Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

A Rabbi for the Rest of Us

Bearing the Burden of Oppression

Pharoah and the Midwives (James Tissot 1902)

This week we begin the Book of Exodus. It starts with “These are the names of the Children of Israel who came to Egypt, Jacob….” (Exodus 1:1)

Rabbi Samuel Bernstein of Sochatchov, a Chassidic Rebbe who lived in Poland in the early part of the 20th century, writes about this verse:

“When the people of Israel went into exile in Egypt, they needed to strengthen and fortify their identity so that they would not assimilate into Egyptian society. Regarding this, it is taught that the name “Israel” (ישראל) is composed of the same letters as the words “Li Rosh” (לי ראש) “Leadership is mine”, that is to say that the Jewish people aspire to be a moral and ethical leader of the nations of the world, to set an example for others to follow. The verse, “these are the names of the Children of Israel who came to Egypt” continues with the name “Jacob” to signify humility and a lowly status. (The name Jacob (יעקב) is related to the word “heel” (עקב), the lowest point of the body.) The combination of these two qualities, aspiring to both loftiness and humility, having a sense of dignity but also modesty, having both strength and patience, allowed our people to bear the burden of the oppression of Egypt and other difficult periods throughout our history.”

 Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Marc Rudolph

2 responses to “Bearing the Burden of Oppression”

  1. davidloiterman Avatar
    davidloiterman

    Thank you, Rabbi Well stated !

    I am enclosing an opinion piece from retired Chicago journalist Steve Huntley that retired Chicago Tribune journalist John Kass passed along to me this morning.

    Worth reading and passing along in my opinion :

    An American Tragedy

    By Steve Huntley

    Just over 110 years ago a mob broke into a Georgia prison, kidnapped a man named Leo Frank, lynched him and took photos of his body hanging from a tree, which sold as picture postcards for 25 cents in local stores for years afterward. Frank, wrongfully convicted of murdering a 13-year-old girl in his employ, was a Jew.

    Afterward, half of Georgia’s population of 3,000 Jews reportedly left the state. “Those who remained,” according to the New York Times, “hid behind locked doors, forced to survive a widespread boycott of Jewish businesses.”

    This shameful episode helped inspire the establishment of the Anti-Defamation League, its organizing principle to fight antisemitism specifically and bigotry in general.

    Now, 1915 may seem like long ago, but it’s not ancient history. To use a personal perspective, my father was two years old when Frank was murdered. I was born only 28 years later.

    Yes, our world thankfully is far from that one. Still, the ancient curse of antisemitism haunts America again. Our country is experiencing an eruption of Jew hatred that was unimaginable as recently as Oct. 6, 2023.

    That was the day before the horrific attack by Hamas terrorists and a mob of Gaza men on peaceful Israelis, many in their homes, others attending a music festival. Some 1,200 were killed, women and girls raped, bodies of babies mutilated and burned, and 250 people, grotesquely some of them dead bodies, were taken hostage.

    As shocking as that was, American Jews were further stunned to see an outburst of demonstrations at our prestigious universities aimed not at the terrorists, but at Jews and Israel. Jewish students were harassed, intimidated and threatened on elite campuses. Several Ivy League university presidents, questioned by Congress, couldn’t bring themselves to denounce outright this antisemitism.

    More was to come. American Jews, overwhelmingly liberal in political outlook, have a long history of supporting all sorts of causes — the civil right movement, feminism, gay marriage and other liberal projects.

    Yet there was mostly silence from the activists of those movements over the atrocities of Oct. 7. The voices of civil rights groups were muted. Too many feminists cast their eyes away from the rampage of sexual violence against Israeli women and girls. “Queers for Palestine” — a laughable concept if the stakes weren’t so high — attacked Israelis for defending themselves.

    It’s obvious and undeniable that antisemitism constitutes a powerful strain — maybe a dominant one — within mainstream liberalism and the Democratic Party.

    Further evidence: Even before the Oct. 7 massacre, Whoopi Goldberg, one of ultra-liberal hosts of the ABC network show The View, tried to whitewash the Holocaust. She described it as just one group of white people inhumanely persecuting another group of white people, depriving it of its central and fundamental characteristic of race hatred. After an uproar against such unhistoric nonsense, she apologized but maintains her perch in The View.

    Now liberal New York City — a metropolis with the largest Jewish population of any single city in the world — has elected an antisemitic Muslim as mayor. Zohran Mamdani won’t denounce the left wings and Palestinian sympathizers’ call to “globalize the intifada” — an appeal to kill Jews wherever they are found.

    He’s even himself spouted this repugnant call to murder in the past. On his first day in office, he revoked a New York City executive order defining antisemitism and condemning “hatred toward Jews.”

    As we’ve seen recently, the right isn’t immune to the ancient curse of antisemitism.

    Tucker Carlson, the most prominent podcaster among conservatives, embraced a virulent Jew hater, Holocaust denier and fan of “cool” Hitler as well as a pseudo-historian who claims British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was the villain in World War II, not Hitler. Insiders in the conservative movement report that such poison indeed affects a significant number of young rightwing men.

    Kevin Roberts, the president of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, rushed to defend Carlson, his friend. Vice President JD Vance, also a Carlson friend, avoided coming to grips with the antisemitism by saying he wasn’t looking “to denounce or to deplatform” any conservatives. Hardly a profile in courage for a man with presidential ambitions.

    Yet, there is an important difference between the eruptions on Jew hatred on the left and right.

    The leadership of the liberal movement and the Democratic Party have — with few exceptions like Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman — refused to denounce the “globalize the intifada” crowd. They cling to the radical ideas of “liberation” politics and “critical race theory” that divide the world into the oppressed and oppressors and justify any violence on behalf of those deemed to be oppressed.

    In contrast prominent leaders on the conservative side rose up to denounce and push back against the antisemitic venom.

    Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, in the finest moment of his career, declared, “In the last six months, I’ve seen more antisemitism on the right than I had in my entire life” and urged Republicans and conservatives to “stand up and be clear” in fighting Jew hatred.

    President Donald Trump ordered his administration to root out antisemitism in colleges and universities and moved to deny federal funding to those that won’t reform themselves. He remains a strong supporter of Israel in its fight against radical Islamist jihadists.

    At the Heritage Foundation, several board members and more than a dozen prominent staff resigned their posts in revulsion to Roberts’ defense of Carlson giving an unchallenged platform to antisemites. Roberts eventually apologized to Heritage but, like Whoopi Goldberg, he kept his job as president of an organization he had grievously wounded.

    Which illustrates another characteristic about antisemitism. Carlson says Israel has too much influence in Washington because of campaign contributions to members of Congress from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Sound familiar? Far left Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis attributed Capitol Hill support for Israel to “it’s all about the Benjamins baby.”

    When it comes to Jews, the fringe of the conservative world is in complete harmony with the Democratic far left, which increasingly looks like the mainstream of liberalism.

    It is sadly crystal clear that pervasive antisemitism in our society is a crisis for American Jewry. Although our country has at times failed to live up to its aspirations, the fact is that we as a nation have from the Declaration of Independence aspired to the highest of human rights goals.

    An early example: In a letter to a Jewish congregation in Rhode Island, President George Washington wrote, “May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

    Today American Jews have cause to be afraid.

    It’s true that the vast majority of Americans are free of the stench of antisemitism, but the rot is found in powerful places. It’s a driving force in our oldest political party. It has a voice in the halls of Congress. Its hands are on the levers of government in our largest city. Demonstrations on college campuses celebrate it. Popular podcasters give it a platform.

    A hesitancy to confront it directly, forcibly and in all its manifestations stains the leadership of the liberal movement, the legacy media, elite universities, the office of the vice presidency and a think tank that once was known exclusively as the intellectual arsenal of conservatism.

    So, Jews have reasons for their fears. There are likely more than a few homes where American Jews are for the first time thinking of making aliyah, the Hebrew word for immigrating to the homeland of Israel.

    That Jewish Americans are even whispering that means the wildfire of antisemitism is not just a crisis for them, but also a crisis for our country.

    Cruz put it perfectly: “It is a poison. And I believe we are facing an existential crisis in our party and our country.”

    It is an American crisis. And it must be confronted before it becomes an American tragedy.

    https://johnkassnews.com/an-american-crisis/ted_cruz_official_116th_portrait/

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  2. joyceflescher Avatar
    joyceflescher

    I found this very interesting. As always, I continue to learn a lot from you. Thank you Joyce.

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