I have always been a fan of Will and Ariel Durant. I read what was then the 9 volume set before I graduated from junior high. (I finished the other two, newer, tomes comprising their entire History of Civilization when they were published in 1975.) These eminently readable books helped me learn history- more than I learned in school or from other books.
So, when I heard a posthumous publication of essays by Will Durant was available, Fallen Leaves (Last Words on Life, Love, War and God), I knew it was my next read. One of those essays sets the stage for today’s post.
I’ve written before about the anti-Semitism that obtained when I was a child. In my neighborhood, I was the only Jewish family- with the exception of the Matarasso’s. But, given their last name, no one really knew they were Jewish.
The Cautiaux and Barber families (who I seem to recall were related) made our family lives hell. Oh, hell was a step up. Of course, it didn’t help that almost everyone in the neighborhood went to various Catholic schools where they were taught that the Jews killed their god (I always wonder how a true god can die) and that we were bad.
That “training” is probably the reason why I knew that sitting back and doing nothing when Blacks were denied the right to vote, to work for reasonable wages, to be equal citizens in these great United States was unacceptable. It’s probably why I still reel when I see folks being denied their rights.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the recently retired Chief Rabbi of the UK, just wrote a wonderful piece in the Wall Street Journal. Not the subject- which was horrendous- but his teachings from those events. He spoke about the 70th anniversary of the Soviet liberation of Auschwitz- a “camp” which many called for destruction as far back as 1943 but was ignored by the powers of the world. Sacks explained how iuschwitz was akin to the murder of Jews in the Paris Hypermarket, those killed at the Brussels Jewish museum, three children in Toulouse not much earlier, the Mumbai massacres, etc. Because these terrorists are trained by their religious handlers that killing Jews are worth 50 times that of killing of non-Jews.
The bull… that this is a reaction to Israel is just that. There is NO confluence between Jews who live in Paris shopping in a market and Israel, between the Jewish museum in Brussels and Israel, or Lubavich folks in Mumbai to Israel. These acts were simply against Jews. If G-d forbid, Israel were to disappear tomorrow, it would not stop this rampant anti-Semitism.
And, here’s the key fact. Anti-Semitism is not just about Jews. Boko Haram is not killing Jews in Africa. Islamic terrorists are attacking Christians in the Middle East. Blacks and Hispanics are verbally attacked by Republican leaders – of course, using code words and ‘dog-whistles’, whose meanings are clear to their followers- but which these same leaders hope will provide plausible deniability to those who lack common sense.
LBJ, addressing the country, demanding approval of the Voting Rights Act, said it well. (No, I am not- and never was a fan of LBJ. But, he did step up to the plate to make the lives of Black Americans just a little more tolerable.) “[Black American’] actions and protests, his courage to risk safety and even to risk his life, have awakened the conscience of this nation…He has called upon us to make good the promise of America…It’s all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice and we shall overcome.”
And, now back to Will Durant. Remember he died more than 34 years ago. It’s not exactly clear when he wrote the various essays- but I believe this one was written some 50 years ago or so. His words are eerie- only because they still resonate. We still haven’t changed the world for Blacks yet.
“We had lived in the North, and had never felt the wounds of economic servitude, political disbarment, and social contumely. We had no conception of the white man’s fear of black power growing in the North…We saw may successful black physicians, lawyers, clergymen, and office holders, and rejoiced in their mounting number and rapid advancement, but we have never felt the horror of a lynching, the humiliating rejection from hotels and restaurants, the hopeless poverty of Harlem or Watts….Meanwhile the progress of technology deprived most black men of a place in industry; they became dependent upon relief, or charity, or their wives- who cleaned white homes to maintain black hovels…The street became unsafe. White citizens returned dislike for hate, and shrugged their shoulders at civil rights…This generation cannot solve the problem of unskilled labor left jobless by the promise of technology. We shall have to feed and house the sufferers, to retrain the educable, and to educate the children, until this generation passes away and the next has been prepared by our schools and colleges for a place in the new machinery of production, distribution, and finance…So I make no apology for resorting again to the panacea—extended and expanded education.”
Neither do I! You shouldn’t either.
