“All of which are American dreams”

“All of which are American dreams.”

So you don’t have to read it in full: the 1776 Report is not simply wrong on its facts. It is actively and intentionally postmodern after the fashion of almost all fascist ideology and argumentation: willfully inauthentic in the manner Sartre used to describe antisemites in their arguments.

If you need an example: after making slavery essentially okay because of its time (this is moral relativism), the report identifies John C. Calhoun as bad because he was, in essence, a moral relativist who denied that slavery was bad. It then draws a line from Calhoun to other relativist dangers in American life, turning immediately to a discussion of progressivism as also relativist because it wanted to apply modern values to correct past wrongs (this is the opposite of moral relativism because past wrongs inherently means universal moral values!) and a danger to the universal value of the consent of the governed. And it does all this by ignoring the millions of moral wrongs that make up slavery, which it dismisses because compromise is important (compromise over morality = well…moral relativism). That’s right: in Trumpland progressives are in fact supporters of oppression and slavery, and moral relativism is a humpty-dumpty term to be defined however the right wishes it to be defined at the moment.

Relativism and inauthenticity here are in reality core to everything the report says: it is an almost inartfully written example of what American fascist ideology looks like. It is, by honest standards, inartful — but it is a masterwork of American fascism.

We will, on January 20, have dodged the first bullet in an ongoing attack on reality and morality from the right, which, if the GOP continues on this course, will continually endanger the ability of the United States to exist.

Make no mistake: the 1776 Report is dangerous, and has folks on the right (Sean Hannity among them) talking about creating re-education camps.

January 20 is the end of nothing. It is the beginning of the fight for what’s left of any chance we have to make the country better than it has been.

And I know I don’t need to express how much of a danger app of this poses to a secular society.

“How long? Not long. Because what you reap is what you sow.”

(Quotes from Rage Against the Machine’s “Bombtrack” and “Know Your Enemy”)

Living in an Age of Anger

(This was delivered on September 30, 2019, as a Rosh Hashanah address to the congregation I serve, Machar, The Washington Congregation for Secular Humanistic Judaism.)

We’ve come to the part of our proceedings where the rabbi talks at you for a while.

Before I begin, I need to let you know that we’re talking about anger, and we’ll be talking about trauma. I won’t be going into deep detail, but — if you find that you need space, or need to step out, please do what you need to take care of yourself.

Every year that I’ve led High Holidays services — here, in Indiana and Arizona as a student rabbi — I’ve been asked, “What if I can’t forgive?” Sometimes it’s asked simply as a matter of curiosity. But often, that question isn’t the real question that’s bothering someone when they ask.

Often, the real question is whether it’s okay to be angry. Because we’re angry often: sometimes over small things, sometimes over not-so-small things. Many of us here today are at least a little angry almost all the time, as we — and I include myself in this group — watch the ever-accelerating betrayal of the values we thought our society stood for.

Well, maybe not this kind of angry.

#DisloyalJews and #DisloyalToTrump Hashtags Considered Harmful

So, now you know that I spent way too much time in software development. (For the “considered harmful” bit, see here.)

But beyond that, I’m here to weigh in (surprise!) on the latest developments in Trumpland. (I won’t ever link to anyone in Trumpland directly, however. You’ve got Google or Bing or whatever; you can figure it all out.)

This episode should make it plain to those not intentionally fooling themselves that the current President of the United States is an antisemite. Exactly what kind of antisemite is up for grabs, but it is also irrelevant. He’s the sitting president, and he’s making unambiguous statements concerning the loyalty of 78% of American Jews while sitting in the Oval Office with a Romanian leader. (The Romanians were among the fiercest of the Nazi collaborator regimes.)

Loyalty/disloyalty to whom? It doesn’t matter whether he thinks it’s disloyalty to Israel, or the country, or to him personally, or the broader Jewish people. That he didn’t specify makes it worse: it provides the thinnest veneer of deniability, while signaling exactly what it means to those who would do harm to Jews.

(Charges of disloyalty are centuries-old antisemitic moves. I’m not getting into the full history here. You’ve got Google. Or even better, just read Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s Twitter thread on it: https://twitter.com/theradr/status/1163904979628769280?s=21)

Christian groups are entirely too quiet about all of this — and to be clear: we see you in your silence.

Christians, you need to call in your people.

So, frankly, do a few secular groups. As a Humanistic Jew and a Humanist Celebrant, I’m not terribly impressed at the moment by the silence of my fellow travelers in the secular world, as charges of disloyalty for ethnic and religious identities, or lack of them, are pretty plainly serious issues for secularists.

Responses to this from most of the Jewish community is as one would expect: Jewish organizations (too slowly, and in predictably milquetoast fashion) have made public statements condemning the President’s statement. Jewish Twitter is afire, including folks using #DisloyalJews or #DisloyalToTrump hashtags as a way of subverting the disloyalty charge.

I’m never, ever going to use one of these tags, whether they assert loyalty to the country or disloyalty to the President, because I’ll never, ever concede an inch on the loyalty claim. No one should. We should never concede the argument to anyone who seeks to harm us or others as groups. If nothing else, because the Constitution makes it plain that disloyalty is something the government has to prove, one person at a time.

Don’t concede the argument. Push back — not just for American Jews, but for all minority communities who are treated to “go back to where you came from” slurs.

Loyalty — true loyalty — demands this much.

Purim and Religious Freedom

Franc Kavcic’s “Esther Before Ahasuerus”

We’re coming quickly to Purim. Yay, noisemakers and parties and costumes and drinking ad lo yada (until you can’t tell the difference between blessed be Mordecai and cursed by Haman), right!?

As an introvert, Purim as a big party is pretty hard for me to get into. I’m thinking about wearing a suit and saying I’m dressed like a rabbi. (Get it?!) But Esther, the book many communities read on Purim and which almost all communities at least talk about during the holiday, is an interesting read. (There’s always some way to make lemonade from lemons!)

On the Bladensburg Peace Cross #HonorThemAll

(I delivered this text as a speech in front of the steps of the US Supreme Court on February 27, 2019.)

Video recording of the speech on February 27, 2019, in front of the US Supreme Court building in Washington, DC

I’m Jeremy Kridel. I’m the rabbi at Machar, The Washington Congregation for Secular Humanistic Judaism, and I’m here representing the Society for Humanistic Judaism.

A friend of mine told me that when she first came to Maryland, nearly forty years ago, she saw the Bladensburg Peace Cross. And she thought, “Wow, these folks must be really religious around here.”

That says an awful lot about this case, doesn’t it?

The Peace Cross sits on public land, looming forty feet tall, in the middle of the road. Its backers claim that it’s just a generic symbol, neutral, non-religious.

As secular humanistic Jews, we beg to differ.

When we see a forty-foot cross standing in the center of town, as secular Jews, we know from our ancestors’ lives what that cross means. It sends a crystal-clear message: we are Christians here. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll be a Christian, too.

Does that sound inclusive to you?

But we are just supposed to forget all of that. Otherwise, they’ll call us names. Only last Friday, George Will called us “cranky, persnickety, hair-splitting secularists.”

We think our government should support memorials that truly stand for all who gave their lives. Is that persnickety? Hair-splitting?

For Jews, a cross has often meant, “You’re not one of us, and we’re coming for you.” That’s what it meant in Eastern Europe, and when the KKK lit it on fire.

Is that persnickety? Is that hair-splitting?

How can a cross represent all war dead equally? More than two thousand Jewish soldiers are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, only a few miles away. Were they buried under crosses, or Stars of David?

A cross erases the bravery and sacrifice of any soldier who isn’t or wasn’t a Christian.

And the Bladensburg Peace Cross is worse. It erases non-Christian soldiers’ bravery not only symbolically, but actually. It lists 49 soldiers. It left off three who happen to be Jewish. Let’s remember the ones the Bladensburg Cross kept off — the ones the government would still leave off by leaving the cross in place.

Let’s remember Sgt. Isaac Morris, Lt. Merrill Rosenfeld, and Pvt. Zadoc Morton Katz, Jewish soldiers who died for our country and were left off the Bladensburg Peace Cross.

The Peace Cross is not an inclusive, neutral monument. It’s a monument to Christian memory. No Jews need have applied.

And so, my deepest of non-apologies to you, George Will. There’s no hairsplitting here.

A cross on public land cannot represent every soldier. That is a betrayal.

The cross is a betrayal of the memories and the sacrifices of every soldier who went to war not because of the cross, but despite it.

A cross in the middle of the road is a betrayal what they fought for: true freedom of belief.

To truly honor our soldiers’ memories, we need a symbol that speaks for them all, and that excludes none of them.

Say it so the Justices can hear it: Honor. Them. All.

Thank you.

Two Days in One

Today is Yom Ha’atzma’ut – Israel’s Independence Day. It is also Openly Secular Day.

So, you know, it’s a pretty big day for a Secular Humanistic Jew.

You can be Jewish and something else. Need evidence? Me, and many others. There’s a thriving, formalized Secular Humanistic Jewish movement in the United States and in Eretz Yisrael.

Secular Jewishness. It’s a thing–even in Israel, where many secular Jews worry that the vision of Hatikva (the Israeli national anthem) of being a free people in the land, is threatened by the ever-expanding authority of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.

From April Rosenblum’s “Offers We Couldn’t Refuse,” in the May-June ’09 issue of Jewish Currents:

He had worked for years with an organization founded by a secular Jewish radical, and was inspired politically by Emma Goldman and other prominent secular Jews of the early 20th century, yet when I remarked that his lack of religion was no reason to question his Jewishness, it was something of a revelation to him.

Among Israeli secular Jews whom we can celebrate this Yom Ha’atzma’ut? David Ben-Gurion. Moshe Dayan. Golda Meir. Yitzhak Rabin. Amos Oz. Yehuda Amichai. A.B. Yehoshua. Shulamit Aloni.

You can be secular and Jewish, and claim both proudly.

I do.

The Society for Humanistic Judaism is a partner organization in Openly Secular Day. You can learn more about the Society for Humanistic Judaism here: http://www.shj.org.

You can learn more about the Israeli movement here (assuming you read Hebrew; I’m not sure I’d go around trusting Google Translate): http://israelijudaism.org.il.

You can learn more about Openly Secular Day here: http://www.openlysecularday.org.

The Forward’s Issues with Secular Jews

I sometimes feel as though I could keep the blog filled with articles playing media critic to The Forward.

My latest thing? This article, a kind of interview cum review cum puff piece on David Brooks and his latest book. (And while we’re at it, I’m not over the moon about The Forward’s new logo and on-computer site design–lots of wasted white space and hidden navigation–but whatever.)

Jane Eisner, The Forward’s editor, interviewed David Brooks about his latest book, which is a series of personality profiles on different aspects of building good character. Eisner appears genuinely puzzled that the “liberals’ conservative” of the New York Times, who is Jewish and has a child in the IDF, didn’t remember that it was Passover and that Eisner might not be eating bagels. Brooks reacted with genuine embarrassment when Eisner pointed out why she would not eat a bagel.

In her article, Eisner appears genuinely perplexed that there are no Jewish persons profiled in Brooks’s book, and wonders at why Brooks’s work often reflects no apparent Jewishness at all. Brooks, she notes, is purposefully private about his own faith.

All the while, Eisner tells us that she and Brooks talked about the new book within a strongly Jewish frame of reference: Adam 1 and Adam 2, concepts set forth by none other than “the Rav,” Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, in his book (initially an article in Tradition), The Lonely Man of Faith.

So, what gives?

What’s Your Name?

I’ve changed the blog’s name, but not the URL. (Take a look in the upper-left corner of the page or at the header across the top if you’re on a mobile device.)

Why?

What’s New? Sunday Assembly in Indianapolis, That’s What!

Live in Indianapolis? Maybe you live nearby? Come to next week’s Sunday Assembly, from Sunday Assembly Indianapolis, on March 8, 2015 at 10:30 a.m. in the Big Car Show Room at 3739 Lafayette Blvd., near 38th Street and Lafayette Blvd.

Why? Well, other than the good stuff that comes from being with other people, I’ll be speaking on “New Perspectives in Secularism” to explore how one can believe in good, even when you might not believe in a god, and how that works in community with others.

Come out, sing songs, listen, think, and come out for lunch afterward. All are welcome!

You can learn more about the fast-growing Sunday Assembly organization; its slogan is “Live Better, Help Often, Wonder More.” Sunday Assembly is new to Indianapolis–March 8th will be the third monthly assembly to date–but the group has already been doing volunteer work in the community, and has a new volunteer opportunity coming up later this month.