Oh, the chutzpah! Florida politicians tell Jews what to think as they beat war drums| Opinion
Jews were few and far between in the working-class neighborhoods of 1960s northern Dade County. Public schools and workplaces were largely segregated by race and overwhelmingly Christian, but most of the clergy and most of the bowling leagues thought it important to love thy neighbor, and made real efforts to get to know them.
Growing up in the shadow of the yet-to-be-built Joe Robbie Stadium, I learned that my parents were often the only Jews that other adults knew. It was not uncommon for them to be asked “what the Jews think” about the Six Day War or “skipping school” for Jewish holidays.
”Well, first of all,” Mom and Dad would say, “Jews are just like Christians — there is a very broad spectrum of opinion on issues and a wide range of traditions and practices in celebrating our holidays. We can tell you what we think and why we think it, but we surely don’t presume to speak for every Jew in our congregation, let alone every Jew in the world.”
Mom and Dad’s view was widely shared in the 20th century, when genuine humility was valued in state leaders and PTA parents. In today’s more narcissistic climate, Jews and even Christians have the mind-boggling chutzpah to advise all Jews as to what they must think about matters that have flummoxed theologians and historians of goodwill and good conscience since Biblical times.
The penalty for noncompliance is being denounced as an antisemite, a self-hating Jew and possibly even an actual terrorist.
With the world’s nuclear powers playing games of chicken in the Middle East, Florida is ill-served by Christian politicians running for president of the United States and Jewish candidates for president of Florida Atlantic University who purport to speak for all Jews as they beat the war drums and pour gasoline on fires that could easily put an end to the world’s future, and not just the futures of Israeli and Palestinian children, in a land that most Floridians can’t locate on a map.
The Abrahamic religions all embrace humankind’s origin story, noting that a single individual — Adam — was created to teach us that he who destroys a single soul destroys a whole world, and that he who saves a single soul saves a whole world.
If that isn’t the bumper sticker our politicians can agree on, well... it’s a shanda.
Florence Beth Snyder is an attorney and a graduate of Miami Carol City Senior High School, Temple Israel of Greater Miami and Florida Atlantic University.
