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Words of the Week

by Erika Dreifus on
3

“God, Master of the Universe, please make this world safe for our people this year. Next year may we be in Jerusalem, but this year please take care of the Jews in our holy city and in so many other cities: in Marseilles and Copenhagen, in Argentina and Buenos Aires, Kansas and Seattle, Paris and Tunis, Sderot and Toulouse, Brussels and Donetsk. This Passover evening is a ‘night of vigilance’ [Exodus 12:42]. Please watch over us with divine care and compassion. Protect our sacred tombstones and graves from desecration. Protect our synagogues across the globe from Swastikas and shattering glass. Protect our innocent children on their day school playgrounds and our Jewish communal workers in embassies and community centers. Pour out Your wrath against the world’s injustices so that one day, You can pour out Your love. Ani Ma’amin — I believe that day will come. It is not here yet. Together, we will await that day. We will not wait passively. We will partner with you in a covenant to protect our people and remove them from harm’s way. And we will re-affirm in word and deed our daily commitment to justice, goodness and kindness.”

From Dr. Erica Brown’s “Pour Out Your Love?” in The Jewish Week

Words of the Week

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

“‘Yet,’ he said, ‘our inability to use the term anti-Semitism when it concerns Jews, when we don’t have a problem calling other forms of ethnic and religious bigotry what it is, raises disturbing questions about prevalent attitudes towards Jews, Judaism, Zionism, and the state of Israel.'”

–Rabbi John L. Rosove, quoted in Adam Nagourney’s “In U.C.L.A. Debate Over Jewish Student, Echoes on Campus of Old Biases,” The New York Times.

Words of the Week

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

I had the privilege of hearing these words expressed “live,” but am grateful to JTA for covering Thursday’s event in Manhattan and providing the quotations:

“‘How many graves would we tolerate?’ he said. ‘Ten? Twenty? We cannot accept any amount of crime.'”— Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia of France

“‘The reason I went to Paris was because we as Americans have some responsibility here to say to our European brothers and sisters,’ he said, ‘that indifference only leads us down a very dangerous path. No one Jewish living in Europe should have to beg for protection.'”— New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio

Photo credit: Joanna Dreifus
Photo credit: Joanna Dreifus

Words of the Week

by Erika Dreifus on
3

“I feel a bit like a curmudgeon when I complain that the march’s wonderful joining of the victims of the attacks—journalists, polices, and Jews alike—felt hypocritical. But, given the silence at every other attack on Jews, it seems clear that the only reason the public at large paid attention was because of the Charlie Hebdo connection. I sadly predict that in the future, if only Jews are victims, people will just shake their heads and move on.

I stress: I am not asking for sympathy. I ask the general European population to recognize that these attacks directly threaten them and the liberal democratic society they treasure. It begins with the Jews but it never ends with them. They must realize that they ignore atrocities against Jews at their own—not just our—peril.”

Source: Deborah Lipstadt, “Hypocrisy After the Paris Terror Attacks” (Tablet)