I found myself this week in a conversation with a non-Jewish community leader who came to me with a sincere question: “How do people not see the hatred?” She was struggling to reconcile two things happening at once. Macklemore removed from Ed Sheeran's music tour following his hateful anti-Israel remarks live onstage; after which all four other opening acts resigned in protest and solidarity with Macklemore. And, in the same news cycle, political commentator Hassan Piker celebrating that fallout with an ugly glee of his own. Two different men, two different platforms, the same current running underneath: contempt for Jews under the guise of politics.
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As one who does not typically get tongue-tied in conversation, I struggled to answer her. Candidly, I am still struggling with my response, or lack thereof, even days later. Even the word "anti-Semitism" fails us. I've come to believe we need the blunter, more direct and truer words: “Jew hate.” Notice, too, how Merriam-Webster defines this word in the lowercase "antisemitism," no hyphen, no capital “S.” Strip the dash, strip the capital, and "Semitic" stops being a proper noun defining a people and becomes just an adjective. The dictionary itself flattens what it claims to define.
This week we read Haazinu, Moses' final address to Israel, not spoken, but sung. Why a song? Because we all know something curious about ourselves: we can barely recite a paragraph word for word, yet we can sing a song we haven't heard in twenty years, note for note, verse for verse. That's why we chant the Torah each week rather than merely read it. The melody carries what the words alone cannot hold onto.
I think this is also why I cannot cleanly describe and genuinely struggle to explain Jew hate to someone who has never felt it. It's like trying to define its opposite, love. I can give you examples of love. I know it when I feel it. But asking me to describe it in a tidy sentence leaves me stumbling. Jew hate is the same, I recognize it instantly, feel its ache in my chest, and still struggle to hand someone else the words.
Similarly, Moses knew this and struggled in his own way to describe a life lived through a personal relationship with Gd, seeing glimpses of the future, of a world he could not describe, to a people he loved but with whom he could not clearly communicate. Moses didn't lecture Israel this one last time. Moses sang to them, trusting that his song would outlive any speech.
As we move through these final Days of Awe toward Yom Kippur's closing gate, may each of us find our own song, the rhythm and words that let us carry what we know in our bones out into a world where we can combat the hate spoken aloud, and too often applauded. And because none of us should have to sing that song alone, this is why our Jewish Federation exists: not to replace any one person's voice, but to gather them, to be the place where individual notes become a chorus loud enough to be heard, and strong enough to answer hate with something truer. Because we are Stronger Together.
Shabbat Shalom and gmar chatimah tovah (may you be sealed for good).
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