Commentary: Will Americans see a Kristallnacht happen here?
I didn’t think anything needed to be said. “Rabbi, how could our congregation not do anything to commemorate Kristallnacht?” Nov. 9, 2015, didn’t fall on a Friday night, and, at our Shabbat services that week, we made no mention of that horrifying historical event. With all the dates crowding the Jewish calendar, it simply didn’t feel necessary to spoil a Sabbath with painful memories of an ...
I didn’t think anything needed to be said.
“Rabbi, how could our congregation not do anything to commemorate Kristallnacht?” Nov. 9, 2015, didn’t fall on a Friday night, and, at our Shabbat services that week, we made no mention of that horrifying historical event. With all the dates crowding the Jewish calendar, it simply didn’t feel necessary to spoil a Sabbath with painful memories of an autumn night in 1938 when German citizens and Nazi paramilitary forces began perpetrating a pogrom against the Jewish community. The vandalism of Jewish homes, destruction of Jewish spaces of worship and menacing of Jewish citizens seemed to belong to a past that was easier not to recall in the present.
How wrong I was.
This year is
