BRIDGES and BOUNDARIES AFRICAN AMERICANS and AMERICAN JEWS

Ml-'f- ~ P,-sv\ BRIDGES and BOUNDARIES AFRICAN AMERICANS and AMERICAN JEWS

Edited by Tack Salzman with Adina Back and Gretchen Sullivan Sarin

NOTICE: THIS MATERIAL MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT LAW (TITLE 17, U.S. CODE).

GEORGE BRAZILLER . in association with THE JEWISH MUSEUM, NEW YORK The Jewish Museum is under the auspices 01 The Jewish Theological Seminary 01 America First published in 1992 by George Braziller, Inc,

For information, write to the publisher: George Braziller, Inc. 60 Madison Avenue New York, New York lOOlO

Library 01 Congress Cataloging·in·Publieation Data Bridges and Boundaries: African Americans and American jews I edited by jack Salzman with Adina Back and Gretchen Sullivan Sorin. p. em, "George Braziller in association with The Jewish Museum." Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8076-1279-0 [cloth! ISBN 0-8076-1280-4Ipbkl 1. Afro-Americans-Relations with Jews. 2. jews-United States-Politics and government. 3. United States-Race relations. 4. United States-Ethnic relations. I. Salzman, jack. II. Back, Adina. 1II. Sorin, Gretchen Sullivan. E185.61.B825 1992 305.8'96073-<1c20 91-47955 CIP This volume was designed by Peter McKenzie.

Typesetting, printing, and binding by Princeton University Press Printers, Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

First printing WHAT HAPPENS to THEM HAPPENS to ME

Abraham T. Hesche]

A person cannot be religious and indifferent to other human beings' plight and suffering. In fact, the tragedy of man is that so much of our history is a history of indifference, dominated by a famous statement, Am I my brother's keeper! We are involved in the great battle for equal rights being waged in our country, and this great and victorious drama has electrified many millions of Americans. But another drama is being enacted which is agonizing, heartrending, tragic and ignored: the plight of the Jews in Soviet Russia. The essense of a Jew is his involvement in the plight of other people, as God is involved. This is the secret of our legacy, that God is implied in the human situation and man must be involved in it. Here we face a major religious problem. For many years a systematic process of spiritual liquidation of millions of Jews has been going on in Soviet Russia. It is above all and first of all at this moment of central religious concem to me. How can I call myself a Jew and remain indifferent to the spiritual extinction of so many Jews? They are left alone. They don't even believe that there are Jews outside Soviet Russia; to quote a Russian Jew, "1 don't believe Jews live in America, because had there been Jews in America, they wouldn't have been indifferent to our plight." Russian Jews are isolated. They feel abandoned. The prophet says that Zion complains, The Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me. Russian Jewry says, The Jewish people have forsaken me. The Jewish people have forgotten me. Russian Jews are the forgotten Jews. According to our tradition, whoever forgets one segment of the Torah commits a great sin. How much more is a person guilty if he remains careless to the agony of one human being! The Torah tells us, You shall not stand by the blood of your neighbor. To be sure, there is a risk to be taken whenever we undertake to challenge the policy or the acts of a mighty power, particularly now when we are hoping and praying wholeheartedly that a new era of mutual understanding and reconciliation between the world's two great powers will take place. But risk is involved in every decision and in every action. Weighing the risk that the Jewish com munity may assume in fighting with moral and spiritual means for the rights of the Jews in 1;1 Russia, we must be ready to suffer ourselves in order to assure their survival. The command

86 r ,:h , 'I~ ,I I ABRAHAM J. HESCHEL i ment You shall not stand by the blood of your neighbor implies that one is obliged to render help even at the cost of personal danger. There is no other people in the world which is so absolutely committed to the sanctity of human rights and equality of all men as our people. Our history is the most emphatic testi many that injustice to some men spells the doom of all men. Prejudice is like a hydra, a monster which has many heads, an evil which requires many efforts to overcome. One head sends forth poison against the people of a different race, another against people of a different religion or culture. Thus the evil of prejudice is indivisible. Discrimination against the polit ical rights of the Negro in America and discrimination against the religious and cultural rights of the Jews in the Soviet Union are indivisible. We live in the darkest century of Jewish history. The [ewish world as it existed in 1914 is now a vast cemetery. Living in this country, one doesn't know whether it is a privilege or a punishment to be among those who have been saved from the holocaust. Six million Jews are no more, and three million Jews are in the process of systematic spiritual liquidation. Those who really sense it live in dismay, while the majority of Jews in America don't even know about it and are at best indifferent. What we must do above all is to create an atmosphere of concern for what is happening in Soviet Russia, where there are practically no synagogues left where a Jew may enter to say his prayers, where Jews cannot meet together as Jews, where a Bible is not available, where a prayer book is the most rare book, where matzot cannot be !, baked, where there are no kosher meat shops, no teachers, no schools, where only one rabbin ical seminary exists-its student body consisting of one single student. We have been long indifferent to the plight of the Jews in Soviet Russia. Time is running out. A few years from now there may be no more [ews left in Russia to be saved. We have forgotten the Jews of Russia. This is our major sin. You shall not stand by the blood of your neighbor. You will say it is impossible, nothing can be achieved, all efforts will remain futile. To do the impossible is the beginning of faith. Judaism is the art of the impossible. There is much that can be done as individuals, as citizens of America. What we can do, first of all, for our own selves is not to sink forever in the mire of indifference. If there will be an actual atmosphere of concern, if little children in the religious schools will learn to say a prayer for their brethren and the little children of Russia who are deprived of studying the holy tongue, something great will happen to the souls of our children right here. It is a burning sin that we remain indifferent. What is happening in our own days in Amer ican proves beyond doubt that a strong voice, ringing with force and dignity, has the power to pierce the iron shield of dormant conscience. We will get support from the Protestant and Catholic leadership, from the Negro leadership, in our effort to help save the Russian Jews from complete extinction. What is called for is not a silent sigh but a voice of moral compassion and indignation, the sublime and inspired screaming of a prophet uttered by a whole community. The Negro problem, I believe, is on the way to a solution because of the decision of the Supreme Court. Spirit has power, The voice of justice is stronger than bigotry. Yet, if not for personal involvement, ifnot for action on the part of the Negroes, the decision of the Supreme Court would have remained a still small voice; and the hour calls for the voice of justice as well as for concerted and incessant action.

87 WHAT HAPPENS to THEM HAPPENS to ME

Martin Luther King, Jr.

,·:t By presenting this award, you give me renewed courage and vigor to carry on in the struggle for freedom and justice. I cannot claim to be worthy of such a distinguished award; in presenting it to me you are in reality presenting it to hundreds and thousands of people associated with me who, in a real sense, are carrying on the struggle that makes the American dream a reality. I would also like to express my appreciation to you for the great support you have given the civil rights struggle. I am deeply in accord with what Rabbi Heschel has said concerning the injustices, the indignities and all of the humiliating experiences that the Jews of Russia are facing today. I have tried to express my concern in this area by serving on one of the committees that is trying to do something in a positive way about this and keep it before the conscience of the nation and the world. But this attempt to liquidate the Jewish people in Soviet Russia, this kind of spiritual annihilation, this attempt to engage in a systematic spiritual liquidation, is something that we must not allow. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. In· justice to any people is a threat to justice to all people-and I cannot stand idly by, even though I live in the United States and even though I happen to be an American Negro, and fail to be concerned about what happens to my brothers and sisters who happen to be Jews in Soviet Russia. For what happens to them, happens to me-and to you; and we must be con cerned. You have read Washington Irving's story "Rip Van Winkle." What we remember most about this dramatic little story is that Rip Van Winkle slept twenty years. The most arresting thing is not that Rip slept twenty years, but that he slept through a revolution. While he was peacefully snoring up in the mountain, a great revolution was taking place in the world, the American Revolution, a revolution that in a sense would completely change the face of the earth; and yet, Rip knew nothing about it. His tragedy was that he slept through a revolution. One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people find themselves in a great period of social change and yet fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental framework, that the new situation demands. There is nothing more tragic than to sleep through a revo lution.

88 MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

We must get rid of the notion once and for all that there are superior and inferior races, and we have a responsibility, as religious people and through all of our religious institutions, whether they be Jewish or Christian, to get the idea of the equality of man over and to make it palpably clear that the whole idea of superior and inferior races has no validity. The time has come for men and women to come to see the invalidity of this idea of superior and inferior races, and anyone who goes on following this idea, is sleeping through a revolution. Racial segregation is morally wrong and sinful. Segregation is not just a system that is politically unsound or sociologically untenable. It is morally wrong and sinful, and men and women of good will must rise up and say that segregation is wrong because it is a new form of slavery covered up with certain niceties of complexity. Segregation is wrong, to use the words of the great philosopher, Martin Buber, because it substitutes an l-it relationship for the l-Thou relationship. Segregation is wrong because it relegates persons to the status of things, and this is why we are saying in this struggle that we are through with segregation now, henceforth and forevermore-because it is morally wrong. We are also challenged to see the necessity for developing an action program to get rid of the vestiges of segregation and discrimination. Some ideas still linger that make it clear that some people are still sleeping through a revolution. One is the myth of time. Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. Without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the insurgent and primitive forces of irrational emotionalism and social stagnation. We are always challenged to help time and to realize that the time is always right to do right. We must see the need for strong civil rights legislation. There is a need for it at this hour. I would like to urge each of you to use all the resources at your disposal to get it over to the Congress of our United States that it is urgent that civil rights legislation be passed. It needs to be passed in this session of Congress, and it is tragic that it is now being said that we will probably not get a civil rights bill in this session of Congress. In presenting this award you have brought out that if freedom is to be won in this nation for the Negro, the Negro must do something about it himself, for freedom is not some lavish dish that the federal government will pass out on a silver platter while the Negro merely furnishes the appetite. If freedom is to be a reality, the Negro must be willing to suffer and to sacrifice and to work for it. This is what we have been trying to do in our humble efforts in the South and allover the nation. We have tried to work through the method of non-violent direct action to achieve the ideals of justice and freedom. This method has a way of disarming the opponent. It exposes his moral defenses. It weakens his morale and works on his con science.This is the power of this method. Even if the opponent tries to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that there are some things so precious, some things so dear, some things so eternally true, that they are worth dying for, and if a man has not discovered something that he would die for, he isn't fit to live. I have a personal faith. I believe firmly that in spite of the difficulties of these days, in spite of the struggles ahead, we will and we can solve this problem. I believe there will be a better America. We sing a song in our struggle, and it has become the theme song of our movement. We shall overcome. We shall overcome. Deep in my heart, I do believe We shall overcome. It is strange indeed how people can stand amid the smoldering ruins of their homes and their churches singing We shall overcome. That is the reason we sing it. Beforethe victory

89 ~;i ,

BRIDGES AND BOUNDARIES

:i is won, some more will probably have to be thrown in jail. Before the victory is won, some ii ij, more will have to be beaten up. Before the victory is won, some more will be called bad names and dismissed as rabble rousers, agitators, Communists and Reds simply because they believe

I in the brotherhood of man. Before the victory is won, some more may even have to face what Medgar Evers faced and go down into the Valley of Death. But if death is the price that some must pay to free their children and their white brothers from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive. Yes, We shall overcome, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. We shall overcome because Carlyle is right: "No lie can live forever." We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right: "Truth crushed to earth shall rise again." We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right: "Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways a future, And behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above His own." With this faith, we will be able to adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the dark chambers of pessimism. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. This will be a great day. This will be a great America. This will be the day, figuratively speaking, when the morning stars will sing together and the sons of God will shout for joy.

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