By HESHIE BILLETBLACK LIVES matter to Jews. A rabbi carries a sign supporting Black Lives Matter at a rally in Washington.(photo credit: REUTERS/JOSHUA ROBERTS)
Black lives absolutely matter.These past three months of coronavirus, Orthodox Jews around the world have made tremendous sacrifices in terms of how we worship and how we mourn, precisely because we value human life infinitely. Not just Jewish life, but the lives of all humans.As Orthodox Jews, we must condemn racism in the strongest possible terms!My rebbe, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, taught us that this is a Jewish value, and that we could be good Torah Jews and human rights activists at the same time. In January 1968, at our rebbe’s behest, we students in his Talmud shiur at Yeshiva University arose at dawn to pray and study Torah, before heading to the UN to protest the genocide of the black Ibo tribe of Biafra. Forty-seven of the 60 participants in that rally were white YU boys with their rebbe.Black lives matter to Jews. After the Charleston murder of black Christian worshipers in 2015, and recently after the brutal killing of George Floyd, I participated with other rabbis in meetings with black clergy organized by my local congresswoman, and by the UJA Federation, respectively. Our fellow black clergy were deeply appreciative of Jewish expressions of solidarity.Black Jews also matter. I traveled to Ethiopia with MK Uri Ariel in 2006 to lend support to black Jews who still remain there (most Ethiopian Jews are now in Israel). Unfortunately, there is racism in Israel as well. The black community in Israel is an important part of a diverse Israeli society, both in the IDF and in all parts of the social fabric. We must oppose racism there, too.WHILE I applaud – and even participated in – a peaceful protest intended to effect important changes for black Americans, the violent response of a small segment of American society has brought shame to America. Already struggling from the assault of COVID-19, America was battered by lawlessness provoked by extremists on the Right and Left. Riots, looting, destruction of property – disgraceful. Indiscriminate attacks on police officers – outrageous. Antisemitic references by too many rioters – frightening.Let me acknowledge that police brutality in America affects African-Americans and has caused much suffering in the black community. We must actively oppose this and advocate well-conceived reforms. The majority of police officers are not racist and do their best to protect all Americans. They are suffering from widespread anti-police sentiment. We must support these officers.Violence and anarchy are never the answer. When the violence harms the very people it claims to support, red flags should be raised for all Americans who oppose racism. The overwhelming majority of African-Americans have nothing to do with the chaos. They, too, are victims of the extremist hooligans.FROM THE perspective of our Jewish community, we are troubled by the convergence of antisemitism within movements for racial justice in America that we would otherwise wholeheartedly support. As Jews, it is our religious duty and our duty as good Americans to oppose racism in America. It is deeply unfortunate that there is a complicated history between Black Lives Matter and the Jews.According to Wikipedia, BLM is an “international human rights movement, originating in the African-American community, that campaigns against violence and systemic racism.... BLM... protests... against police killings of black people, and broader issues such as racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system.” It is noble to fight racial injustice, and I fully support this aspect of the BLM platform. The murder of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer was a heinous crime. Any Jew and any American of good conscience would fight against whatever policies made such a crime possible.But the BLM movement has also been implicated in antisemitism. The Movement for Black Lives, a group affiliated with BLM, issued a platform in 2016 that accused Israel of “genocide”; it called Israel an apartheid state and advocated for BDS. Alan Dershowitz wrote in 2016, “It is a real tragedy that Black Lives Matter – which has done so much good in raising awareness of police abuses – has now moved away from its central mission and has declared war against the nation-state of the Jewish people.” I agree that this is tragic.The Jerusalem Post reported that in addition to damage done in so many communities around the country, including predominately black and Latino low-income neighborhoods, there was looting and vandalism of kosher stores and synagogues in Los Angeles in the context of riots following the murder of George Floyd. Among the synagogues damaged was “Congregation Beth Israel, one of the oldest synagogues in Los Angeles,” which was “defaced with antisemitic graffiti that read ‘F*** Israel’ and ‘Free Palestine.’”Racism in America – which we must all fight – has nothing to do with the Jews and with Israel. While Jews must stand with our African-American brothers and sisters to advocate for black rights, safety and opportunity, we must ask them to quash all forms of antisemitism in their ranks.Peaceful protest and promoting the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for black Americans is a deeply American project, and American Jews should be a part of it. The riots, vandalism, and anarchy, by contrast, are anti-American and harmful to all Americans, including those they claim to support. We must communicate our opposition to these tactics and support the police who protect Americans – black and white – from this danger.America is a great country founded on universal values. America still has much work to do to fully live up to those values, especially with respect to black Americans, who have suffered many injustices. We must condemn racism, police brutality and anything that unfairly prevents black Americans from participating in the American dream. I believe in the American project, even as I recognize that the project is not yet complete.Where rioters aim to destroy the fabric of this great society, we must work to defend and help actualize America as the Land of the Free.The writer is the rabbi of Young Israel of Woodmere, New York.
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