A young woman student was sitting in a lecture at her university taught by Professor of Holocaust politics, Norman Finkelstein. She was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Professor Finkelstein was talking about how so few non-Jews stood up against the Nazis, and that the reason we remember the ‘righteous among the nations’, those who did shelter Jews or resist Nazism, is because they were the exception. Professor Finkelstein was saying that this is normality – people don’t protest against injustice, they just say silent.
The young woman wanted to jump up and say ‘No – you must never say silent when people are being oppressed – its morally evil to do so.’ She was going to say ‘I know that I would have done so’. After all she knew the John Stuart Mill saying that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.” Surely that was so true here. If she had been alive in late 1930’s Germany she would have resisted the regime as a moral imperative.
After the lecture the young woman student went to see Professor Finkelstein to say to him that she disagreed with him. Good people in Germany should have resisted the Nazis with all means at their disposal. She would have. She had wanted to say that in the lecture
Professor Finkelstein fixed the young woman with a steely eye. ‘So why didn’t you challenge me in the lecture?’ ‘Are you seriously saying that you would have stood up against the Nazis, despite the immediate danger to your life and the life of your family? You wouldn’t even speak up in a lecture theatre where the worst thing that could possibly happen is a bit of disapproval from your teacher. I can tell you – you would most probably have done nothing.’
Norman Finkelstein tells this story to remind us that standing up against corrupt authority, even when it is the right and moral thing to do is actually extremely difficult. We should deeply admire and support those who do so, wherever this may be.
I totally failed at this on Tuesday night. I was among those representing Reform Judaism at a reception and event hosted by the Israeli Embassy to somewhat belatedly celebrate the 74th birthday of the State of Israel. There were no trays of Ferrero Rocher, but there was plenty of the new Israeli staple food which has replaced Falafel in Tel Aviv – Sushi!
Before we went in to the hotel ballroom reception there was the inevitable security queue. At these kind of shindigs it is always a good opportunity to chat with the interesting people in the line with you. And this was the site of a deep moral failure on my behalf.
I started talking with the young man behind me – he looked in his late twenties or early thirties. After some pleasantries I asked him what brought him to the Israeli Embassy celebration. He told me he was there as a representative of the London Embassy of Russia.
What should I have done? I think I know. I should have told this possibly young rising star of Russian diplomacy how disgusted I and my community are by the violent aggression of his country, Russia. How the invasion of Ukraine has brought his country’s reputation to the very lowest. How the atrocities his government is carrying out upon civilians on a daily basis must stop immediately. I could have helped him to know that representing aggression and violence would bring his country to its knees. It may have made little difference – but it would have been the right thing to do, surely.
What was the worst that could have happened? I might have had to forego the sushi, he might have been embarrassed or refused to listen. Someone else in the line might have said ‘ steady on – this isn’t the time or place – he’s only a junior representative’.
But I didn’t do it. Instead we spoke about my visit to refusniks in the former Soviet Union in its final years. We spoke about Moscow and St Petersburg and the Jewish clubs that were opening up there thirty and more years ago. Afterwards and now I realised I am that student of the Professor who thinks that they can make a difference but when faced even with slight social embarrassment does nothing.
I cannot reverse this – it happened. But I am able to do something. Like many members of Edgware and Hendon Reform Synagogue my family applied to Refugees at Home, World Jewish Relief and the Government Scheme to host refugees from Ukraine at our home. Incredibly this is finally happening. Today a young woman from Mariupol, one of the cities devastated by that Russian Embassy representative’s government army, a young woman called Hannah who has been sheltering in Zaporizhzhia 100 miles away as the bombs still fell, who has managed to escape earlier this week to Lviv and then to Warsaw, is coming to live with us until it will be safe to go home. Hannah is a recent graduate from her Mariupol hometown university in journalism, she has lost everything and we have the privilege of being a home for her for the time being.
The final stages of being connected with her were through a network of local families, Jewish and others who have made direct connections with Ukraine and people there so that they can personally sponsor their visas to the UK, which is what you have to do. If you wish to do so then I can put you in contact with a Belarussian Rabbi, disgusted at Russia’s action, who will put you in contact with a would be Ukrainian refugees. This is among the things that I could have told the Russian Embassy representative – but didn’t.
At the start of the Book of Numbers the whole point of counting the Israelites was so that they could move forwards, press the justice of their campaign to return to their Promised Land, know their strength and their unity as the Tribes of Israel. But that’s only the beginning of moving on from Mount Sinai’s illusory freedom in the desert into responsibility.
It can be so tough to have the courage speak, so tough to have the courage to act. Yet Judaism mandates us to do so wherever we experience injustice. From the prophet Micah (6:8): God has told you what is good and what God requires of you: Only to do justice and love goodness and walk humbly through God’s world As Hosea the prophet said in our Haftarah portion today ‘ banish bow, sword and war from the land, let people lie down in safety.’ (Hosea 2:20) What a privilege this will be to help Hannah from Ukraine to do so, just as kind families in Britain took in our Kinderstransport children 85 years ago. We hope that one day she can return home to peace, but that will be a long time from now.
A Rabbi from Ukraine in the eighteen century, Menachem Nahum of Chernobyl, yes that Chernobyl, noted that the Hebrew expression for the census of the Israelites in our portion is se’u et rosh, literally meaning lift the head. (Etz Chayim p770) He wrote ‘Let the Israelites hold their heads high as they contemplate who their ancestors were’ while they are counted tribe by tribe named for the sons of Jacob. This is not easy. B’midbar says ‘in every situation stand up and be counted, lift up your head and have courage and each of you counts.’
May we have the courage to act for justice and care for humanity, may we have the courage to speak up when we can.
