A Passover Message from Rabbi Joab Eichenberg-Eilon

Our Town is Burning!

“The wicked son asks, ‘What is this worship of yours?’ – yours, but not his. Were he a slave in Egypt, he would not have been redeemed.” The Haggadah’s message of unity: when my home is on fire, don’t stand idle – your home may be next.

“It’s burning! Brothers!
Our poor town is burning!
Angry winds with rage are tearing,
Stoking up the flames and smashing.
Everything around is burning!
And there you are, you’re staring,
with your folded arms, just gazing,
As our town is burning!”

When Mordechai Gebirtig wrote these Yiddish lyrics in 1936, few imagined that less than a decade later, one third of the Jews in the world will have perished in the Shoah, let alone that antisemitism would still be alive and lurking in the most enlightened nations.

On the eve of Passover this year, my home is on fire. My family is in tears. My country is on the verge of imploding. And if you, my brethren, don’t come to the rescue, my home – which is your home – will go up in flames.

Israel’s national anthem, Hatikvah – “The Hope” – says what generations of Jews were yearning for: “to be a free nation in our land.” For nearly 75 years, this was not a dream. But if we fail to act now, Israel as you know it will evaporate.

So, for the sake of Jewish liberty and unity, I plead with you, in Gebirtig’s words:

“It’s burning! Brothers!
Our poor town is burning!
Only you can help, no others,
Our poor town is burning!
If you love our town, don’t tire,
Take the buckets, quench the fire.
Don’t with folded arms keep staring,
As our town is burning!”
Happy Festival of Freedom! חמש תוריח גח

Rabbi Joab Eichenberg-Eilon, former Israeli diplomat and Emory University and GSU faculty, is currently Israel Institute of Biblical Studies professor of biblical Hebrew and Aramaic.