The flyer/email promoting Sunday’s rally in Great Neck’s Village Green “against hate and anti-semitism” never mentioned that an ultra-conservative organization would be allowed to have a prominent location with a table of literature and signs promoting a narrow message and purpose. I rechecked the flyer and there wasn’t any indication this would be more of a “fight hate by rallying against ‘the other.'”
I did not see any evidence of other well-known organizations there who offer more moderate messages.
From the outset, many of us worried and talked about how non-inclusive the invitation seemed to be. Why were the Islamic, Afro-American, Asian communities not listed? Your paper reported the organizer, an individual, said he reached out to everyone. Well, if they did not respond, try again.
On Thursday night, I had the privilege of attending a solidarity conference at the Hillside Islamic Center in New Hyde Park. What an incredible experience of love, hope, inspiring consistent message for peace as we are all God’s children. Clergy representing Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, all preached unity.
Sunday’s Rally on the Green in Great Neck was not inspiring, especially when support for the message ‘against hate in today’s world ‘ was to invoke the ‘victim’ mentality one more time by calling forth the Holocaust, certainly the most devastating tragic event visited on a specific people, as if it were a stage prop, always at the ready, the attempt to suppress questioning or challenging the theme they were using to combat hate and anti-Semitism.
It is true we should “never forget,” but, one, does it resonate today, some 77 years later, and, two, do we appear insensitive to genocides like two million killed in Cambodia, the recently acknowledged Turkish genocide inflicted upon Armenians.
When we refer to the hate crimes in Charleston, Pittsburgh and New Zealand, we recognize the current pain in our hearts and minds, thus relating more viscerally how hate impacts all of us. Then, we can adopt a more universal goal of coming together to support each other while we try to reduce the carnage with new public policies and personal empathetic listening.
Yossi Klein Halevi, in his recent book, “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor,” and in a recent dialogue with Imam Abdullah Antepli of Duke University, stated “the victim narrative does not, and will not, keep Judaism alive with the generations born after the Baby Boomers.” Instead, we should preach the “Yearning for a Homeland” narrative.
The former begins with Russian pogroms and culminates with the Holocaust in Europe. The latter is the dream of and eventual birth of Israel, a yearning for a homeland that is also the dream of all of its neighbors. People of all faiths understand this.
I am not all in on J-Street or AIPAC. Israel is our home base; it cannot ever fall or we would be “lost.” But, it does not mean we can’t be critical of specific policies. “I can live outside of Israel, but I cannot live without Israel,” a rabbi related this quote to me from one of their mentors.
Steven Walk
Great Neck
