DIGNIFIED DEFIANCE IS THE ONLY PROPER WEAPON

Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks responds to the recent spate of violent attacks upon Jews and Jewish property in this country

Jewish Chronicle 2nd July 2004

These were bad attacks. First, a rabbi in Manchester was set on by a group of youths who punched him to the ground to shouts of “Jew.” Then came the attempt to set the South Tottenham Synagogue on fire. Twenty-four hours later, the Aish HaTorah centre in Hendon was devastated by one of the worst arson attacks in recent years. Next came the news about the Jewish cemetery in Middles-brough, desecrated by vandals.

Luckily, three of these incidents affected property, not people. But they were deliberate assaults on things the perpetrators knew we hold holy. At Aish, Torah scrolls were thrown to the ground and ripped apart. In South Tottenham, among the books destroyed were several that had been rescued from Kristallnacht, the night in November 1938 when synagogues in Germany were set ablaze. How ironic that they survived the flames of Hitler only to be destroyed by fire in London.

How should we as a community respond?

First, with restraint and a sense of proportion. Britain is not, and is not about to become, an anti-Semitic society. I do not say that about all European countries. In some places — France in particular — many Jews do live in fear.

Lord Janner, on a recent visit to Paris, met children at the Jewish school firebombed last November. He asked how many of them had been called “sal Juif” —“dirty Jew.” They all had. How many had been physically attacked? More than half the class put up their hands.

How many believed that they and their families would leave France because of anti-Semitism? All but two answered in the affirmative.

We have not reached that stage in Britain, nor will we in the foreseeable future. There is a difference between individual attacks and widespread hostility. The imperative now is to be vigilant while staying calm.

Next is to strengthen the Community Secur-ity Trust. Because of this extraordinary organisation, we go about our communal business without fear but without our security being too conspicuous. CST is also training school-children in street awareness. That, too, is as it should be. It gives people confidence to know how to handle situations of danger. Further-more, the CST is offering assistance to other faith communities with security concerns.

We should also draw inspiration from the way Jewish communities have responded to attacks. They have reacted not with fear or anger but with renewed dedication to Jewish life. This is courage all the more impressive for its quiet strength.

In South Tottenham, the congregation simply went ahead with prayers as usual, but with more than usual numbers. At the service of solidarity at Aish, one of the rabbis responded by quoting the line from Psalms: “Those who sow in tears will reap in joy.”

One of the most remarkable reactions came after the desecration of the Finsbury Park Syn-agogue, two years ago. The rabbi was himself a survivor of the Holocaust. I was afraid that the sight of the vandalised shul would bring back the trauma of his childhood.

I need not have worried. Instead, he told me the following story.

His father had been the rabbi of a synagogue in Berlin which was burned down the day after Kristallnacht. Searching through the wreckage, he found his talit, badly singed but still wearable. Rather than get a new one, he insisted on wearing the damaged talit as a sign of defiance. “Now I, too,” said the Finsbury Park rabbi, “can wear my talit” — it had been spattered with paint — “as my own gesture of defiance.”

The most profound lesson of last week came from an unexpected quarter. Judea Pearl, father of the murdered American journalist Daniel Pearl, was in London while these attacks were taking place. His son had been brutally murdered in Karachi after confessing: “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.”

Judea has taken his son’s death and turned it into a mission to perpetuate the values for which he lived.

He has instituted scholarships to bring young Pakistani journalists to America. He has put together a marvellously affirmative book in which well-known Jews talk about what Judaism means to them. And he has initiated a series of dialogues with the Islamic scholar Akbar Ahmed, in order to show that Jews and Muslims can live together in mutual respect.

I accompanied the two of them to the Islamia school in Kilburn, where we met young Muslim children, and then to JFS, where the Jewish pupils were highly receptive to their message and hope.

Those two visits will form part of my Rosh Hashanah broadcast this year.

Why, I asked Judea, had he gone down this road of dialogue?

His reply was majestic. “I refuse,” he said, “to give Daniel’s killers a victory. If I were to repay evil with evil, hate with hate, I would be letting them make me a little like them. Only by repaying evil with good do we defeat it.”

I was humbled by these Jewish responses. It takes enormous strength not to want to retaliate, and Judaism is a tutorial in moral strength. Life, said Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing is never to be afraid.

That should be our response to vandalism and violence: not anger and fear but defiance and rededication. The courage of faith is more powerful by far than the cowardice of hate.

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