The Rebellious Rabbi: Joachim Prinz Rabbi Carl M. Perkins Temple Aliyah, Needham, MA Rosh HaShanah Day One 2013

I would like to speak with you this morning about an inspiring speech, and an inspiring speaker.

It was a speech given fifty years ago, an eloquent speech that was

“brief,” “bold,” and “passionate.” (Allan Nadler, “The Plot for America,”

Tablet Magazine.)

It was delivered at the now-famous March on Washington whose fiftieth anniversary we just observed last week.

Now when we think about the March on Washington—as I’m sure all of us did last week—what comes immediately to mind, of course, is the famous “I have a Dream” speech by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther

King. After all, excerpts from that speech are always being aired.

But that’s not the speech I’m thinking of.

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I’m thinking of the speech that was given in the coveted spot just before

Dr. King’s speech. It was a speech given not by an eloquent and inspiring African-American preacher and communal leader, but by an eloquent and inspiring Jewish preacher and communal leader. The speaker was the then-head of the American Jewish Congress, the late

Rabbi Joachim Prinz.

Who was Joachim Prinz, and why was he there? And what does this have to do with us on this day?

2 Rabbi Prinz was born into and raised in an assimilated Jewish family in

Germany. While still a young man he became a Zionist and joined the

Blau und Weiss, the “Blue and White” Zionist organization in Germany.

This was not a popular choice. As Prinz later wrote, at the time, he and his fellow Zionists were “considered to be eccentric, … unreasonable, intransigent, and, of course, completely wrong. We were [considered to be] the prophets of doom, while the majority of German Jews looked to their future as the fulfillment of the great promise of emancipation.”

(Joachim Prinz, Rebellious Rabbi: An Autobiography, edited by Michael

Meyer (2008), p. 147.)

Prinz earned a PhD in philosophy and a degree in art history, and then, in the mid-1920s was ordained as a rabbi at the Jewish Theological

Seminary in Breslau. He continued his Zionist activities, and for a time worked as a fundraiser for the recently established Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also became a pulpit rabbi, and a spellbinding speaker whose sermons were incredibly popular. Literally thousands turned out to hear him.

3 That forum and that skill became crucial, not only for him but for his entire community, in the 1930s, once the Nazis came to power.

Suddenly, the ground began to shift beneath Germany’s Jews.

Everything that they had come to assume about themselves and their secure place in German society was turning to dust. Rabbi Prinz wasn’t afraid to describe what was happening. He gave sermon after sermon about the evils of the Nazi regime. He offered moral support, and he openly urged people to emigrate. His words became a form of spiritual resistance.

Within a short time, he attracted the attention of the Gestapo, the

German secret police. Soon, every week there would be two Gestapo agents at Shabbat services at his synagogue. And so, Rabbi Prinz began to speak in code, condemning not the Nazis but the Amalekites or some other historical enemy of the Jewish people. At least six times he was picked up by the Gestapo and interrogated. Inexplicably and fortunately, he was released each time. Perhaps it’s because he had friends in high places. Perhaps it’s because he displayed astonishing hutzpah in his dealings with the regime, and used his credentials, his

4 academic degrees, his urbanity, to great effect. Nonetheless, it was a harrowing time for him and his family.

On one occasion, he was forbidden to preach. “You may read,” he was told, “any of the prayers in the prayer book. Just don’t preach.” And so, in lieu of a sermon, he opened up his prayerbook to the prayer that appears at the end of the silent recitation of the Amidah (it appears in our mahzorim, Mahzor Lev Shalem, on page 139), and read it out loud:

O Lord, Guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile, And to those who slander me, let me give no heed. Frustrate the designs of those who plot evil against me; Speedily defeat their aims and thwart their schemes. … Answer us, O Lord, and save with Thy redeeming power.

After that service, one of the Gestapo agents came up to him and said,

“That prayer you read was much more dangerous than any sermon you could have delivered.”

This cat and mouse game went on for several years. Finally, in early

1937, Rabbi Prinz was warned by a high Nazi official that he was about

5 to be arrested again and that this time he wouldn’t be released. The official made it clear to him: if he didn’t leave the country now, he would not get another chance.

But before leaving, rather than sneaking out the country quietly, he decided to go out with a splash. Thousands were invited to the huge

Brüdervereinshaus, a large social club in Berlin, to bid him farewell. He gave a stirring and impassioned address. He spoke about how difficult it was for him to leave Germany, a country in which Jews had lived for sixteen hundred consecutive years, a country in which German Jews had come to feel thoroughly German, speaking only German and making enormous contributions to German culture and society. There was much weeping, and he received a standing ovation.

(Incidentally, among the uninvited guests at that farewell gathering, apparently to keep an eye on things, was none other than Adolf

Eichmann.)

Within a very short time of Rabbi Prinz’s arrival in this country in 1937, he continued his work as a spokesperson for Zionism, now in English – a

6 language at which he proved himself as eloquent as his native German.

But he focused on other issues as well. From his first visit to America in the 1930s, he had been appalled at the treatment of African Americans, and believed that it was a moral obligation of the highest order to end the humiliation and discrimination that he saw as pervasive throughout

America -- though especially in the south. Rabbi Prinz became the head of the American Jewish Congress, an organization dedicated to social justice. Almost immediately, he invited Martin Luther King to address the AJC, and demonstrated energetic support of the civil rights struggle.

He and Martin Luther King became friends.

7 And so it is no surprise that Rabbi Prinz was invited to address the quarter million people gathered peacefully in Washington on August

28th, 1963.

What did he say that day? What do you say when you are one of the organizers of an event focused on ending oppression and discrimination faced by other people?

His first words, I think, are critical. Prinz was well aware of who he was, and who he wasn’t, and what his role was that day, and he put it out there very directly.

“I speak to you,” he said, “as an American Jew.”

Think of what he could have said: “I come before you as an American religious leader.” “I come before you as a Jewish American.” But no, his fundamental identity was as a Jew. Yes, he was living in and benefitting from the blessings of America, but first and foremost, he was a Jew. That was the basis for his credibility, his reason for being there that day.

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He went on to say that “it is not merely sympathy and compassion for the black people of America that motivates us [that is, we Jews].

It is above all and beyond all such sympathies and emotions a sense of complete identification and solidarity born of our own painful historic experience.”

He went on to say much more than that. It wasn’t just the Jewish experience of victimhood, he said, it wasn’t just how Jews had been treated that led him to identify with oppressed blacks; it was our religious tradition; it was Judaism. And then, with one fell swoop, he broke down the barriers between himself and his audience:

[O]ur fathers [he said], taught us thousands of years ago

that when God created man, he created him as

everybody's neighbor. Neighbor is not a geographic

term. It is a moral concept. It [refers to] our collective

responsibility for the preservation of man's dignity and

integrity.

9 Then, directing himself as much to white America as to black America, he identified what he saw as the fundamental problem in America:

When I was the rabbi of the Jewish community in Berlin

under the Hitler regime, I learned many things. The

most important thing that I learned under those tragic

circumstances was that bigotry and hatred are not the

most urgent problem. The most urgent, the most

disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic

problem is silence. …

America must not become a nation of onlookers.

America must not remain silent. Not merely black

America, but all of America. It must speak up and act,

from the President down to the humblest of us, and …

not for the sake of the black community, but for the

sake of the image, the idea and the aspiration of

America itself.

(The speech can be read and heard in its entirety here: http://www.joachimprinz.com/Joachim_Prinz/Civil_Rights.html .)

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* * * * *

What a speech! Who wouldn’t endorse those lofty words?

Well, some didn’t. There were Jewish leaders who objected to Prinz’s involvement in civil rights, arguing that it wasn’t a Jewish issue. They feared—probably not unreasonably—that too much involvement by

Jews could lead to increased antisemitism. (See Michael Meyer,

“Introduction,” Rebellious Rabbi, p. xliii, fn. 100, and personal communication.)

If you think about it, it’s impressive that Prinz gave a speech like this at all. After all, he had survived Nazi Germany by the skin of his teeth. No one would have held it against him if, for the rest of his life, he had only concerned himself with Jewish survival, with Jewish well-being.

But Rabbi Prinz understood: As important as it is for Jews to care about

Jews, it’s also important to care about the entire world.

11 As Jews, as he very well knew, our fundamental obligation is to care for one another. After all, we’re family. Kol yisrael arevim zeh ba-zeh: Every

Jew must be, in essence, a guarantor for every other Jew, for we have no one else upon whom to rely. We learned that during the dark years that

Rabbi Prinz served in Berlin, and during the years that followed.

And we have to be guarantors of Judaism—the religious civilization of which we are the heirs—as well. We owe it to our own dignity and self- respect to become fully grounded in Jewish living and culture, as Rabbi

Prinz was. How else can we play an informed and active role in helping to assure and shape the future of the Jewish people?

However, to be a Jew in the fullest sense, the scope of our vision and of our concern must encompass the whole world. We have an obligation to speak out against bigotry, intolerance and oppression wherever it appears. As Leviticus teaches us, “v’ahavta l’reyachah kamocha,” “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18) We might wonder whether that refers only to Jewish neighbors. Indeed, there have been

Jewish interpreters who draw that conclusion.

12 But there has also long been a universalistic interpretive tradition of this verse. Well before Rabbi Prinz, Rabbi Pinchas Eliyahu Hurwitz of

Vilna, the eighteenth century author of the Sefer Ha-Brit, wrote, “The essence of neighborly love consists in loving all humankind, of whatever people and whatever tongue, by virtue of their identical humanity.”

[(II:13:1), quoted in Telushkin, Love Your Neighbor as Yourself (2009), p.

292.]

Leviticus goes further, and compels us to act, and to demonstrate our love: “Lo ta’amod al dam reyecha,” “You must not stand by the blood of your neighbor.” (Leviticus 19:16) Whatever the color of your neighbor’s skin, however different from you he or she may seem, we must never be complacent at the suffering of the innocent; we must never remain silent. Rabbi Prinz’s message is that we have a duty—as Jews—to speak out and to join forces with others to protest injustice, wherever it rears its ugly head.

What’s all this got to do with Rosh HaShanah?

13 Rosh Hashanah is, of course, a Jewish holiday, but it isn’t just about

Jews. We celebrate today the birthday of the world, after all. Our duty on this day is to rouse ourselves and care about what is going on outside as well as inside our community.

And how do we Jews rouse ourselves? With the shofar, with its two ends, one narrow and focused, the other broad and wide. As we chanted just a few minutes ago, “Min ha-meitzar karati yah” – “I call to God from a narrow, constricted place.” We always do, don’t we? We start with ourselves, and our own needs. But then, “anani b’merchavya” --- “God answers me with broadness of outlook and concern.” (Psalm 118:5)

To paraphrase Peter, Paul and Mary, the shofar is the bell of freedom— freedom for Jews, and for everyone. Rabbi Prinz helped secure Jewish freedom in the Land of Israel. He helped us rebuild our ancestral homeland. And he also cried out for freedom for other oppressed people as well, which is what we’re called upon to do on this day. As

Isaiah said, in a verse that is part of the Shofarot section of our service,

“All of you, who live in this world and dwell on this earth: when a banner

14 is raised on the mountains, look! And when the shofar is sounded, listen!”

[(Isaiah 18:3); see Mahzor Lev Shalem, p. 165.]

Rabbi Prinz spent more than half his life working on behalf of the Jewish

People. He understood that “im ein ani li, mi li?” “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”

And he spent more than half his life caring for all humanity—not merely as an anonymous citizen of the world, but as a proud Jew.

Most of us are not public speakers. Even if we are, we are neither

“Prinzes” nor “Kings.” What are we to do? How are we to fulfill the promise of this day?

A few weeks ago, I received a card in the mail from T’ruah, formerly known as Rabbis for Human Rights. That card lays out some questions to ask ourselves on Rosh Hashanah. Based on them, I have come up with a few of my own that I think we can fruitfully ask ourselves at this time. Here they are:

15 First: What have been some of the achievements of the Jewish

People during the past few years that you’re proud of?

Think about it: Was it the rescue of Ethiopian Jewry, which has just been completed? Was it the building of new Jewish educational institutions in this country, or the re-engineering of shuls or JCCs? Was it the strengthening of cutting-edge national or international Jewish startups like Limud or Kveller or Jewlicious or Jumpstart, or creative local endeavors like our own Boston Jewish Music Festival? Was it helping to strengthen our own shul, which is of course, a highly worthy cause (for, after all, charity begins at home). What achievements are we celebrating?

And the second half of that question is:

What role did you play in those achievements? Maybe you didn’t play much of a role. OK, hold that thought. Here’s the next question:

16 What are some important challenges that the Jewish people is facing in the coming year? And the second half of that question is, of course: What part will you play in addressing those challenges?

Potential challenges are immense: maintaining the array of Jewish communal organizations through anticipated demographic shifts; maintaining Israel’s security as the nations surrounding her fall apart; building on the success of Birthright by reaching out to its 300,000 alumni, rather than simply allowing them drift away, etc.

Each of us can certainly try to identify a particular challenge with which we can identify—and figure out a role we can play.

Third: What human rights victories are you celebrating this year?

What part did you play as a Jew in making these happen?

Perhaps the most obvious human rights victory we can point to is the expansion of the right for gays and lesbians to marry, a right that we pioneered here in Massachusetts a decade ago. We should ask ourselves

17 the question: What role did we play? Did we support the Jewish community’s organizations, such as Keshet—whose national headquarters is here in Boston—that have been fighting for this with resolute determination and, I should say, grace, for many years?

And Fourth: How will you make the world more just in the coming year? What role will you play as a Jew in this effort?

Is it alleviating poverty? Hunger? Human trafficking? I wish I could say that these problems no longer exist, but they do. And in each case there are Jewish organizations (such as AJWS, the American Jewish World

Service, T’ruah, Avodah, and others; see, for instance, http://jewishsocialjustice.org/members) working hard to make a difference.

Remember, you can try to make a difference as an individual; but if you do so as a Jew you will be representing not only yourself, but the Jewish people as well. And that’s a kiddush ha-shem, a sanctification of God’s name. (For further discussion of this issue, see: Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Where

Justice Dwells: A Hands-On Guide to Doing Social Justice in Your Jewish

18 Community (Jewish Lights, 2011), pp. 15-16.)

As Rabbi Prinz understood, we have to ask ourselves all of these questions. We have to be concerned with the challenges faced by the

Jewish people, and the problems faced by the entire world, and we have to get ourselves involved in addressing them all—as Jews.

Rosh Hashanah is the opportunity to make a commitment to make a difference. No matter what your answers were to the questions about the past, each of us can make a difference in the year to come. We can respond to our congregational president Bruce Bern’s call to contribute to our community, and our local, collective efforts to make a difference, and we can contribute to organizations that are national or international in scope. What’s it going to be? The gift of Rosh Hashanah is that we have the opportunity to reflect on how we’d like to make a difference in the year to come.

Let me wish everyone a Shanah Tovah: May all of us do what we can to be sources of blessing and goodness in the coming year, for all Israel

19 and for all humanity. Let us listen to the blowing of the shofar, and let’s hear—and heed—its message.

Amen.

[For further reading, see: Allan Nadler, “The Plot for America:

Remembering Joachim Prinz, the Civil Rights Leader and Confidante of

Martin Luther King,” Tablet Magazine, http://tinyurl.com/m64aqs8 .]

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