NC Rabbi: Shine a light against hate, display a menorah for all to see.
On a Saturday morning in 2018 an insidious antisemite murdered 11 Jews at their house of prayer in Pittsburgh.
Two days later, I stood at the entrance of my synagogue, Beth Meyer in North Raleigh, and waited while a caravan of anxious parents arrived for preschool drop-off. A police officer stood by my side, a receiving line of sorts.
As they drove up I could see the parents’ faces through the windshield. Some were crying. Others were doing their best to show a brave face.
There is one scene I will never forget.
One mother idled in her car, having opted to park in a spot facing us. Her two children were in the back, one in a booster seat and the other in an infant seat. She was professionally-dressed, likely pressed for time so that she could make her first meeting of the day. Her hands squeezed the steering wheel, shaking. Her eyes were wide, but she wasn’t looking at us. Her stare was somewhere far, far away.
I could see the struggle on her face: “If I leave my children at the synagogue will they be like sheep to the slaughter?”
That was an extremely difficult time for Jewish Americans. This year has been difficult too.
Antisemitic flyers strewn throughout Raleigh neighborhoods. Swastikas drawn in public spaces. Jews wearing religious garb assaulted in the U.S. streets. Celebrities with millions of social media followers, more fans than the number of Jews in the world, fallaciously claim that Jewish conspiracies run the world.
A notorious subset of politicians, including our own lieutenant governor, spew antisemitic hate and refuse to recant.
Perhaps most chilling of all, our former president welcomed a vicious antisemite, a Holocaust-denier, to his home and refuses to condemn the gathering or apologize.
This is not how America was supposed to be.
In 1790, President George Washington wrote a cherished letter to the leaders of the Touro Synagogue in Rhode Island where he affirmed the United States was different than other nations where Jews were persecuted. He pledged that America is committed to giving “bigotry no sanction…persecution no assistance” and concluded with a blessing: “May the Children…of Abraham…enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and…none to make him afraid.”
Thankfully, our forefather’s message of tolerance has been embraced by the vast majority of Americans. Locally, the number of kindhearted Raleighites who’ve reached out through notes, calls and expressions of concern has been nothing short of divine. Your solidarity lifts us.
And yet, there remains a sliver of Americans with hatred in their hearts who put the Jewish community at risk. It stings as a Jew, but even more, as a proud American. We are better than this.
The holiday of Hanukkah begins Sunday evening. Jewish-Americans throughout North Carolina are busily preparing with one question in their hearts, “Will it be safe to place our Hanukkah menorahs in the window?”
The public display of the Hanukkah menorah is a kind of prayer for the America we yearn to see — one in which every faith and background feels safe to put their identities in the window.
My message to North Carolina’s Jewish community: Put your menorah out. For the sake of Jewish tradition and as a sign of Jewish-American pride.
My message to sympathetic citizens: Cheer us on. Every time you see a menorah in the window of a neighbor’s home, wish them well. Perhaps offer a prayer in your heart for them and our country.
Together, we can spread George Washington’s vision of an inclusive America and silence those who wish to see our nation’s windows bare.
More than four years ago, a Jewish mother sat in my synagogue’s parking lot and shook with fear. This Hanukkah may we reassure her, the N.C. Jewish community, and Americans of all stripes, that in America, bigotry is truly given no sanction.