I was part of a committee set up by the Tri-County Board of Jewish Clergy (Burlington, Camden and Gloucester Counties) to prepare a statement expressing our support for those who are protesting killing of George Floyd and many other African Americans at the hands of law enforcement officers and the systemic racism in our culture that these killings illustrate. This is my original draft. The final statement which will be published today is shorter and somewhat softer.
Proposed Statement
Teaching
רַב וְרַבִּי חֲנִינָא וְרַבִּי יוֹחָנָן וְרַב חֲבִיבָא מַתְנוּ: . . .כׇּל מִי שֶׁאֶפְשָׁר לִמְחוֹת לְאַנְשֵׁי בֵיתוֹ וְלֹא מִיחָה — נִתְפָּס עַל אַנְשֵׁי בֵיתוֹ. בְּאַנְשֵׁי עִירוֹ — נִתְפָּס עַל אַנְשֵׁי עִירוֹ. בְּכָל הָעוֹלָם כּוּלּוֹ — נִתְפָּס עַל כָּל הָעוֹלָם כּוּלּוֹ.
Rav, Rabbi Hanina, Rabbi Yochanan, and Rav Haviva taught … Anyone who can protest the sinful conduct of the members of one’s household and does not protest, that one is complicit in their sins. Anyone who can protest the sinful conduct of the people of one’s town, and does not protest, that one is complicit in their sins. Anyone who can protest the sinful conduct of the whole and does not protest, that one is complicit in the sins of the whole world... Berakot 54a
Prayer
Yizkor – May God remember the souls of Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Oscar Grant, Philando Castile, Walter Scott, Terrence Crutcher, Samuel Dubose, Michael Brown, and all too many more who have gone to their eternal home. For the sake of Tikkun Olam, we promise to work for tzedaka, justice in their memory. For the sake of their precious souls, may our words and deeds bring honor to their lives and their deaths. May they and their loved ones find peace with the One who Promises Peace and may the beauty of their lives shine forever.
We the members of the Board of Jewish Clergy of Southern New Jersey remember with sadness, outrage, and shame the memory of our African American Brothers and Sisters, our fellow Americans whose lives were cut short by the reckless and callous use of force by law enforcement personnel and vigilante actors. Our hearts go out to their families, their communities, and all those torn by the deaths.
As tragic as the death of anyone human being is, their deaths are symptomatic expressions of a far deeper set of issues: the structural racism built into so many of our social, educational and governmental institutions, particularly our nation’s justice system and the false cultural assumptions of white racial superiority that gave birth and continue to support these dysfunctional systems.
While we have long been aware of the continuing presence of racism in America, having at times as a community and as individuals experienced its dark presence, and have benefited from the expansion of civil rights, we, as a community, have not been sensitive enough to recognize how, Jews in America, particularly those from European backgrounds, have been advantaged by being coded as “white” in the American skin-color based system of racial hierarchy. As a result, we have, willingly or unwittingly, contributed uncritically to the maintenance of racist structures in our culture.
Our efforts to address racist attitudes within our community have not been adequate to overcome the social and institutional barriers that block black Jews and all Jews of color from fully participating in organized Jewish life. Our efforts to reach out and work with the broader African American community and other racial and ethnic minority communities have been hampered by our cultural insensitivity and a preoccupation with our parochial Jewish concerns. We have not responded fully to lessons of our history and the teachings of our tradition that demand that we not only reject racism but actively stand against societal forces that hold people down because of the color of their skin. Our protest against racism has been too soft and too ineffectual to allow us any comfort.
Current events have unveiled the extent of suffering brought on by our national inability to overcome culturally embedded legacy of racism. Our nation’s response to the COVID19 virus has revealed both the general shortcomings of our health system but its specific failures in African American and other minority communities. The concurrent economic downturn while harming to all Americans, has been particularly painful for racial and ethnic minorities. The death of George Floyd, the latest in a long series of African Americans killed by police, demonstrates, once again, the structural racial bias in the American justice system.
In light of all this, we rededicate ourselves to promoting Jewish understanding that oppression, inequality, and prejudice hide God’s presence in our lives. Over the next year, we will seek to educate ourselves and the leadership of our communities to resources to gain insights, knowledge, and tools to enable us to guide our institutions and communities in the paths of peace toward an anti-racist future.
We will follow the lead of Jews of color and the wisdom of other communities of color to learn what we need to know, what we need to do, and how best to do it - learning when to listen and when to speak; when to step back and when to act.
We will work with our elected representatives at the national, state, county, and local levels to rethink and restructure our approach to law enforcement to address inherent racial bias.
We will offer the resources our community has developed to fight anti-Semitism to our friends and allies in our joint struggle against racism.
We will reach out in a spirit of dialogue all communities – religious, ethnic, cultural, professional – as we together confront the scourge of racism and the challenges we all face in expunging it from our institutional structures but from our hearts and minds.
We will no longer be complicit in our silence and will learn how to effectively protest the sin of racism wherever we find it.
The Tri-County Board of Jewish Clergy
June 2020 / Sivan 5780