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| Remembrance Day 2006 - Rabbi's Sermon |  |
Remembrance Day 2006 – Speech In late August of this year, I took a group of nearly 30 members of this Synagogue to Poland, to see there the remaining traces of pre Second World War Jewish life. To see there sites from the Holocaust and to observe something of the present day Jewish community. Before the Second World War, there were approximately 3 and a half million Jewish people living in Poland. Now, in the present day Republic, there may be 10,000 Jews – and this may be an overestimation. While we were touring around the old Jewish quarter in Krakow, our tour guide made a most fascinating observation. She noted that the decimation of the Jews of Poland was one contributing factor to the stripping away of minorities from this country. On the eve of the war, the ethnic minorities living in what was then Poland, totalled 35% of the total population. The largest minority was actually Germans, followed by the Jewish minority. Today minorities total about 3-4% of the Polish post war population. Over 6 million people resident in Poland were killed in the war by the Nazi regime, a further 6 million found themselves outside the new post war Polish borders and some 1.7 million were exiled by the communist regime. So today, Poles are born into a homogeneous society, without any apparent possibility to be educated about ethnic difference. Of course, our country is different story. From the 2001 census, the proportion of the population considered ethnic minority was 7.9 %, and this may well not include the Jewish population and the new influx of workers from Eastern Europe. Just this week, at my daughter’s nursery, the children were talking about the respective backgrounds of their parents. Yes there are definite problems of ethnic and race integration in this country that need to be worked on, but we are certainly a more heterogeneous society, which offers hope for greater societal tolerance. And one thing we need to be clear of when looking at these figures, when studying such demographic differences, is what in fact is Tolerance. What are the conditions for tolerance to exist? Why do we find a lack of tolerance so often? My feeling is that there is a misconception as to how we often define tolerance. We often look at tolerance as open-mindedness, as an abstract, theoretical desire to be nice and courteous to people of other religions and races. This is not enough. Tolerance is not being nice – tolerance is dealing with difference. Difference is not easy, sometimes it is not even comfortable – coping with that reality is what leads to tolerance. So a first step to tolerance is being exposed to others who are different. That is a vital, critical first step. We regularly host groups of local school children to the Synagogue so that they can see for themselves different customs of another religious group. They may look weird at first to them – but that initial knowledge will make it easier in the future to build relationships with members of the Jewish faith. Another example of exposure to difference is the developments in the catering of special needs children in the Education sector. The last two decades has seen a continuing desire to integrate where possible, children with special needs into mainstream schools. Just over the river in Teddington, there used to stand Normansfield, an institution caring for those with Downs Syndrome. It was closed down in the 1980’s and now it houses the offices of the Downs Syndrome Association who are advocates for the rights of individuals with Downs Syndrome and their carers. One advantage of integration, if it is possible, is that children who do not have special needs, become aware of the needs of others. They grow up in the knowledge that there are children with illnesses, syndromes and learning difficulties who are individuals, people of value and worth. The exposure to difference educates about difference. But even although we are a heterogeneous society, our society is not free of racism, of anti-semitism, of Islamaphobia, of bullying. Why are there so many instances where tolerance seems to break down? I would like to describe for you one suggested model as to why this happens; from the world of psychology. In her book “Everybody’s Different”, American psychology professor Dr Nancy Miller describes ways in which people can deal appropriately with disability differences in society. Although we may not want to admit it, when we are faced be someone physically or mentally disabled, by someone deformed, by someone acting in a strange way, we are often immediately uncomfortable. Our comfort zone may not be able to deal with the difference, and we may feel awkward or even threatened. Dr. Miller attributes this reaction to a more primitive tribal element within our brain which is quick to react when we are faced with a stimulus that does not fit in with our experience of reality. We also have a rational brain reaction, which can temper the primitive response. This response will be based on previous experience. So an individual who is the parent and carer of says an autistic child, will be much more at ease when he meets an individual with autism in the street. His rational response will soon overcome the more primitive one. Now this model may also apply to ethnic and religious differences. If I have had little access to another religious or ethnic group, I may feel much more uncomfortable when I meet a person from such a group. And I am sure that one of the aims of religious education in schools is to create more tolerance through increased awareness of what other religions actually do. To be sure, an individual would not need to adapt his identity to become more tolerant. Just because I am different from the perceived norm does not mean that I cannot be tolerant. But tolerance now is more of a challenge. There may be customs and laws of other religions that do not sit well with me, that do not fall within my comfort zone. It is at this point that I must understand that even though I have a distinct way of looking at the world – there are other existing ways as well as mine that come from different sources of law, different histories, different cultures. In fact, the Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, in his book Dignity of Difference, explains that – and I quote: “God, the creator of humanity, having made a covenant with all humanity, then turns to one people and commands it to be different in order to teach humanity the dignity of difference”. In other words, the Jewish message to the world is be different, be yourself, so that you may educate others in the world that difference is not threatening and uncomfortable, rather it is the way of the world. Since the world was split into different cultures due the building of the Tower of Babel, the reality has been diversity – not unity. Any attempt to impose a unity on this natural diversity of existence, will only lead to disaster. And so on my trip to Poland, while standing by the crematoria of Birkenau, the third camp at Auschwitz, I realised that the Jewish people are a test to humanity. If we stay true to our religion, to our precepts, to our God given Torah, we cannot help but be different in every sphere of life. Different food, different clothes, different festivals and so on. But we then rely directly on the way in which people of other ethnic groups react to that difference. Humanity will have reached success when belief in one God can co-exist with a multiplicity of groups worshipping as monotheists in one way. But one final point. There are times when we need to fight against those who wish to impose one universal belief on us all. And that is what millions of individuals gave their lives up for in both the first and second world war. Some of those who fought and contributed are here with us today. Many are no longer with us. But we must not forget that the sacrifices of so many were not in vain – it has allowed our country to grow into one where tolerance, of the right sort, has the chance to flower. For that we owe each and every one of you, sincere thanks. Shabbat Shalom. |
