O pinion
We Need to Build Compassion and Understanding
BY AMANDA BERMAN
IN BROOKLYN ON the sixth
night of Sukkot, an anti-mask
populist convinced members of
the Orthodox Jewish community
in Borough Park to turn what is
an annual celebration of forth-
coming rainfall, called Simchat
Beit HaShoeva, into a violent and
hateful display of ignorance.

The physical
violence, including the brutal beating of
two men, and burning of masks
that occurred is nauseating, repre-
hensible and dangerous. Those
responsible absolutely must be
held accountable. Our hearts are
with our friend Jacob Kornbluh,
a widely respected journalist
with Jewish Insider, who was
assaulted in his own commu-
nity for doing his job while
supporting mask-wearing as an
urgent public health mandate.

And we are deeply concerned that
on Monday, after the arrest of
the agitator responsible for this
heinous violence and misinfor-
mation, Jacob was again targeted.

Enforcement of social
distancing and other lifesaving
precautions in the Orthodox
community is not anti-Semi-
tism. Stigmatizing all Orthodox
Jews based on the actions of a
few, however, is.

Most Orthodox Jews have
taken and continue to take
the pandemic seriously. L.A.’s
Orthodox leaders quickly
mobilized to contain the
spread of coronavirus, arguably
saving countless lives. The
Orthodox Jews who contracted
the disease early and survived
then donated blood plasma by
the thousands in an effort to
save the lives of people of all
faiths and creeds, who were
struggling to recover.

We need to ask ourselves:
Why are we — especially those of
us who call ourselves progressive
Jews — so complacent about and
comfortable with the singling
out and generalizing of the entire
Orthodox Jewish community?
This community isn’t monolithic;
it’s heterogeneous, nuanced,
multifaceted and complicated.

Parts of it experience high
rates of poverty, low rates
of health literacy, language
barriers and deep, multigenera-
tional mistrust of government,
stemming from centuries of
persecution and medical abuse
at the hands of public health
authorities. This isn’t the first
time public health officials have
done a poor job conducting
outreach to Orthodox commu-
nities. Mistranslating Yiddish,
acting slowly and failing to
use well-known communica-
tion channels to give Orthodox
Jewish communities the infor-
mation they needed to combat
a measles outbreak last year is
one example. This knowledge
is essential background infor-
mation to this conversation.

Outreach to these specific
Orthodox communities has been
uneven at best and irrespon-
sible at worst. Guidelines for
social distancing have not taken
into account the challenges
that specifically impact many
members of these Jewish
communities, which often
don’t have internet access. As of
mid-September 2020, there were
no Yiddish-speaking contact
tracers employed by the city.

In neighborhoods where most
Jews speak English, Hebrew
or Russian — not Yiddish —
loudspeakers twice blasted
information in Yiddish despite
criticism. Some of the outreach
has been appropriate and sensi-
tive — but some has not.

We must call out the bad
behavior of the loud but few
who act poorly, while also
elevating and uplifting the
voices of the many who act
as good neighbors and good
citizens. Jews have a duty to hold
ourselves and our siblings in the
Orthodox community to the
highest standards in protecting
human life, understanding
our commitment to pikuach
nefesh — that the preservation
of human life takes precedence
over all other commandments.

At the same time, each one
of us must also demonstrate
compassion and a willingness
to listen to those whose tradi-
tions, experiences, languages
and religious observances
are different from ours. Only
through this balance will we
grow together as a broad and
diverse Jewish people.

The behavior we witnessed
this past week is uncon-
scionable, inexplicable and
shameful. But the definition
of bigotry is allowing the bad
behavior of the few to define the
whole — a New York Orthodox
Jewish community of more
than half a million people.

The Anti-Defamation League
reported months ago that
discussion of Orthodox Jews
on social media, especially on
Facebook, has become deeply
troubling, including “compar-
isons of religious leaders
to Adolf Hitler and positive
affirmations about the Jewish
community being ‘wiped off
the planet.’” This happened
before these protests. And it is
dangerous beyond words.

Anti-Semitism has been
rising at a troubling rate —
affecting all American Jews
— but the most frequent targets
of violence are often attacks
on those who are most visibly
Jewish, like our Orthodox
siblings. From the terrifying
shooting at the only kosher
supermarket in Jersey City to the
Chanukah stabbing in Monsey
last year, to growing numbers
of violent hate crimes, Jewish
people faced more than half of
NYC’s hate crimes last year, and
these crimes were concentrated
in Orthodox neighborhoods.

At a time of rapidly rising
and violent anti-Semitism, we
all have an absolute obligation to
push back on that narrative by
anyone who perpetuates it. This
includes elected leaders like New
York Mayor Bill De Blasio and
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who must
continue to demand enforce-
ment of the mask-wearing and
social distancing rules, while
also refusing to allow or perpet-
uate the wholesale vilification of
any select group of people. They
need to improve their engage-
ment with this community, and
they need to do it immediately.

When it comes down to it, we
as Jews urgently must remember:
It isn’t “us” and “them.” We are
all one people, and we must
protect one another. l
Amanda Berman is the founder
and executive director of Zioness,
a national organization that fights
for the inclusion of Zionists in social
justice spaces. A graduate of the
University of Pennsylvania and
Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N.

Cardozo School of Law, Berman
was listed by the Algemeiner
as one of the top “100 people
positively contributing to Jewish
life” in 2018.

Effecting Change Through Interfaith Interconnectedness
BY MARCIA BRONSTEIN
22 OCTOBER 15, 2020
RELATIONSHIPS REQUIRE
forging ties with others
and bridging differences.

Relationship building is the
most challenging part of
advocacy, the work I cherish
the most. It requires communi-
cation, trust and the ability to
work together on each other’s
issues. And advocacy work also
requires compassion.

With the beginning of each
New Year, Jews start reading
the Torah from the beginning
with the book of Genesis. This
is the biblical story of creation
and it is marked with sin
and mistakes. Just after God
finishes creating the Earth and
everything in it, God makes
humans. Adam and Eve were
given one rule — eat whatever
you like from this world, except
for one tree. But they eat from
that tree and fail. The next
generation fails even worse
JEWISH EXPONENT
when one of their sons murders
the other. The world seems to
have a depressing start, as we
appear doomed to harm one
another and disappoint our
creator. Our ancient sages taught
before creating the world, God
created repentance. It was a
corrective to the shortcomings,
missteps, sins and offenses that
are integral being human.

Repentance, growth, change
and forgiveness were built into
the very fabric of the universe.

So, we learn from biblical
stories that the idea of compas-
sion, change and growth makes
all things possible. The way
things are today is not the way
they always have to be. The idea
that radical change is possible
is also built into the fabric of
my organization’s DNA.

See Bronstein, Page 24
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM