I am immensely grateful, humbled, and inspired to stand here at this annual gathering in support of the sacred and substantive work of the Holocaust Center for Humanity. And I am proud that members of Temple De Hirsch Sinai’s community—in particular Ilana Cone Kennedy, Laurie Warshal Cohen, Henry Friedman, and Lynne Smith amongst so many others—have built and sustained this precious and impactful resource in the state of Washington.
I scarcely need to mention nor describe the troubling and challenging times in which we live. That my children must contend with a level of antisemitism more akin to my grandparent’s generation than my own is a cause for concern and alarm. The events of the moment in our nation and in Israel reflect the growing threats of autocracy and extremism—populism and demagoguery–that chillingly echo the dangers of the past as much as they reflect new and unprecedented perils for our people and for the broader world.
We are all rightly consumed by the mutating specter of antisemitism, a perennial symptom throughout our history when a society is riven by domestic divisions and enmeshed in foreign adventures. And I appreciate the defense and advocacy organizations that have arisen in the Jewish community to combat this plague when it casts its toxic tropes through the mists of the millennia.
But as with a disease that afflicts the human body, there is another important response to this illness— one that often receives less attention but warrants greater focus–a tonic which inoculates our community and the wider body politic before we are infected. That response is to treat the source rather than merely the symptoms. And that vibrant vaccine is one composed of knowledge, education, outreach, connection and relationship.
The Holocaust Center has been spreading this curative for decades, reaching far and wide into the larger culture through classrooms and school systems, parent organizations and civic institutions. This is important and critical work beyond the Jewish community. But we must also invest equal if not more abundant resources within the Jewish community— building vibrant Jewish souls and fertile Jewish minds that strengthen the courage and conviction required to meet these times.
Especially for our young people, coming of age in this brave new world of ours, only consistent and continuous Jewish learning can foster the confidence to stand tall in the face of ignorance. Only a deepening of Jewish knowledge can instill pride to withstand derision and bigotry . And only simcha and bracha—only Jewish joy and Jewish blessing—can provide the foundation to endure as a people. These are the positive, proactive and life-affirming superpowers that have sustained us far more compellingly than a spiteful resistance to deny our enemies their fever dreams to erase us.
If we are going to give generously and thoughtfully this afternoon to always remember and to never forget—and I hope you will—we must also give to seed the memories yet to be forged—gifting our schools, our synagogues, our youth programs and our Israel trips. For the key to our survival as a people and as a faith—lies in more than merely securing the means to live. We must also inspire a reason for living.
I thank you for this profound honor, and I wish all of us chazak v’ematz—May we continue to be strong, resolute, and looking ever forward to the visions of a Promised Land for all.