Evil brought its darkness to Pittsburgh last week, and the horror of killing 11 mostly elderly people as they gathered to worship Saturday just because they were Jews troubles me deeply.
But the sad truth is it’s nothing new.
Remember, as one example of many, the biblical account of Haman, who sought to have the whole nation slain. Esther, who had risen to the place of queen, was reminded by her cousin Mordecai, “For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this.”
And who can forget the young woman’s brave reply: “If I perish, I perish.”
Perhaps each of us needs to borrow a little bit of that courage and speak up and say, in light of the continued attacks against the Jewish people, we must stop the hating that leads to killing.
Here in Mississippi, Jews have long been a friend of the people. During the state’s darkest days, when black Mississippians were treated as second-class citizens, it was Jews who supported the civil rights movement to ensure that we would live up to the sacred American creed that all men are created equal.
And anyone who drives on a four-lane highway, like U.S. 98 through Columbia, can thank a Jew. Morris Lewis Jr. of Indianola, chairman of Supervalu, one of the nation’s largest companies, led the charge by state business leaders to raise the gas tax and pass the four-lane highway plan in 1987.
Lewis was also known for his personal generosity, as are many Jews. As one Mississippian told me, “We (meaning Christians) will tell you we’ll pray for you. Jews will do something to help.”
My late grandmother grew up in difficult circumstances during the Great Depression in the slums of Chattanooga. She said many times that her family would not have made it if not for the help of a Jewish man who lived in the neighborhood. She supported Jews and Israel for her whole life as a result of that kindness.
In college, a Jewish journalism professor taught me one of the great lessons of this craft: It’s your story, not your sources, so you follow the truth and write about it as you know is right. That’s an invaluable lesson as sources want to push journalists around to get the story that’s flattering to them, not necessarily the true one.
I share these stories in hopes that it might do some small part in combatting the false narrative, persistent throughout the ages, that Jews are somehow responsible for all the world’s problems. It’s nonsense, but many believe it and it leads them to continue the horrific acts like Robert Bowers, the 46-year-old loner who breathed out hate on the internet and then carried it out in the Pittsburgh synagogue.
It saddens me as a Christian that some of this vileness comes from a distorted, perverted view of the New Testament. True enough, Peter told an assembly of several thousand fellow Jews in the first gospel sermon that they had crucified Christ by the hands of lawless men (meaning the Romans who actually carried out the execution). But rather than a condemnation, it was an invitation to know the good news of God’s mercy and love. And a truly Christian view recognizes that it was the sins of all people, not just the Jews who were there when Jesus crucified, that caused him to go to the cross.
I hope that each of us can make a determination to stop hating each other because of differences we have and instead choose the path of understanding and forgiveness.
And what better example of that lesson than this: When Bowers arrived at the hospital after being injured during a shootout with police, he was shouting, “I want to kill all the Jews,” according to a Washington Post story. Who treated his wounds? The Jewish attending physician in the ER as well as a Jewish nurse.
“We’re here to take care of sick people,” Dr. Jeffrey Cohen, president of the hospital, who is also a Jew, was quoted as saying. “We’re not here to judge you.”
Charlie Smith is editor and publisher of The Columbian-Progress. Reach him at csmith@columbianprogress.com or (601) 736-2611.
