Last week we wrote: “All Jewish communities, all Jewish life, all Jewish causes (GAJE included) – wherever situated on the planet – must be conscripted at this moment to the cause of fighting for Israel. Israel is us. All of us. Our past. Our present. And our future.” That statement is true this week as well and will likely remain so, alas, for a considerable period of time.
The State of Israel is at war. Jewish life in all its forms and in all its places, cannot return to “normal” until the fighting has ended and all the weaponry aimed at Israel have become silent. And, as we see some of the shocking reactions by people at home and abroad to the attempted genocide of Jews by Hamas, who knows what “normal” Jewish life will look like then?
We often talk and write about “Jewish history” as if we are its observers watching a documentary unfold on a screen or as if we are raconteurs reciting stories of events and of individuals from a time long ago to listeners trying to imagine the details of the stories we are asking them to learn.
We understand, however, deeply and with certainty, that the events of October 7 and what was unleashed, have swept us all into the very midst of a new, raging torrent of Jewish history. And so, rather than be swept away by its force, we must try to steer through the dangers.
In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack, Adam Hummel, a lawyer and human rights activist, wrote a remarkable article for his blog “Catch” (https://catchjcp.substack.com/p/in-the-region-of-slaughter)
in which he turned to the Jewish history – specifically, the slaughter of Jews in Kishinev in April 1903 – to try to “deal with”, “understand”, “contextualize” what happened on October 7. He referred to the seminal poem by Hayim Nachman Bialik about the pogrom, City of Slaughter, as a reference point for October 7, 2023. Bialik’s poem is one of the most influential in the canon of Jewish literature.
This week, Samantha Vinokur-Meinrath, the senior director of knowledge, ideas and learning at The Jewish Education Project, did the same thing as Hummel. She too turns to Bialik’s poem as a guidepost.
In an essay entitled, “Past, Present and Future: Making meaning of this moment”, Vinokur-Meinrath explains to readers that the Simchat Torah massacre of October 7 is a stormy vortex of Jewish history, grabbing us, attaching to us in a manner that requires understanding and response.
She writes: “To make meaning of this moment is to shape the Jewish future. We are at a turning point. The Jewish choices being made today will be lasting. Some people are making the choice to cling to the Jewish community, craving connection and understanding like never before, while others are shutting themselves down to try to block out the pain. Those who are feeling the silence. Those who are filling it with words. The work of today is to wind the thread between all of the above.
“Kishinev was our past. The Simchat Torah massacre is our haunted present. Jewish education, and our Jewish choices, will shape our future.”
And as we noted last week in the name of the late Michael Brown, the future has not yet been written. It falls to us to write our future. Vinokur-Meinrath strongly asserts that it is Jewish education that will determine that future.
In the year 2023, our community joins the fight for Israel and for the Jewish people, inspired and informed by Jewish education, by being, knowing, doing and celebrating Jewish.
Am Yisrael Chai. The People of Israel Lives and will always.
Vinokur-Meinrath’s article is available at:
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Shabbat shalom
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)
October 20, 2023
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education 