoods prevented Jews from buying homes and entire professions and industries were blocked for Jews. There were restricted hotels and resorts—that, Jews weren’t allowed to stay there—until the 1970s in many parts of the country, including here in Tucson in such places as the Arizona Inn and the Lodge on the Desert. But over the past forty to fifty years nearly all of those restrictions disappeared completely. For goodness sakes, there are more—and better--Jewish TV shows and films easily available now on mainstream media than there were for perhaps the first century of these American popular entertainment vehicles. We have risen to the very top of society in so many areas and been widely accepted for quite a long time now.
Has all this suddenly changed? Are we now an endangered Jewish community, and do we anticipate that in the near future we will see Antisemitism drive us from this Goldene medinah, this golden land of America, as we were driven from Israel, Germany, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Argentina, Poland, Italy, and so many other centers of Jewish life throughout the world over the course of history? Are we destined to see American Jews become Wandering Jews again, seeking a new homeland because of the terrible rise in Antisemitism and anti-Jewish hostility?
I guess, at this point, I don’t think so. While the shocking atrocities of recent years—from the Tree of Life synagogue murders in Pittsburgh five years ago to the arson at the Jackson, Mississippi synagogue two weeks ago—are frightening and distressing, they do not, in my view, constitute a reason to start to figure out how to pull up stakes on this incredible American Jewish world. The dramatic outpouring of vicious Antisemitism from the progressive world over the past couple of years has been traumatic, to be sure, and the harassment that Jews have experienced on college campuses since October 7th, 2023 is nearly without precedent. The renewal of neo-Nazi style rhetoric and vitriol online, and by disgustingly popular ultra-right-wing bigots like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, is horrifying; so is the public validation by some of our leaders of scum like KanYe West and Nick Fuentes.
I, personally, believe this all can and will be counteracted by some return to sanity here in America—our country is, well, a little bit insane right now, but we do always swing back to the center eventually—and through the kinds of actions being taken now, and being planned, by Jewish leaders and with the support of non-Jewish leaders and institutions, both fighting Antisemitism and in support of our vital American Jewish institutions.
Being Jewish, I cannot say that I am unbridled optimist. What is the old joke? “The Jewish pessimist says, ‘It can’t get worse.’ And the Jewish optimist says, ‘Sure it can!’” It can, and it might. But I simply don’t think the eternal lesson of the history of Jewish persecution that teaches that we always have to be thinking about where we will need to go next applies here to America. There is no better place for Jews in the world today, still, especially if you don’t speak Hebrew fluently. And it is certainly debatable if it’s truly better in Israel now for Jews than it is here in America.
So don’t pack your bags just yet… don’t start baking matzah and filling up a sack, if you will. We American Jews still have much to be grateful for as Jews in this nation, and we are by no means either powerless or under imminent threat of expulsion. Sometimes the right thing to do is to double down on your commitments, to strengthen your dedication to your American Jewish identity and life.
This is the time to do that. May the current madness pass, and may we remain committed to continuing to build our society, and our Jewish lives, for good.