Perspective: Choosing life amid the loss of a parent, spouse or child
I was skating in Midtown Manhattan on Christmas night when a man came up to me on the ice and said, “Free Palestine.” He would not leave me alone.
He said, “We all know you. Your name is Rabbi Shmuley. We watch you on TV and social media. You can’t expect to go around New York and get away with what you’re doing to support genocide and apartheid.” His threatening message was clear.
Just two days earlier I had engendered unwanted headlines when an Arab family saw me and my youngest daughter in Times Square and began to verbally assault us with the same “Free Palestine” chants. They told me they recognized me as a defender of Israel, and it only escalated from there. The children in the family kicked me and told me I should kill myself. The video of the incident has already been watched by tens of millions of people the world over. The tennis legend Martina Navratilova, who saw and reposted the video, wrote, “Pretty sad. And the mother is laughing. Pathetic”.
Antisemitism has crested into a tsunami of hate in America and around the world, and New York City is one of the epicenters. Try walking through Times Square with a yarmulke. Better, walk through Times Square and try to even find a yarmulke. American Jews are becoming like the Jews of London, Brussels, Madrid and Paris, who know how to hide their Jewishness. But the difference, of course, is that, outside of Israel, New York City has more Jews than any other city in the world, with the possible exception of Warsaw before the Holocaust.
When these incidents happened, I felt like I was in Berlin in the early 1930s. And this, of course, is aside from the death threats I receive on social media every single week. For Jews, the dangers are real. The violence is serious. And the hatred is deranged and psychotic.
I will, of course, take the necessary precautions to keep myself and my family and community safe. But I know that Jews cannot, and must not, cower in fear.
That is why now is the time to hang Israeli flags outside our homes, unapologetically and unafraid. Now is the time for Hillel Chabad houses on campuses to give their students Israeli flag pins and yarmulkes to wear to show that we are never cowed, we are never bullied, and we are never afraid. Now is the time to bring more pro-Israel speakers to universities to fight back against the tidal wave of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment.
Won’t this make us targets? Won’t this put us in greater danger?
Perhaps.
But the danger is there regardless, and it can only be effectively countered by showing that the Jewish people cannot be bullied.
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In March, Jews will celebrate Purim, the holiday in which we remember a murderous bully named Haman who wanted all Jews to prostrate themselves before him, quite literally. But Haman was opposed by Mordechai, who “would not cower and would not bend.” Mordechai was a Jew who stood up straight. This is the same posture that we ourselves must now begin to exhibit.
On Jan. 29 I plan to commemorate the very first yahrtzeit, or anniversary of a death, for my mother, Eleanor Esther Elka Paul. I will be dedicating a Torah in her name that has been written by one of Israel’s leading scribes over the past 12 months.
But as soon as I heard the story of Shani Louk, the beautiful young German-Israeli girl who was paraded naked and dead through Gaza, I got in touch with her parents, Ricarda and Nissim Louk, in Israel, and told them that I wanted to also dedicate the Torah to their daughter, to which they very graciously agreed. I explained that an act of desecration of that caliber could only be remedied through an act of consecration.
The event, called “Choosing Life Amid the Loss of a Parent, Spouse and Child,” will take place at Carnegie Hall and will feature a discussion about how we overcome, grief, tragedy and sadness in such dark times. The speakers will include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Miriam Adelson and Ricarda Louk.
And the message of the evening? Tragedy and sadness surrounds us right now. But we will never be afraid. We will always choose life. And we — the Jewish nation, and all our Christian brothers and sisters, as well as the many peace-loving Muslims — must never despair.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, called “the most famous Rabbi in America” by The Washington Post, is the author of “Holocaust Holiday: One Family’s Descent into Genocide Memory Hell.” He is on Instagram and Twitter @RabbiShmuley. For information on the Carnegie Hall event, go to Worldvalues.US/Events or write to info@shmuley.com.
