Recalling the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen 2) Fight Fiercely, Harvard! 3) Plus, a Special Holiday Gift...
1) Recalling the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen
This is the headline of today’s Daily Express. While the people of Britain recall how, 80 years ago today, British soldiers fought to preserve victims, denied due process, from concentration camps, here in the inner sanctum of our Oval Office, American leaders are laughing about building offshore concentration camps to house victims denied due process.
Read the history of the liberation from the Imperial War Museum and listen to the audio clips of witnesses. The humanity of the troops in such inhuman circumstances is stunning. Here are just four of the many clips on the site, plus a transcript of the final clip:
Compare that Daily Express headline to the one below, and the seriousness of the British soldiers with the laughter in the room when Trump brought up deporting American citizens to concentration camps.
There are no words. Actually there is one: Shame.
2) Fight Fiercely, Harvard!
I haven’t rooted for Harvard since they “beat” Yale, 29-29. But their titanic decision to stand up to the Trump bully is worth cheering for. We all know that this is NOT about antisemitism and has everything to do with the subjugation of knowledge. Our strongest centers of learning need to join forces - with the full-throated support of American Jews, who care about stopping antisemitism but will not be duped. We are no one’s useful idiots. Fight fiercely!
Other universities need to join forces and follow suit. My alma mater is leading the way…
3) And Finally, a Special Holiday Gift
Hillel says, “Do not say 'When I am free I will study', for perhaps you will not become free.” (Pirkei Avot 2:4)
I don’t think Hillel meant “free” in the sense that free speech and objective truth would be compromised, or moral values utterly distorted. By free, he was talking about availability and leisure time. Now, in the Trump era, this quote has gained additional meaning. We now need to liberate our libraries, study halls and classrooms. We have to liberate learning itself. There’s no better way to do that than to learn. We need to defend higher education and research - for perhaps we will not become free.
Back in mid 2023, months before Oct.7, I taught a ten-session Intro to Judaism class on Zoom. All the sessions were recorded (only in SD and not HD, unfortunately). This first session (video above) discusses how Judaism can be best understood by way of three Hebrew names for the Jewish people: Yisrael, Yehudi and Ivri.
It’s on this festival of Passover that the Jewish people became a nation. So this would be the best possible time to discuss that perplexing question: What does it mean to be a Jew?
I present this entire video series free of charge as my holiday gift to you, all my subscribers, old, new and soon-to-be, as a token of thanks for your trust and support.
At times like these, knowledge is empowering, and understanding the faith of our neighbor - and our own - is a big step in that direction. As the Trump administration is consciously trying to degrade our education system, from the greatest universities to the smallest pre-Ks, we need to respond as any of my rabbinic predecessors would have insisted for the past two thousand years, by learning more. There is no time to waste.
Enjoy!
Links for this session:
“I AM Jewish” Congregant responses to Ten Day Project challenge
High Holidays Sermons, 2004: “I Am Jewish”
If you like this lecture, there’s more!
TO ACCESS THE ENTIRE COURSE, INCLUDING VIDEO LECTURES AND SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL, CLICK HERE.
Here is the syllabus for the class:
As a bonus, here are the supplementary materials for the Jewish Calendar / Passover lecture (session 4):
Passover Links:
Passover: A Guide for the Perplexed (Joshua Hammerman)
Haggadot.com - Variety of Online Haggadot
A Different Night" Haggadah and special readings for Interfaith Seder
Seder Supplement: Theme of "With Open Arms" (Immigration focus)
And some Passover extras:
Thanks for a rich array of resistance (Harvard may be an "elite" university, but if its fight for academic freedom succeeds, many of its competitors and smaller colleges will benefit) and of liberation from paleo-modern (the Imperial War Museum's Holocaust exhibit in south London is a tribute to the belated but powerful end to the Nazi killing machine), and more clearly ancient rulers called out at countless Seder tables.
Good point about Harvard, Jonathan. Rather than isolating itself as the crème de la crème, the university is in fact standing up for the little guy. When is the last time Donald Trump ever did that?
I haven’t had the stomach to watch this collection. I’ve saved it for when I feel secure enough to watch it. Visuals stay with me and haunt me for a long, long time. As self preservation, I’m putting off reading this posting till I feel stronger.
My husband’s uncle was with the US Military that was among the first to help liberate the camps. He couldn’t comprehend the depravity done to his fellow human beings. I was born in 1956 and my parents took me to the Israeli Pavilion at the NYC World Fair where we saw the photos from the camps. People have to remember back then that there was no social media and the images were not available as readily as they are now. Some people could not believe they took me when I was so young, but they saw the importance of a little Catholic girl from a small town in Michigan to see what had happened. One of my dad’s constant mantra’s to me growing up was “People who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Now the USA has a president who embraces white nationalists and neo-Nazis, yet claims he is protecting the Jewish people in this country from antisemitism!! We must all stand together against this corrupt evil.
The years of that World’s Fair were just about when the world was just beginning to use the word “Holocaust” although it was at the core of Israel’s being from its inception. It is so sad that the lessons your family have sought to impart are being so cruelly disregarded in our own day. Thank you so much for this.