Living in the COVID World ... and Beyond #30: Some Reflections on Being Jewish

I was born human.   And from my earliest days, I was raised as a Jew.   How prominent my Jewishness featured in my mind varied over time … and it was always present.   As a young person, I went to Hebrew School and was Bar-Mitzvah’ed.   As an adult, I have been active in synagogue social justice activities at different times, on the board of Jewish social justice organizations, and have worked as a consultant with several Jewish institutions.   Being Jewish and having Jewish values has been a consistent part of who I am and how I identify in the world.

Even with my solid Jewish upbringing and activities, I sometimes feel scared about being Jewish.  I know that there is a history of Jews being blamed and scapegoated when things are not going well in the world.  Certainly one could assert that we are in times like those now.   And therefore, it is not surprising that the number of antisemitic incidents has risen significantly across the United States including an increase of 42% in 2022 (versus 2021) in my home state of Connecticut.

In the context of the rise of antisemitism, I have been heartened tremendously by two recent events in which Jews were featured and celebrated.

I have never been a fan of Adam Sandler.   There have been times when I have appreciated his humor or his acting, but most of the time it falls flat with me (the one glorious exception is that I have always loved the Hannukah song).    Sandler won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, and I watched the award show.   Adam Sandler was unabashedly Jewish throughout the show.   He delighted in his Jewishness, in his Jewish mother, in his Jewish wife, and in his two Jewish daughters.   And as he was both toasted and roasted, his Jewishness was appreciated repeatedly.   One piece in particular was Chris Rock’s comments in which he talked about growing up as a kid in Brooklyn and being bussed to a school in which he was one of three black children.   Rock explained that no one invited him over to their house to play except one Jewish boy.   And that when he met Sandler some years later, and they could have viewed themselves as competitors in the comedy business, after Sandler watched Rock’s act, Sandler went up to him and invited Rock to come over to his dorm room and hang together.    All Rock said in relating this story was – “the Jews, good people” – and he clapped and everyone in the audience clapped too.  You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8imb1OPd9W0.

You have probably read about the recent flare ups in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.   There has been quite a lot of back-and-forth provocations and violence over the last month or two.   One particularly troubling incident was that in response to a Palestinian man killing two Israeli brothers, hundreds of Israeli settlers in the West Bank rampaged through a Palestinian village destroying homes and property and killing one person and wounding others.   I attended a webinar in which an Orthodox Jewish man explained how he started a crowd fundraising campaign to benefit the villagers who lived in that destroyed Palestinian village.   To hear this Orthodox Jewish man take this position on behalf of Palestinians brought me to tears.   What I remember him saying is that what the settlers did to that village was not being Jewish, that it is not our Judaism.   And so he initiated the fundraising effort … and he and his family received threats and ominous messages from the Orthodox Jewish community.   And he stood firm in what his conscience told him was correct.

I don’t expect to suddenly no longer be scared connected to being Jewish.   Seeing these two models of what it means to stand tall as a Jew in the world inspires me.   It makes me ask myself: how am I showing up in the world and acting on my Jewish values?