Looking Ahead to the High Holidays

I want to thank the many readers for sending in comments and letters from last week’s issue, both directly to me and as letters to the editor. Our community needs and deserves more debate and dialogue.

I also appreciate those that took issue with what I wrote as opposed to those who assumed things that were not stated in my letter. I certainly do not speak for the Atlanta Jewish community; I voiced my gripe with our Jewish senator’s voting record on one topic, Israel. While several news outlets treated me fairly (in their disagreement), too many made assumptions on what I said, or misrepresented me entirely, and then criticized me for what I didn’t say! And finally, thank you for the hundreds of comments I received personally from people who I know who are on both sides of the aisle, thanking me for taking the time to point out our senator’s voting record on Israel.

The High Holidays are upon us. This year, I will feel like a salmon swimming up stream when I hope for both a less polarized community and Jewish community. I will pray for stronger and more capable candidates on both sides of the aisle. I will search for more dialogue and ask for everyone in our community for less hate and more acceptance. Too many people throw the Jewish Times away when they read the first article they do not agree with, as if the rest of the community and paper now have no value. We are not all the same, we have never been all the same, America is a melting pot. Every immigrant to this great country in the last 400 years brings different culture, perspectives, and bias. We can disagree, it’s OK, our Torah scholars disagreed (vehemently) and we read about that every week in the commentary in shul; let’s just stop the hate!

We are living in a community, country, world where more and more people are blaming the Jews for any and all of its ills. Unfortunately, nothing has changed about that concept in the last 2,000 years. Sometimes it’s a little more quiet on the western front and other times the pendulum swings back with the same determination as it swings forward. As the world coalesces on one singular point, we need to try just a little harder to be less divisive within our own community.

This includes supporting our Jewish community wherever they live. We have all heard this before, it is not a cliché, if we do not stand together for ourselves, no one else will. No one has for 2,000 years, why would any Jew think different today?