Racism is our problem too

Protestors have filled the streets of Louisville this week where Brianna Taylor, an African American was shot dead in the home of her boyfriend. Blacks don’t feel safe in their American homes. Near Brunswick, Georgia, Ahmaud Arbery was out jogging when he was chased down by two white men with guns and shot to death. And George Floyd died when a Minneapolis Policeman pinned his neck to the ground for over 8 minutes.

In case you think this is not our issue, I am here to say it is. Jews stand for Justice, – Justice, Justice shall you pursue, not just for yourselves – there is no limitation on the pursuit of justice. We don’t stand idly by when our neighbors are denied Justice no less loose their lives.

36 times in Torah we are told to love the stranger.  For most of us, members of the African American community are strangers.  Generally, our connections are limited.

America once grouped blacks and Jews together.  As excluded groups, blacks, Jews and dogs were denied entry into hotels and restaurants and country clubs. America has progressed to accommodating Jews and becoming pet friendly.

But African Americans are still afraid for their lives at a traffic stop.  Not to mention that they have a more difficult time getting the best mortgage rates, or the best health care, or the best grocery stores in their neighborhoods – all things we as Jews insist upon for ourselves.

Jews have long benefitted from passing as white people in America.

And we compliment ourselves on our progressive views.  This is part of virtue signaling – “the sharing of one’s point of view on a social or political issue…in order to garner praise or acknowledgment of one’s righteousness from others who share that point of view, or to passively rebuke those who do not.” In a Washington Post op ed by Tre Johnson, he noted how whenever the racial conflict got “real” white liberals form book clubs and do a lot of listening. Not a lot of action.  That is many of us.

And we Jews have a measure of culpability.  No, we didn’t start the fire, but the fire continued burning and we didn’t do enough to stop it.  In fact, we benefitted at times.

I did not fully appreciate how we Jews in the USA are culpable for inequality in our communities. After all, my grandparents came from Poland and the Ukraine in the 20th Century.  They struggled to make a living as tailors and liquor salesmen. They voted for Democrats.

And then I began our campaign to help the Scotland AME Zion church on Seven Locks Road in Potomac.  I saw that the Church needed help to rebuild. In the wake of George Floyd’s death, I wanted to take action.  I quickly organized a fundraising campaign. As Jews we learn, first we do and then we ask questions, just the way we received Torah at Sinai.

I learned that the Scotland community was founded by the children of slaves.  The Scotland Community built a church with their own hands, completing the work in 1924.  By the 1960s, the residents of Scotland were still living in shacks–no running water.

One woman, Joyce Siegel, had recently moved to Bethesda in 1964. She learned from her children attending Churchill High School of their classmates who lived in poverty.  She launched into action.  She helped secure federal funding under Section 8 to rebuild decent housing.  And the church was the central meeting place for her advocacy.

While Scotland got the support of Joyce Siegel, the Scotland community was also shrinking.  Original landowners were under pressure to sell to local developers.  The County supported the developers, hoping to secure some of the land to add to Cabin John park.  One developer, Carl Freeman, built hundreds of homes and townhouses on land that was part of or adjacent to Scotland. The area is now called Inverness. Hundreds and hundreds of homes all built by one Jewish developer. And the Cabin John shopping center paved over a large area topographically higher than the townhouses and abutting an African American cemetery.

Jodi and I lived in Inverness Townhouses.  We had no idea that we were living on land that was originally part of an African American community.  And now we know the impact of development on the Scotland Community.  When you pave over large areas for streets and driveways and shopping centers, you change the way water moves over the land. And the cabin john creek that used to channel water downhill through this area of Potomac, now directs water toward the Scotland AME Zion Church.

These are our neighbors.  And the Church is their spiritual home. And that home was flooded and needs to be rebuilt.  And we are not merely being charitable in our support. We are correcting wrongs from which we benefitted.

And now the Glenstone Museum Foundation has gotten involved and is guiding the church leaders on the rebuilding effort.

And let me tell you about my new friend Rev. Dr Evalina Huggins, the regional director of the Scotland AME Zion churches in the mid-Atlantic region.  Until this unfortunate episode, she had not met a rabbi and had no significant Jewish contacts.  Now she says Rabbis seem to be coming out of the word work to support her work.

A day of repentance is the right day to discuss our teshuvah for abiding the systemic racism in this country. Yom Kippur is the opportunity to scrape away the virtue signaling and accept responsibility for not doing more to help the stranger and the widowed African American women and children whose husbands and fathers have been killed.

We have to recognize our racism, admit that it exists, and do our best to change our character.  And let’s help change America, let’s put out the fire of systemic racism.

R’ Evan J. Krame