On April 24, 2025, Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) will compel the Jewish world to consider the full impact of remaining silent in the face of injustice and oppression. Ahead of that solemn day, I feel sickened that messages and concerns about upholding human rights are deemed “too political.”
The latest occurrence for me came after my recent viewing of the documentary film “No Other Land.” I sent an email recommending the Academy Award-winning film to various Jewish listservs. In response, I received a message from one progressive synagogue stating that the documentary was deemed “too political” to mention in that community. Such censorship reminds me of when synagogues have previously informed me that it would spark too much controversy to invite me to speak to their congregations about the work of the group I co-founded, L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty. One clerical colleague has affectionately called me “a political guy.”
If this accusation is true, I am compelled to consider what other violations of human rights in history might have been dismissed as “too political” for me to have publicly addressed: Would I have been silenced for writing op-eds in the 1930s speaking out against Hitler’s inauguration of his infamous Aktion T4 protocol — the forerunner of today’s lethal injections — to kill people deemed “unworthy of life”? Would I have been muted were I to have advocated against the Trail of Tears or Japanese internment camps, just as I am vilified for supporting Palestinian human rights?
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Pastor Martin Niemoller’s timeless warning in his 1946 poem “First They Came” offers an enduring response to the kind of logic that inhibits voices from expressing their deeply held social concerns:
First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak out for me.
The danger of remaining silent in the face of any injustice is one of the most essential lessons of the Holocaust. A telling illustration of this point is how Adolf Hitler justified one genocide by citing international silence over a previous one. On August 22, 1939, in preparation for the impending invasion of Poland, Hitler stated:
I have placed my death-head formations in readiness — for the present only in the East — with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?
The ultimate result of Hitler’s application of this reasoning was the very destruction of European Jewry that is memorialized on Yom HaShoah.
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We don’t need to look far this year for confirmation of the lethal relationship upon which Hitler relied. It so happens that April 24 is also Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. On April 24, 1915 — which Armenians refer to as “Armenian Martyrs’ Day” — Turkish soldiers rounded up the Armenian intelligentsia, priests, and other community leaders, murdered them, and posted heads on spikes throughout Constantinople. This was their signal for massacres and forced-march deportations to start everywhere. In response, the world was deafeningly silent. Human rights icon Elie Wiesel vividly comprehended the connection between such historical events, poignantly writing: “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” (1986 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech) Wiesel’s charge reminds us of the danger of silence in the face of all human rights violations.
So I shall continue to sound the human rights alarm for all peoples — Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, and all others. This includes speaking out against all executions. I feel this especially when the horrific synchronicity occurs when lethal injections, gassings, and firing squads put to death incarcerated human beings on Yom HaShoah or International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is set to happen again this year when Alabama employs the Aktion T4 lethal injection on my penpal James Osgood. I shall respectfully disagree with other Jews and non-Jews who feel that by amplifying this reality, I desecrate the memories of Holocaust victims and survivors, among them my own family members. Rather than remaining silent when the most fundamental right to life itself is flouted, I feel I owe my victimized ancestors the honor of calling this reality exactly what it is.
This is precisely why I will continue with this practice, even when executions occur on what should be joyous occasions. Case in point, it happens that Texas has scheduled the state killing of Matthew Johnson on the evening of May 20, the exact hour of the 2025 Gala for T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. On that celebratory day, too, my fellow Jewish activists and I will not be silenced as we hold by T’ruah’s very name and once again stand solemnly for human rights. I pledge to continue this call to recognize the sanctity of life for all human beings. I vow never to be silent in the face of oppression — no matter how “political” it may seem to some. Over time, I hope that many others will join me in putting human rights first.
Cantor Michael Zoosman is a certified spiritual care practitioner with the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care/Association(CASC) and received his cantorial ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 2008. He sits as an advisory committee member at Death Penalty Action and is the co-founder of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty.” Michael is a former Jewish prison chaplain and psychiatric hospital chaplain. Currently, he serves as a spiritual health practitioner (chaplain) for the Assertive Community Treatment Teams of Vancouver Coastal Health, working with individuals in the community living with severe mental health disorders and addiction. He lives with his family in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
On May 20, 2025, T’ruah will honor Cantor Zoosman with the Rabbinic Human Rights Hero Award at the T’ruah gala. To purchase gala tickets or make a donation in Cantor Zoosman’s honor, click here.