June 18, 2022
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parshat Beha’alotecha
June 18, 2022 — 19 Sivan 5782
What is the Opposite of Dismantle?
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
Do you know what the word dox means—d-o-x? I had never heard of the word before this week. I learned its meaning as our community has encountered something you might have heard of, a website called The Mapping Project of BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanction) Boston.
The dictionary definition of dox is to publish private or identifying information about a person or organization on the internet with malicious intent.
BDS Boston engages in a massive doxing of both Jewish institutions and individuals, including many who are members of our own community. It lists names and addresses of institutions and individuals, while the people responsible for this website refuse to identify themselves. BDS Boston is ostensibly about Israel and Palestinians. But in fact it does not discuss Israel. Does not discuss Palestinians. BDS Boston is about us, the Jews of Boston. They are not after Israel. They are after us. Cloaking themselves in anonymity, they pursue a double agenda.
First, to make us a pariah. We Jews are, according to the language of The Mapping Project, sinister Zionists, infected with colonialism, oppressing indigenous Palestinians.
Which leads to the second agenda.
To make anyone who works with Jews, who accepts Jewish money, who partners with Jews, also infected by the taint of our Zionist colonialism. Police departments are trained by the ADL. Police departments are infected with Zionist colonialism. Michelle Wu, the Mayor of Boston, receives campaign contributions from Jewish contributors. Michelle Wu is infected with Zionist colonialism. Using publicly available information, the Mapping Project lists all gifts from the Donor Advisory Fund of CJP over the last 20 years. There was a recent community briefing in which one of the speakers observed that the Mapping Project lists the Science Museum as having received charitable donations from Boston Jews using CJP’s Donor Advisory Fund. Why list that? What does the Science Museum have to do with Israel or with Palestinians? Obviously nothing. The intent is to embarrass the Science Museum for taking Zionist colonialist money, so that in the future political leaders like Michelle Wu and community institutions like police departments and the Science Museum will be bullied and shamed into refusing any partnership with the Jews of Boston.
We get how serious this is. That is why there were 1,300 people on a communal briefing this week. How should we think about, and respond, to this threat?
The first move is to make sure that we are safe, and that we feel safe. At the community briefing, it was reassuring to hear from Special Agent Joseph Bonavolonta, who heads the FBI Boston Field Office. Special Agent Bonavolonta shared that FBI Boston has three different groups of FBI agents closely monitoring traffic on this web site: the domestic terrorism task force; the international terrorism task force; and the civil rights task force. He reassured us that there is no credible evidence of threat at the moment, but the FBI monitors the situation constantly. While we appreciate the FBI’s having our back, Jewish history has taught us that we also need to exercise agency for our own safety and security. That is why CJP has invested millions in the Community Security Initiative, in the expertise and infrastructure that keeps us safe. That’s why we have invested in security guards, community-wide trainings and briefings, and security protocols that have been approved by CJP and by the Newton Police.
Being safe, and feeling safe, are necessary, but they are not sufficient. How can this crisis turn into an opportunity for our own reinvention and deepening? This crisis can inspire us to think again about why we are Jewish, why we choose to live a Jewish life, how Torah and mitzvah lead to a beautiful life.
That was the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s question in the 1950s, when he emerged from the Shoah and taught his movement to focus not on the Shoah, but on simcha shel mitzvah, the joy of being Jewish. He believed that a mitzvah connects the person who performs it with the will of the Creator, it invests your life, our life, with ultimate meaning, and that therefore nothing is more urgent.
In his biography Rebbe, Joseph Telushkin tells of the time in December, 1978 that the head chaplain in South Africa’s prisons, Rabbi Shabsi Katz, came to see the Lubavitcher Rebbe. There were Jewish prisoners in South Africa’s prisons, many incarcerated for political offenses. The Rebbe asked Rabbi Katz, Hanukkah is coming, can Jewish prisoners light Hanukkah candles? Rabbi Katz said no. The Rebbe responded, and I quote:
Do you realize how much a little bit of light would mean to a person incarcerated
in a dark cell, how important it would be if he could light the candles? Can’t you
arrange for the prisoners to light Chanukah candles?
Rabbi Katz promised that when he returned to South Africa, he would negotiate on behalf of the prisoners’ right to light Shabbat candles for next year’s Hanukkah.
What about this Hanukkah? The Rebbe insisted.
But what can I do, the chaplain protested? I’m here. They’re there.
Pick up the phone and call.
But it’s the middle of the night in South Africa.
All the more reason to call now, the Rebbe insisted. The prison authority will get the urgency of the matter.
The chaplain called the prison authority in the middle of the night and said, listen the festival of Hanukkah is coming, there is this mitzvah, this commandment, to light Hanukkah candles, how can we get Jewish prisoners to do this mitzvah this Hanukkah. The prison authority responded: I don’t know what Hanukkah is. I don’t know what a mitzvah is. I don’t know much about lighting candles. But I do know that if you are calling from America and waking me up in the middle of the night, lighting candles on your holiday must be very important. We will find a way for Jewish prisoners to do so.
Why be Jewish? Because doing a mitzvah is light in the darkness. It will elevate our lives. And it will inspire us to be helpful to others.
Let me share another story. I’ll never forget what a woman named Qwin once told me. Qwin is an immigrant from Uganda whom our community had supported in a number of ways. One day, she is riding the green line, and some stranger she meets on the T is nice to her. She asks him: are you Jewish? Am I what? Are you Jewish? Why are you asking me that? She explained that she just immigrated from Uganda, she just gained asylum. She did not know any Jews in Uganda. The first Jews she had ever met were in Boston. But they were so kind to her, she equated being Jewish with being caring and decent.
That is our outward-facing response to the Mapping Project. To be such a mensch that we give the Jewish people a good name.
The Mapping Project is a threat to be dealt with. But it is more than that. It is also a call to action. A call to action by us. The Mapping Project’s favorite verb is dismantle. It urges its followers to dismantle the Jewish community in Boston.
What is the opposite of dismantle? The opposite of dismantle is not only to strengthen. It is to make stronger than ever.
Our commitment to our own security and safety. Stronger than ever.
Our partnering with law enforcement and our elected leaders. Stronger than ever.
Our commitment to deepening the meaning of our own Judaism—more Torah, more mitzvah, more Shabbat, more prayer, more justice, more lovingkindness—stronger than ever.
Our commitment to radiating love and light into the world, to giving the Jewish people a good name because of how we comport ourselves in the world—stronger than ever.
Our commitment to Zionism. Stronger than ever. We are Zionists, proud, strong, eternal Zionists. Stronger than ever.
And our commitment to the land and people of Israel. Stronger than ever. Our members who are going to Jerusalem for Hartman Torah study this summer are leaving tomorrow. Michelle and Wayne have 40 people signed up to go on a congregational mission to Israel in December, and they are recruiting for more. We are also recruiting a mission for Israel’s 75th anniversary in the spring. Shira and I will be on that trip, in Israel, loud and proud. Let’s get hundreds of our members to go to Israel for Israel’s 75th. Our mantra was, is, and always will be: go to Israel!
Dismantle? No way. An eternal people in our eternal land. Forever. Stronger than ever. Shabbat shalom.