by Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback
The other day a friend of mine who lives on the East Coast reached out to me about a disturbing email exchange she had with the head of her child’s private school. She had written to the headmaster expressing her disappointment and concern that the school had not once sent out an email decrying the terrifying uptick in antisemitism over the past year, particularly over the past few weeks during the heightened tensions in the Middle East. She noted that the school, with her full support, had previously sent out messages regarding acts of racism and anti-AAPI violence. He replied that he didn’t feel comfortable “taking sides” in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Imagine a similar situation—war breaks out between India and Pakistan. At the same time, there are incidents of bigotry and hatred (possibly sparked by the violence thousands of miles away) directed at the local community of Indian-Americans. A local Indian restaurant is vandalized and a Hindu temple is defaced. Would speaking out unequivocally against these acts of hatred in your city constitute the taking of sides in a military and political conflict on the other side of the world? Of course not.
And yet, many of our fellow citizens right here in Los Angeles and in other parts of our country have kept quiet in the face of acts of vandalism and violence because they don’t wish to wade into the complex and fraught conflict in the Middle East.
Racism should be called out and repudiated whenever and wherever we see it. The same is true for sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia of all kinds. The same must be true for antisemitism. When it comes to bigotry and injustice, there is only one side: the side of saying what must be said and doing what must be done.