Congregation Shaarai Shomayim where
Jack Paskoff is the Rabbi
In October of last year I had a day that could only happen
in America. In the morning, I went to a
counseling session at the Statewide Adoption Network, the people who helped us
adopt our sons. I had been seeing a
counselor to help me deal with problems my older son was having, and to help me
deal with the problems I had dealing with my older son.
At the end of the session, the counselor, who is an
Asian-American from India, asked me about the bicycle trip I took across Eastern
Europe in June and July. She knew I was seeing Holocaust sites and
memorials.
I told her the trip was
wonderful, sometimes very emotional, but I expected that. One of the days was
in
Auschwitz-Birkenau.
But after the trip I came home to Nazis marching in the
streets in America yelling, “Jews will not replace us.” I told her how that affected me. She knew my father was Jewish and I grew up
only nominally Jewish. At the end of the
session she said, “You should talk to a Rabbi.”
That same day I had an appointment with an orthopedic
surgeon about an injury. He also knew I had gone on the trip to Eastern Europe
so after the exam he asked, “How did the trip go?” I told him about the trip
and about Charlottesville. He said, “You
should see my Rabbi.”
He gave me the phone number for Rabbi Jack Paskoff. The
Synagogue where he is the Rabbi was on the way home so I stopped, met the Rabbi
briefly and made an appointment to talk.
Two weeks later we talked.
I told him about my very happy life that got turned over in November of
2016 and then knocked flat watching torch-carrying Nazis marched in
America.
After about 40 minutes Rabbi Paskoff said, “Ever since you
left home after high school, you have chosen your identities: airman, soldier,
husband, father, student, writer, racer, your choice. Now your identity has
chosen you…….
Welcome to the Jewish experience.”
He then said I was welcome to attend Torah study and
services. He hoped that the congregation could help me find peace.
I started attending Torah study on Saturday mornings and
Wednesday morning prayer. After the prayer meeting on Wednesdays, several of
the men meet for breakfast. The man who invited me is a retired Army Sergeant’s
Major. At the first breakfast, I found six of the eight men, including me, were
veterans. Most served during the draft.
In the 45 years since I first enlisted, I have never been part of a
veterans group. Now I am.
Rabbi Paskoff said the question of anti-Semitism is never
“if?” but “when?” Until Charlottesville
and now Pittsburgh, I could navigate the prejudice. But the events in
Charlottesville and, more importantly, the President’s response, said the
danger is real. President Obama recently said in a campaign speech, “How can it
be hard to condemn Nazis?” He made it
sound like a joke, but the former President knows exactly why the current
President can’t condemn white nationalists: racists and Nazis are the base of
the Trump Party.
The gunman in Pittsburgh said on line that the caravan lie
was the reason he chose that moment to murder. The day of the shooting and
every day until the election, the President said the same lie, loudly and
stridently, as did his worshippers in Evangelical pulpits and on Fox News.
Racism, horrible racism in the form of Slavery and Jim Crow,
is as American as murdering Native Americans to take their land. Virulent anti-Semitism is back with a
Presidential Seal of Approval.
After Pittsburgh, I decided to become a member of the
Synagogue where Jack Paskoff is the Rabbi.
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