Far From Zion

The Never Again problem

In a powerful Op-ed for The Canadian Jewish News, Josh Scheinert, a friend and former advocacy director for STAND (Students Taking Action Now Darfur), writes about the failure of the Jewish community to stand up against genocide in our time. He writes:

Yet, until it can be asserted that efforts from Canada’s Jews have translated into measurable improvement in the lives of Darfuris and helped accelerate and boost the inadequate efforts by our government to end the genocide, we have not done enough. Taking minimal action to placate our collective guilt as a community of genocide survivors is of no comfort to those in Darfur who are praying that they, too, will be a genocide survivor instead of a statistic…In the Majdanek concentration camp there is a giant dome. Underneath it, in plain sight, are the ashes of tens of thousands of Jews. On top of the dome, there is an inscription that reads: “Let our fate be a warning to you.”

For the past six years, we have squandered their warning. Oh, how we have failed them.

While I disagree with his notion that “more so than for anyone else, genocide is a problem for Jews,” I fully agree that Jewish history and Jewish survival have valuable lessons to teach the world about social justice and about standing up to mass murder and genocide. I do agree that Jewish history demands that Jews fight to prevent the fate of European Jewry from befalling any people, and that, so far, we have failed miserably. There are many active Jewish leaders, spiritual and secular, working to end genocide, working for human rights and justice, working for peace and to repair the world, but these efforst pale in comparison to the effort put in by powerful Jewish organizations with massive political clout and funding on behalf of Israel. Israel is a state with a military, quite capable of defending itself, as we have seen. Regardless of where one stands on the question of Palestinian rights and Zionism, it is impossible to say that the citizens of Sderot are in more desperate straits than the people of Darfur (I hesitate to use the word citizen, because it implies some form of rights and protections afforded by a government–their government seeks to kill them).

Where are our millions of dollars for Darfur? Where are the statements from AIPAC? Rabbis from coast to coast decry the genocide in Darfur from the bima, and yet so many more cry out for our aid to Israel. I understand there is a fear, born of the Holocaust and of Munich and of the Intifada that if Israel does not have the full throated support of world Jewry, there will be another genocide against the Jews. This is a terrifying hypothetical, but it is just that–a hypothetical. There are very real genocides going on at this moment. In fearing only for our own survival, we squander the lessons our survival has for the world, and the power our success has given us. Are we a light unto the nations, yet? We still could be. We must make the statement “Never Again” apply not only to Jews, but to everyone.