Diary of a Chief Rabbi

Surving in the face of adversity

"HOW ODD / OF G-D / TO CHOOSE /THE JEWS." William Norman Ewer’s waspish epigram has provoked dozens of replies, but the question remains. Why was the Jewish people chosen? Not, surely, because we are better or cleverer or superior to others. That idea finds no echo in our classic texts. So why? I have experienced at least a small part of the answer in the past few days and weeks. There is something in our history - our fate, our suffering, our endurance, our ability to survive without losing hope - that gives genuine strength to people far beyond the Jewish community.

I FELT THIS AT THE HOLOCAUST DAY MEMORIAL GATHERING organised by the Board of Deputies. Not only I but all the speakers, including survivors, spoke about the tragedy in Kosova. None of us compared what is happening there to the Shoah. There is no comparison. But each of us, from our Jewish experience, could identify with the suffering in a way that was deeply personal. We know in our bones what ‘ethnic cleansing’ means. The faces of frightened children and fleeing populations strike a terrifying chord in Jewish memory. We recognise these things. We have been there before.

Never was it clearer that we are right to remember the Holocaust - and not for ourselves alone but for the sake of humanity. The response of Anglo-Jewry, through the monies raised by UKJAID, has been impressive, and the involvement of Israel even more so. Israel has set up field hospitals to tend the wounded. It has taken in more than a hundred refugees. And it is doing remarkable work with hospitalised children, using lessons it has learned from painful experience of the victims of terrorist attacks. Here is proof, if proof were needed, that remembering the Holocaust has not taught us to harbour bitterness but on the contrary, to cherish life and fight for it with compassion and courage.

LAST SUNDAY BROUGHT ME ONE OF THE MORE UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES of my Chief Rabbinate. I addressed a group of 5,000 Sikhs in the Albert Hall. They had gathered to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Khalsa order, a turning point in the development of Sikh faith and life.

It was an exuberant day. There are many similarities between the Sikh and Jewish communities and our respective faiths, especially of our shared love of family and children. There was also a darker note overshadowing the celebrations. The Brick Lane bombing, in the heart of what was once the Jewish East End, reminded us that Asians still suffer from the prejudice our parents had to confront. So it was good to be able to bring a Jewish message of friendship and solidarity.

IT USED TO BE THOUGHT THAT GOOD RELATIONS meant minimising differences. "Be a man in the street and a Jew at home." So went the famous nineteenth century slogan. If only Jews weren’t so Jewish we would have less anti-semitism. That was the theory. How wrong it was!

We now know that assimilation never cured prejudice. It didn’t even in fifteenth century Spain, where Jews converted to Christianity and yet still suffered from persecution under the vicious doctrine of limpieza de sangre ("purity of blood"), the forerunner of modern racial anti-semitism. Tolerance that depends on obliterating differences is not tolerance. Instead we need something else altogether - an ability to live with difference and respect it. As I said to the Sikhs, "Until we make space for others we have not yet made space in our midst for God."

That is why we need a strong Jewish community, and not just for ourselves but for others also. We sometimes forget how other communities turn to us for support and inspiration. We cannot show them how to sustain traditions if we ourselves are losing ours. We cannot show them the blessings of family life if many young Jews are choosing to stay single and a third of Jewish marriages end in divorce. What our non-Jewish neighbours want to see is a Jewish community firm in its beliefs, successful in its schools, passionate in its way of life. That is what God meant when, at the dawn of Jewish time, he told Abraham and Sarah, "In you will all the families of the earth be blessed." And that is what it is to be a kiddush ha-Shem, sanctifying God’s name. It is only by being true to our heritage that we are a blessing to others.

So why were the Jewish people chosen? There are many answers, but one is this. By having the courage to be different we teach others to have the courage to be different. By surviving catastrophe we teach the world the power of hope. And by our faith we teach other faiths that a people is measured not by numbers but by its spirit. Vital lessons for a troubled world.