Question: Are we brave or otherwise?

By AVRUM ROSENSWEIG

What is wrong with the Diaspora consciousness?

Why do we feel sickened by anti-Semitic attacks in Turkey and around the world, yet leave the job of fighting hatred up to Israel and organizations?

Why do thousands of Jews in 2003 attend Holocaust Week programming, yet take a neutral stand on the suffering of Jews and others? It doesn’t make sense. If Holocaust Education is not “a call to arms,” then what is it? Is it entertainment? Where is our bravery? Where is our daring? Why are we not boldly and actively brawling with inequities and pursuing peace?

Rather than being so comfortable, wouldn’t it be wiser to pursue options such as the financing and development of workshops on self-defence and peace negotiations? Shouldn’t our schools, together with Jewish philanthropists, develop programs for our children so that they are physically able to shield themselves and have the mental agility and know-how to respond to lunatic lies spewed by anti-Semites, as well as the tools to build stronger relationships with non-Jews who do not hate us?

Why aren’t we working with Jewishly owned marketing companies to disseminate the beautiful truth about the Jewish people, including our fierce desire for peace? Where are the grassroots movements composed of regular community members for the protection of the Jewish people and for outreach to our friends?

We must ask ourselves: when did the links in the chain of consciousness break? Why did most Jews not listen to Ze’ev Jabotinsky when he told them to flee eastern Europe? Why didn’t most Jews in the West barrage their governments when news about the concentration camps began to leak? How come today, even though we know anti-Semitism is spreading, will few of us pound on the doors of our rabbis’ and community leaders’ homes, demanding a thoughtful and creative game plan in which we all play a considerable and vital role in assisting our people?

We will be judged in history by future generations of Jews. They will wonder if the Canadian Jewish community did everything it could to pursue peace and fight hate, when we had the luxury to do so. Historians might ask why we spent millions of dollars on Holocaust education and monuments if not, at least in part, to compel our generation to vigorously pursue peace.
We were victims of terror and insanity. Let nobody tell us otherwise.

It is time, however, for Diaspora Jews who are able to divest themselves of the mental baggage of victimization that prevents the development of a pro-active plan to bring peace to the Jewish people and the world. It is time Israelis stop bearing the entire burden of fighting our enemies and searching for peaceful partnerships.

The Toronto Jewish community can be a light unto other Diaspora Jewish communities. We can test the waters of hasbarah and activism, and then tell everyone else how we did it.
It is already three years that I am calling upon you, Polish Jewry… I became gray and old in these years, my heart bleeds, that you, dear brother and sisters, do not see the volcano which will soon begin to spit its all-consuming lava. If you do believe me, then listen to me in this 12th hour: In the name of God! Let anyone of you save himself, as long as there is still time, and time there is very little. Eliminate the Diaspora or the Diaspora will surely eliminate you. – Zev Jabotinsky, two years before World War II.