I had some pretty big news I wanted to share today. Good news. But on Saturday, eleven human beings were slaughtered in their sacred house of worship, their synagogue, in Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
It can wait a little longer.
I was at my six-year-old niece’s birthday party as the news unfolded. Little ones were running about the house—it was raining hard outside, the chill of a late October Saturday nor’easter—laughing, playing, joyful. Life!
But an all-too-familiar numbness crept in. How does one make sense of the senseless? How does one begin to find the words, to explain, to understand? And I began to sense the continuation of a profound shift on a national level.
And today we are approaching the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the so-called Night of Broken Glass, when the massive state orchestrated pogrom against the Jews in Germany was unleashed.
How many Americans even know what that means? Or that it all started years before, with words?
Burning synagogue in Ober-Ramstadt, Hesse; Darmstadt, Germany, November 10, 1938. Credit: USHMM, courtesy of Trudy Isenberg
How many good, ordinary Germans looked the other way? Or straight into the camera as their neighbors’ synagogue went up in flames, the firemen dousing the nearby non-Jewish community houses to keep those flames from jumping?
How many good, ordinary Americans read those newspaper headlines on Nov. 10, 1938, and turned to the sports pages? In a just a few short years, two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish community would be slaughtered.
New York Times, November 11th 1938. Nazis smash, loot and burn Jewish shops and temples. Credit: New York Times
And writing this, here in America, brings forth a flash of memory. Several summers back I was flipping through the Wall Street Journal in a quiet setting with a companion sitting nearby, normally a champion of human rights for all. It was just the two of us and he suddenly remarked something to the effect that “it’s the Jews who control Wall Street”. I was shocked, because he was aware of my work with Holocaust survivors and Holocaust education. He has Jewish friends, so I think he thought he was needling me, but he kept pushing—”you going to tell me it’s not true?”—so that he could argue it, and he struck me as serious. I felt a chill. I didn’t understand then, and I don’t now, what brought that on. For sport? I didn’t engage with him, like he wanted, but something shifted then on a level that I’m still trying to figure out.
And I’ve been trying to figure out a lot of things these past couple years. Because I think words, like history, matter.
I will always love my friend, but I sometimes think there are times when some people may wonder when I’m going to get off this ‘Holocaust affectation’. Well, probably never. Because I guess they don’t get it. There is a reason I am here to do what I do. There is a reason I spent ten years, the last one feverishly, writing a book while teaching full time, a couple times wondering if I would survive it. If they struggle to understand how an interest became a passion that became a mission, they should pick it up sometime.
Because it’s never over.
Because I’m tired of trying to explain, to ‘understand’.
Richard Gottfried, 65
Rose Mallinger, 97
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66
Cecil Rosenthal, 59
David Rosenthal, 54
Bernice Simon, 84
Sylvan Simon, 86
Daniel Stein, 71
Melvin Wax, 88
Irving Younger, 69
Eleven gentle souls brutally taken in their sanctuary.
In the United States of America.
Because today is ‘why’.
***
A mutual friend in Holocaust education circles found the words on Saturday.
Today is why.
By Juanita Ray, North Carolina Council on the Holocaust
October 27, 2018
If you want to know why I study the causes, events, and horrors of the Holocaust…today is why.
If you want to know why I left my dear, beloved theatre kids to teach this dark history…today is why.
If you want to know why I spend my retirement time working with the NC Council on the Holocaust and the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching to train teachers in Holocaust Education…today is why.
If you want to know why many of my posts are about love, acceptance, justice, and tolerance…today is why.
If you want to know why we still bother to teach this history that “was so long ago” and
“not on my end of course test”…today is why.
If you want to know why I still read and research and teach about the dangers of extremist political ideologies…today is why.
If you want to know why I taught my students to be upstanders- not bystanders…today is why.
If you want to know why when I visited a synagogue in Vienna in 2011, I had to show my passport…today is why.
If you still believe the horrors of past antisemitism could never happen here, or again…open your eyes.
Don’t become too comfortable with events like today. Guard you words, guard your hearts. Love your neighbors as yourselves. Seek to do good and repair the world– Tikkun Olam.
If you have any doubt where I stand… I stand with, for, and beside those who are hated, bullied, dehumanized, ostracized, targeted, scapegoated, threatened, harmed, and sadly, killed. But I cannot just stand by. Perhaps I have a bleeding heart, but I cannot have a hardened heart.
Esther 4:14– Perhaps you were born for such a time as this.
NO ONE, EVER, ANYWHERE should have to be afraid to enter a house of worship.
[Further Reading: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitism]
Teaching History Matters 
Matt–Thank you…your work is so important. I am honored to be a colleague and friend….your words are powerful and needed, and I love Juanita’s piece–she is an incredible educator. Peace. Talli
Thanks Talli. Means a lot.
Matt,
Your posting is spot on in so many ways.
Cliff
Thanks Cliff
Thank you, Matt, for using my words. I am honored that you asked. My words don’t really come close to expressing all that I feel. I truly believe I was called to do this work, but it is both a blessing and a burden. I am so thankful and blessed to have so many fellow travelers on this difficult journey.
Peace to you,
Juanita Ray
You know it, my friend. Thanks for permission.
Matt I love you
Sent from my iPad
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love you too Ariela, my biggest fan…
Thanks for keeping this vivid and real. We must never forget.
Thanks Steve
As always, perfectly expressed. When I saw you last night, I said I am afraid. I am. What I fear so much is that people will say that Pittsburgh was an “isolated incident” of Anti-Semitism, that what happened in Germany “could never happen here.” But I see Facebook and read the vicious hatred toward the immigrants expressed by people whom I’ve known for years. I see photos of gun shows in America where Nazi paraphernalia is sold. I see ordinary citizens whipping themselves into frenzies of fear of “those others,” without knowing whom they fear. I feel we are slipping as a nation into ways of thinking that lead to nights like a Kristallnacht. Ignorance unchecked is chaos born, Matt. Keep up your writing to combat that ignorance.
Thanks Joe. As always, the fellow historian has the words. And therefore we have a responsibility to humanity, which you serve well. Look forward to your new book.
Beautifully said, and so close to how I feel. Thank you, Matt.
Thank you, Suzie! More to follow…