8 | The Jewish Press | February 18, 2022
Voices
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Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors, or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole.
We are everything
ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Jewish Press Editor “She may not have meant to,” Gabe Friedman wrote for the JTA, “but Whoopi Goldberg waded into a charged discourse that has polarized the Jewish community — and those who seek to discriminate against them — for centuries.” The comment in question (plus the aftermath) about the Holocaust not being about ‘race’ but about ‘white people killing other white people’ struck a nerve. The problem is, Jews cannot be boxed in as just one race. We come in all shades and colors. We’re like Joseph’s coat. Another problem is that for Black people in America, race is a painful and complex topic, and the Black community has to own the majority of the discourse surrounding it. Uncomfortable for Americans who aren’t Black, maybe, but so be it. Also, Whoopi’s comments may have been awkward, but she is not the enemy-so let’s not treat her as such. Then, just as this story was gathering steam online, I read an article about the latest PEW study, ‘Jewish Americans in 2020,’ which was released in May of 2021. Like all community studies, it categorizes its subjects to a fault, which is, I think, something we have to be aware of when processing the results. ‘Orthodox’ and ‘non-Orthodox,’ ‘cultural,’ ‘young,’ ‘intermarried’ and ‘Nones’ are all boxes we are squeezed into. Do we have children and if so, how many? Do we go to shul or do we feel Jewish without being re-
ligious at all? Do we eat Jewish food for its cultural value, or do we keep kosher? In short, the question PEW asks over and over is “Who are we?” And if we have paid attention at all, we should know by now that this is not a question we can find a simple answer to.
brown. And that is a larger portion that you think. When you put us in boxes, you disregard the fact that many of us fit more than one; we may have one foot in this box and another one in that box. Maybe we belong in five different boxes, or ten. And what if we fit no box? It makes us no less Jewish.
The reason for that is: we are many things. Even if we look at only the American section of the Diaspora, we are many races. We are many cultures, we have all the passports and we speak all the languages. We eat different kinds of ‘Jewish’ food, we sing different songs, we vote for all the candidates, we have all the different opinions and impressions of Israel. We, as Jews, do not fit one box and to imply that we do does us injustice as a people. We are simply Jews, no more, no less; to categorize us is to separate us. An Orthodox Jew can also be a cultural Jew. It is possible to be non-Orthodox and never miss a morning Minyon. You can be a Black American Jew, a Hispanic American Jew, a Chinese American Jew. Call us all white and you disregard all the Jews that are various shades of beige and
We can ask ourselves ”Who are we,” as many times as we like; I have no problem with the question. The answers, however, need to be as diverse as we are as a people. The rest of the world would like an easy category to shove us in, but that doesn’t mean we have to cater to them. One of the most beautiful concepts for the Jewish people is that “a Jew is a Jew is a Jew.” There is no test, there is no value in checkmarks, there is no wisdom in asking ourselves what kind of Jew we are. We are Jews, and that is that. So no, the Holocaust wasn’t about ‘white people killing other white people.’ It was about boxing Jews in, quite literally. It’s still happening, and it is high time to put a stop to it.
When I recall my father Elie Wiesel, my shame about these Olympics only deepens ELISHA WIESEL JTA On Feb. 4 my world was shaken. It hit me, as though it were a fresh wound: My father, Elie Wiesel, was really gone. It hurt terribly when he died over five years ago, on July 2, 2016. But I also found peace and awakening as I grieved. I had this sense from the very moment he passed that he would be with me always. Through his dreams for me, I felt that as long as I lived, he would too — as would my ancestors. This feeling deepened over the years that followed. My year of Mourner’s Kaddish ended and I still found myself drawn to Shabbat peace, to morning tefillin, to the intentionality of a minyan gathered to pray, to the stories of our people in ancient texts. I felt the wholeness of history, of the chain of which he had always wanted me to feel a crucial part, which he so keenly felt himself. And although I miss him daily, I unfailingly find that thinking of him makes my footsteps feel sure. But on Friday I had to stop and catch my breath as I realized the depth of my loss, our loss. Because that day was the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics, and millions were tuning in to the opening ceremony. Most of the world didn’t seem to know, or care, that the host country is hosting a pageant of “peace and friendship” while simultaneously terrorizing its Uyghur minority. The Chinese government’s systematic oppression of the Uyghurs, a Muslim group in northwest China, is not the Holocaust. But although we may not have seen this particular movie, we know the genre. I have heard the painful testimony of Uyghur dissidents, who manage to get the word out despite a media clampdown that makes it almost impossible for the Western press to report on the facts. Forced internment camps target people for thought crimes and racial affiliation. Medical data suggests that forced sterilizations are taking place among this targeted racial group. Families have been forcibly separated and threatened into silence. Just like in 1936, the International Olympic Committee is unwilling to push the issue. And our com-
munity is mostly silent. went unanswered. Natan Sharansky and Bernard I saw 100 or 200 brave souls rally on a rainy Thurs- Henry-Levi, two leading Jewish intellectuals, signed day last week in Times Square. In the gray neon an ad in the New York Times, organized by me and light, the young leaders called on each other and paid for by the Elie Wiesel Foundation, urging a passersby via megaphones whose batteries could protest of the Beijing Olympics; Jewish organizanot keep up with the urgency of the message: Turn off the Olympics, and close the concentration camps in Xinjiang. It should have been the whole city turning up to honor their message. I know now that we have failed my father in this regard. He did not fail us. He spoke of how he always felt he had to answer to the dead: Did he do enough? And yes. He did. He was there to speak up against atrocities in Darfur, Bosnia, Cambodia, Rwanda. He tried with everything he had to tell us. And all the words he spoke and wrote could not change the fact that five years after his death, 1 million people are reportedly in concentration camps, be- A large Olympic ring logo is seen inside the stadium during the cause of their race and religion, in the grip Opening Ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb 4, 2022. Credit: Fred Lee/Getty Images of a totalitarian regime — a regime honored to host the world’s nations, on a global televi- tions across the denominational spectrum have sion platform that packages sports with advertising. spoken up for the Uyghurs; and Jewish World Today’s culture of workplace activism is highly Watch is trying to generate widespread action developed. In corporations and small businesses around the issue. across the United States, Black Americans and But they are still too few. I fear that China’s statetheir allies, for one, showed with emotion how cries sponsored capitalism has silenced us through our against police brutality could be heard in board greed. rooms and executive suites. My father believed passionately that speaking up But are men and women of conscience reaching mattered, especially to the victims. out to their managers at the corporations that Have I, blessed to live in this country which sponsor the Olympics? Are voices inside corporate stands for freedom, done enough? America respectfully but insistently calling for “Shame on Xi Jinping,” shouted the determined company conversations about their responsibility young people in Times Square on Thursday night. when they hear survivors’ reports of genocide on And I think: Shame on me, if we can’t find some the part of the Chinese government? If they are, way to help. Shame on us. they are not making themselves heard. Elisha Wiesel is the son of Marion and Elie There are brave leaders, like Steve Simon of the Wiesel. Women’s Tennis Association, who canceled a luThe views and opinions expressed in this article are crative tournament in China when the WTA’s de- those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the mands for player Peng Shuai’s safety and freedom views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.
