Diary of a Chief Rabbi

Faith Has The Power to Transform The World

When academics claim to know the future, beware. To give just three examples from recent history: none of the army of Cold War analysts in the West predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall or the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the single most significant political event of modern times. Nor did the futurologists who published a book in 1990 entitled Megatrends 2000 even hint at the growth of the Internet, the technological development which is currently changing our lives. And when, in the late 1990s, recession hit the Far East, economists were virtually unanimous in predicting a similar collapse in the West, instead of which Britain and the United States are enjoying their longest and most sustained economic boom of modern times. When secular specialists don the mantle of prophecy, a healthy scepticism is in order.

What prompts these thoughts is the recent Conference of European Rabbis in Bratislava from which I have just returned. The Conference is a truly remarkable body, bringing together rabbis from every European country, from Ireland in the West to the countries of the former Soviet Union in the East. Created in 1957 by the late Chief Rabbi Sir Israel Brodie, it was a pioneering venture in Jewish-European unity and has set an impressive example of vision and co-operation. We meet regularly to share problems, pool experience and initiate programmes. Often the more established Jewries are able to help the smaller and emergent ones. Recently the Conference created a travelling Bet Din to serve communities unable to sustain their own. For many years it was given stature by the outstanding leadership of the late Lord Jakobovits. Our new leadership team of Chief Rabbi Sitruk of France, myself, and Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt of Moscow, is a unique blend of West and East, Ashkenaz and Sefarad. In a Jewish world so often marked by division and fragmentation, the Conference is a rare and welcome exception.

Inevitably, the gathering was affected by the disturbing rise of nationalist and far right parties throughout Europe. We had originally scheduled the conference to take place in Vienna, but in view of recent political developments in Austria we had no doubt that we had to make a symbolic protest. We transferred it to Bratislava, home of the great nineteenth century rabbinic leader, Rabbi Moses Sofer. This allowed the President of Slovakia to make a splendid gesture. March 14th this year was the sixtieth anniversary of the Slovakian state, essentially a puppet regime of the Nazis. There had been considerable public pressure to mark the day with celebrations. Fortunately, the Slovakian parliament overruled the idea, but the President went further. He invited the Chief Rabbis of Europe to his palace and gave a reception in their honour. The result was that, while a small group of skinheads and neo-Nazis were demonstrating in the streets, the President was showing in the most public way the cherished place Jews hold in his affections. Austria, please note!

But the truly moving story of the conference was not this, nor the prize we bestowed on Simon Wiesenthal; not even the emotional evening we spent with the Jewish community in Vienna, whom we visited to express our solidarity. It was the presence in our midst of almost a hundred rabbis from the former Soviet Union, from cities and communities throughout Russia, Lithuania, Latvia and the Ukraine. What is happening there is one of the quiet miracles of contemporary Jewish life. Long dormant centres are being revived. Synagogues are being built or restored. Jewish education is undergoing a renaissance. In Russia alone, twenty-one new Jewish schools are being opened this year alone.

The architects of this miracle are an extraordinary group. Many of them are Hassidim, most from Lubavitch, but others from Stolin and elsewhere. Almost all are young, and despite their inexperience, they share a combination of burning enthusiasm, seemingly inexhaustible energy, and an absolute refusal to see any challenge as impossible. In their hands, the dying embers of Jewish life have been rekindled. Every year, as tens of thousands of Russians emigrate to Israel, so more previously unknown Jews appear, as if by magic, to take their place. Admittedly, there are many problems. Are all those travelling to Israel actually Jewish? Are those who stay right to do so, in the present uncertain political climate? None of this, though, should blind us to the revival of Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe, for which we should give thanks to God and His co-workers down here on earth.

Hence the proposition with which I began - always be sceptical of experts when they claim to know the future. In 1996 an Anglo-Jewish historian wrote a book entitled Vanishing Diaspora. On the first page he wrote that "at best the Jews in Europe face slow diminution, at worst virtual extinction". On the last, he ended the book by saying that, of European Jewry, "Soon nothing will be left save a disembodied memory." Events have proved him gloriously wrong. He is not the first, nor will he be the last, to write an obituary for a significant section of the Jewish people, but as Mark Twain said after reading his own obituary, it was a little premature.

The reason that predictions about the course of history are almost always refuted by events is that they ignore the wondrous creativity of the human spirit. As the Oscar-winning theme song of the recent film, Prince of Egypt, put it, "You can do miracles if you believe." The young rabbis of Eastern Europe do believe, and they are doing miracles. Faith has the power to transform the world. Right now the faith of a group of religious leaders is restoring Jewish life to a part of the world where, not long ago, it seemed on the brink of eclipse. While others in ivory towers were writing about the future, they went out and created it. For me, they are the Jewish heroes of our time.

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