Fifty years ago, an estimated quarter of a million people assembled in front of the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The event unified a multitude of races, genders and religions, capped by the iconic image of Martin Luther King Jr. visualizing his dream for equality. Many American Jews were active participants and leaders in the march. Arnie Aronson was a little-known but crucial organizer; Rabbi Uri Miller recited the opening prayer; Rabbi Joachim Prinz delivered a stirring speech just before King’s historic words. It is shameful and sinful that Black leaders teach anti-Semitism. Jews have stood side by side with Blacks in their effort to eliminate racism. When Malcolm X was asked whether the Black Muslims are anti-Semitic, he replied: “Many Jews have guilt feelings when people talk about ‘exploitation’ [not true]. This is because they know that they control 90 percent of the businesses in black communities, from the Atlantic to the Pacific [not true]. And they benefit more from black buying power than blacks do from other parts of the white community [not the Jews fault]. So they feel guilty about it.” [Not true] He also complained that Jews can be found on the boards of such organizations as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, but, he continued, “the same Jews won’t let you become president of B’nai B’rith, or any of their other organizations.” [Obviously true, because one must be a Jew to be president of B’nai B’rith. Any Black wanting to be president of Bnai Brith can convert to Judaism] Although Malcolm X denied that his organization is anti-Semitic, his statements and his attitude towards Jews is proof he is anti-Semitic. During the march on Washington, the Jew Arnie Aronson was an organizer; Rabbi Uri Miller recited the opening prayer; Rabbi Joachim Prinz delivered a stirring speech just before King’s historic words; Dr. Prinz devoted much of his life in the United States to the Civil Rights movement. He saw the plight of African American and other minority groups in the context of his own experience under Hitler. “I speak to you as an American Jew. “As Americans we share the profound concern of millions of people about the shame and disgrace of inequality and injustice which make a mockery of the great American idea. “As Jews we bring to this great demonstration, in which thousands of us proudly participate, a two-fold experience—one of the spirit and one of our history. “In the realm of the spirit, our fathers taught us thousands of years ago that when God created man, he created him as everybodys neighbor. Neighbor is not a geographic term. It is a moral concept. It means our collective responsibility for the preservation of mans dignity and integrity. “From our Jewish historic experience of three and a half thousand years we say: “Our ancient history began with slavery and the yearning for freedom. During the Middle Ages my people lived for a thousand years in the ghettos of Europe. Our modern history begins with a proclamation of emancipation.”—Rabbi Joachim Prinz Pi“It is for these reasons that it is not merely sympathy and compassion for the black people of America that motivates us. It is above all and beyond all such sympathies and emotions a sense of complete identification and solidarity born of our own painful historic experience. “When I was the rabbi of the Jewish community in Berlin under the Hitler regime, I learned many things. The most important thing that I learned under those tragic circumstances was that bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problem. The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence. “A great people which had created a great civilization had become a nation of silent onlookers. They remained silent in the face of hate, in the face of brutality and in the face of mass murder. “America must not become a nation of onlookers. America must not remain silent. Not merely black America , but all of America . It must speak up and act, from the President down to the humblest of us, and not for the sake of the Negro, not for the sake of the black community but for the sake of the image, the idea and the aspiration of America itself. “Our children, yours and mine in every school across the land, each morning pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the republic for which it stands. They, the children, speak fervently and innocently of this land as the land of liberty and justice for all. “The time, I believe, has come to work together—for it is not enough to hope together, and it is not enough to pray together, to work together that this childrens oath, pronounced every morning from Maine to California, from North to South, may become. a glorious, unshakeable reality in a morally renewed and united America.”—Rabbi Joachim Prinz
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 22:46:14 +0000
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