Let us march on till victory is won!

 Dear Parents,

In honor of MLK Day, we spent our time this Sunday learning about American Jews and the civil rights movement. Much like our lesson on the Jews and the Civil War, we made sure to paint a holistic picture of Jewish activitsts in the civil rights movement, which meant in addition to admirable supporters of civil rights, we also examined a rather disturbing letter written by a southern Jewish congregation to Maurice Eisendrath, at the time a leader of the Reform movement's  Union of American Hebrew Congregations. 

(Dr. King,  Rabbi Eisendrath with Sefer Torah,  and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel)

 This letter, which argued for a public non-stance on civil rights, was staunchly pro-segregation.  It is difficult for us to understand the people writing such letters, but as Rabbi Chaikin-Gould made clear last week,  Jews have been on both the right and wrong sides of history many times.  Read the letter for yourself: 

https://jwa.org/sites/default/files/mediaobjects/RabbiEisnedrathFromHUC19560501_1of2.jpg and   https://jwa.org/sites/default/files/mediaobjects/RabbiEisnedrathFromHUC19560501_2of2.jpg

We taught about the history of Synagogue bombings and attacks during the time period, including the bombing of he Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple in Atlanta in 1958.

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See the details here: https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/temple-bombing .

We then contrasted two Jewish figures in the civil rights movement.  The first  Rabbi Joachim Prinz, had the  difficult task of speaking after famed singer Mahalia Jackson (The Queen of Gospel)   and  before Dr. King at the March for Jobs and Freedom on that famous day in 1963!  

A freind of  MLK,  his speech is worth listening as he speaks of being the Rabbi of Berlin under the Hitler regime and the dangers of when people remain silent.  The speech is a short six minutes, and totally worth your time.  Following Mahalia Jackson singing the powerful hymn "How I Got Over",  ( which you can hear and see here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9iQUIwAgus)  you can understand why Prinz starts his speech with "I wish I could sing!" 

http://www.joachimprinz.com/images/mow.mp3

In contrast to Rabbi Prinz,  we then learned about the life of  Rita Schwerner Bender. Now a civil rights attourney for many decades,  Bender came to the nation's attention in  1964  in Mississippi following disapearance  of her husband Mickey Schwerner along with fellow civil rights workers James Chaney and Andrew Goodman (who had been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan) . 

Bender's quest for Justice put her in front of the media, and  widowed at the age of 22, she faced the press and did not shy away from presenting the difficult truth to America. “My husband, Michael Schwerner, did not die in vain,” she said at the time. “If he and Andrew Goodman had been Negroes, the world would have taken little notice of their deaths. After all, the slaying of a Negro in Mississippi is not news. It is only because my husband and Andrew Goodman were white that the national alarm has been sounded.”   That quote and an amazing interview can all be found here at https://www.propublica.org/article/a-brutal-loss-but-an-enduring-conviction . 

In contrast to Prinz,  Bender was an atheist and had no connection to Judaism growing up, but still had a strong sense of Jewish identity stemming from her immigrant grandparents.  Bender was not connected to the leadership of the civil rights movement, but the story of her and her husband is every bit as crucial to understanding the civil rights era for students of  America n history and the Jewish people who are her citizens.   

In addition to our lesson on American Jewish history, we had a small lesson on Israeli culture and the draft of many (but not all) Israelis into the IDF. We also concluded our unit on divorce in Judaism, which we will revisit later in the season for some review. 

Rabbi Uri Miller, who gave the opening prayer at the March on Washington, was ordained at HTC in Skokie,  where he certainly could have learned the following passage we shared in concluding our studies on Jews and the civil rights movement. It is this call to action within Judaism that motivated Rabbis Miller, Eisendrath, Prinz,  Heschel and so many others to speak out when others were silent. 

Rav Ya'akov Emden (Germany, 1697-1776) "She'elat Ya'betz"

משא"כ באדם חשוב שמוטל עליו להציל עשוק מיד עשקו בכל אופן שיוכל, אם בגופו או בהשתדלותו, יהי' העשוק מי שהי'. כענין שאמר איוב, ואשברה מתלעות עול, וכתוב במרע"ה ויקם ויושיען, אע"פ שבנות כומר הי

What is not like this is an adam chashuv/person of importance or power, who has the obligation to rescue the oppressed from the hands of the oppressor by all means available to him, whether by direct action or through political effort, regardless of whether the oppressed is Jewish or not. So Job praised himself by saying "I have broken the teeth of evil", and the Torah says of Moses that "He arose and championed them", referring to the daughters of Jethro, even though they were the daughters of a pagan priest.