Antisemitism

When the Entire Community Is Guilty
...as we learn from Leviticus, for communal sin there can be expiation. The process begins not with bringing a bull to the sanctuary, but with a commitment to learn history, and a commitment to ensure that history is learned by others.
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How to Make Jewish Sanctuaries Truly Safe
In this week’s portion, Terumah, Moses is given instructions for how to build a sanctuary.
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How to Use Our Very Brief Guide to Antisemitism
As a communal leader, here are some ways you can multiply the impact of our guide.
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Dousing the Torches
A D’var Torah for Parshat Lech Lecha by Rabbi Rachel Schmelkin “It’s time to torch those Jewish monsters. Let’s go. 3pm.” On August 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, I stared at the screenshot in horror, witnessing a direct threat to the Jewish community. Hundreds of Neo-Nazis and white supremacists had marched carrying torches the night...
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Embodying “Never Again”: Learning the Lessons of Pesach in time for Yom HaShoah
The horror stories we’re hearing about Uyghur people taken in the night, being separated from their families, having their heads shaved, put on trains, interned, forced into slave labor, and systematically murdered are all too familiar to the Jewish community.
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Antisemitism is Not Inevitable
I believe, however, that antisemitism is not eternal or inevitable. It is something we can overcome, if we understand it properly. Common references to antisemitism as “the world’s oldest hatred” obscure the ways that it actually functions and who it benefits.
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Torah Against Incitement
In December 2015, T’ruah organized Jewish communities and individuals to study this text over Shabbat, as a response to incitement against activists in Israel. It is a talk given by Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion and a major figure in the Orthodox movement, in the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak...
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The Fugitive and the Path-Seeker (Parshat Ki Tavo)
Commentary on Parshat Ki Tavo (Deuteronomy 26:1 – 29:8) “…My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation” (Deut. 26:5). This verse constitutes the kernel of the Passover Haggadah. When we tell our freedom story, we start...
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When Ignorance Brings Words that Sting: Finding Guidance in the Priestly Blessing (Parshat Naso)
Commentary on Parshat Naso (Numbers 4:21 – 7:89) Here in DC, the last couple of months have been pretty rough. In March, DC City Council member Trayon White claimed that the Rothschilds control the weather and the government, and then ducked out early from a tour of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum that had been...
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