Thank you for being here as we build these holy hours together, the castle of Yom Kippur, with all the other Jews in the world. Our services are made possible by many minds, hands and hearts: Cantor Re’ut Ben Ze’ev, our prayer leaders Ruth Borsuk and Richard Kamins, Leah Adler and the ritual committee, the board, Joanna Schnurman, Julio Ramos, Honor Edmands, and Officer Dave providing security outside. I appreciate the opportunity to share some thoughts with you this evening.
Every Shabbat morning, very early, Nugget the dog and I walk Main Street, sometimes with my youngest. At the end of May, I began finding brightly colored papers taped to the four round wooden poster posts on Main. “Dear Israel,” said the first one, “take your bloody hands out of my pockets. Love, America.”
I walk with my kippah at all times. Always have, since rabbinical school. Here in Middletown, I’ve only experienced curiosity and kindness. People ask nicely, and I have my response ready: “Yes, women can wear yarmulkes, and I’m also the rabbi here in Middletown.” I’ve experienced nothing but love for the Jewish people here, particularly after October 7th.
So I cannot convey to you how shocked I was by those papers. Shocked, but not surprised.
It was Shabbat, and yet I took them down, carried them to the nearest trash can, and deposited them there, while explaining to my youngest the principle “vechai bahem” – observe the mitzvot and live by them. I cannot look at hate written toward my people and do nothing.
Every Shabbat since then includes walking to Main Street with Nugget, stopping at those posts, reading them, and taking them down. [PAUSE]
Why am I telling you this on Yom Kippur? Because tonight we need to talk about memory, about antisemitism, and about who we choose to be.
Some of you know—and now all of you will know—that my mother has been battling Alzheimer’s for at least twelve years. Alzheimer’s is winning, and my mother’s access to her memories is declining. She has progressively lost her identities: biologist, mother, animal lover. But her personality remains—gregarious, passionate, opinionated.
I’ve learned from researchers who study memory and identity that what we remember, when we remember it, and how we remember it—these are the building blocks of who we are.
Our identity is not a stable building with floors stacked one on top of another. We are more like a Lego creation. The blocks can be switched around, by therapy, by healing, by teshuvah, by events that change us. Sometimes the entire structure is remade with almost no resemblance to what it used to be. [PAUSE]
Zachor – remember. This appears in Torah as a commandment. Traditional siddurim list six memories that we as Jews must recall every day. These six collective memories are the building blocks of our tradition:
- We remember the Exodus—we know redemption from oppression
- We remember Shabbat—we rest and connect deeply once a week
- We remember Miriam—we guard our speech from gossip and vulgarity
- We remember receiving Torah—we study and learn our values
- We remember the Golden Calf—we acknowledge how catastrophically we can fail
- We remember Amalek—the enemy who attacked the weak and vulnerable, who destroyed for the pleasure of destroying Jews
These memories aren’t pleasant. But they’re essential to remaining Jewish. Zachor – remember – means understanding our history and culture enough to guide us toward a more meaningful present and future.
The rabbis said already in the year 200 CE that Amalek is no longer a specific people. Amalek is a tendency, a spirit, both outside and inside of us.
Inside, Amalek is the tendency to let go of Judaism and Jewish identity, to be cynically indifferent to the world’s suffering, to disconnect from our hearts and values. To give up being Jewish. It is the cooling of the Jewish soul.
Outside, Amalek is the spiritual force that fights Judaism and Jews. We call it antisemitism.
And just as our understanding of Amalek evolved through the centuries, antisemitism has evolved and adapted across millennia. We must zachor – we must remember Amalek.
Through history, antisemitism has created three templates that repeat across time and place. Understanding them helps us recognize what we face today.
In ancient times, Jews were viewed with suspicion for being different. One invisible God in societies where gods were many. Laws and practices that set us apart: not working on Shabbat, circumcising baby boys, not eating with others, refusing to kill weak infants, supporting beggars and the disabled.
The rise of Christianity transformed this into systematic persecution. Early Christian theology cast Jews as Christ-killers, rejected by God, partners with the devil, cursed to wander. This curse passed from parents to children, erasable only through baptism.
When Rome converted to Christianity in 312 CE, this crystallized into systematic oppression. Jews were banned from most professions, forbidden to own land, couldn’t build new synagogues. Medieval Europe birthed myths that persist today—chief among them the blood libel.
My first encounter with it was as a university student in Brazil. A friend told me how angry she was “at you Jews” because her aunt said “Jews use children’s blood on Passover for their wine”. I invited her to a seder. To her credit, she came and embraced that her aunt was wrong.
But this accusation, which first appeared in Norwich, England in 1144, is alive and kicking. The ADL documents current cartoons depicting blood libel.
Barred from most professions and forbidden to own land, Jews were pushed into moneylending—often the only occupation available. This created the first dangerous template: Jews as simultaneously powerless and threatening, outsiders who could be blamed for society’s problems while being denied the means to defend themselves.
As Europe became “enlightened” in the late 1700s, antisemitism transformed from prejudice to “science.”
Voltaire, champion of reason, wrote viciously against Jews, proving we are “an ignorant and barbarous people.” This intellectual antisemitism gave hatred a secular veneer.
The 19th century saw the emergence of race theory. Humans were divided into races, with whites at the top. Jews, surprisingly to some, were not considered white but a distinct race, inherently different and dangerous regardless of religious beliefs or assimilation.
This created a second template: the Jew as the would-be insider, able to hide behind the mask of assimilation, but intending to destroy the host nation from within.
This is what made the Dreyfus Affair such a scandal. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer falsely accused of treason, divided French society. “Death to the Jews” echoed in riots across 55 cities, spreading even to Algeria.
The Dreyfus affair also introduced a third element: the replacement theory – Jews are bringing immigrants to replace Europeans.
In 1903, the same year as the brutal Kishinev pogrom, a Russian antisemitic newspaper published “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” claiming to have “discovered” a Jewish plan to control the world through manipulation of government, economy, and media. Though repeatedly exposed as a fraud, it has been translated into at least 16 languages. It remains influential among extremist groups worldwide, creating the myth of Jews as puppet masters controlling world events.
These three templates work together: Jews are dangerous outsiders (template one), but they can disguise themselves as insiders (template two), and they’re secretly controlling everything (template three).
American antisemitism followed a different trajectory but used the same templates.
Connecticut, for instance, forbade synagogues until 1843. Our own Puritan laws didn’t even allow Jews to have a cemetery.
As Jewish immigration increased in the late 1800s, familiar patterns emerged. The 1877 exclusion of the Seligman family from a hotel in Saratoga Springs marked the beginning of systematic discrimination. “Restricted” hotels, clubs, and neighborhoods became common. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and our own Wesleyan all restricted Jewish students in the early 20th century, some continuing until the 1960s.
Henry Ford’s newspaper spread “Protocols” conspiracy theories to millions of Americans in the 1920s. Father Charles Coughlin’s radio broadcasts reached 40 million listeners with antisemitic conspiracy theories wrapped in populist religious rhetoric.
Most tragically, American antisemitism contributed to the abandonment of European Jews during the Holocaust. The MS St. Louis, carrying Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution, was turned away from American shores. In 1938, 60% of Americans opposed allowing Jewish refugees into the country.
Unlike other forms of prejudice that typically target the powerless, antisemitism portrays Jews as secretly powerful and threatening. This “punching up” dynamic makes it appealing across the political spectrum. Both the far-left and the far-right can and do embrace antisemitic ideas.
Antisemitism is also remarkably adaptable. It begins as religious hatred, transforms into racial theory, adopts economic theories, and today manifests in rhetoric that often crosses into antisemitic territory.
When societies face crisis—economic collapse, military defeat, social change—Jews become convenient targets. We are small enough to attack, different enough to other, successful enough to resent.
Social media amplifies conspiracy theories. Medieval blood libels get updated for modern audiences. Economic conspiracy theories adapt for global capitalism. Holocaust denial spreads despite overwhelming evidence. Prominent Jews are accused of all three templates: greedy, powerful outsiders who want to dominate the world through their insiders, controlling banks, media, governments, wars.
The papers on Main Street? “Take your bloody hands out of my pockets”—that’s blood libel and greed together. A twofer, if you will.
A recent one explained that a certain Israeli politician is “as Jewish as a slab of bacon.” What’s insidious about that one is that the writer decides who is Jewish and who is not.
This leads to a fourth dynamic we must recognize: the “good Jew” versus the “bad Jew.”
When someone—anyone—decides they can brand someone as a good or bad Jew, they create a false binary dividing our people into “acceptable” versus “problematic.” On both the right and the left, there are tests you must pass to be accepted: loyalty tests, behavior tests, acceptable words to say or not.
Jewish identity becomes conditional on non-Jewish approval. This assumes we must prove our worthiness. It creates standards where some Jews are blamed regardless. It forces us as individuals to distance ourselves from stereotypes.
Are you for-that or against-that? Are you one of the good ones, or not?
The moment we accept this framing, we’ve already lost. Jews are as diverse as any group – racially, economically, politically. There are no “good” or “bad” Jews. There are just Jews.
How do we respond to this history of hatred?
First: Zachor—Remember
Ours is a long history, and memory is key to making our Jewishness meaningful. It is one of those large building blocks of identity. We study antisemitism not to despair but to recognize its patterns and respond effectively.
But memory alone is not enough.
Second: Build Alliances
Besides defending our buildings, we must build bridges. Antisemitism rarely exists in isolation—it’s the canary in the coal mine for other forms of hatred that threaten pluralism itself. When we stand against antisemitism, we defend not only ourselves but the principles of democracy and tolerance that protect all minorities.
The Jeruzalemska synagogue in Prague, built in 1908, has an inscription in three languages—Hebrew, Czech, and German: “Do we not all have one father?”
We create alliances by being unapologetically Jewish, by grounding our positions in Jewish values, by engaging with knowledge and accurate information. And we must not fall into the “good Jew” trap—instead, we remind people that Jews are as diverse as any group.
Third response: Invest in Education
Your own Jewish education. Your children’s and grandchildren’s. Know our history, culture, and traditions well enough to have informed dialogue with others. Ignorance breeds prejudice; knowledge builds empathy.
Specific actions you can take:
- Learn Jewish history—take a class, read a book, ask questions
- Speak up when you encounter antisemitic tropes, even subtle ones
- Support local and national organizations combating hate
- Build relationships across lines of difference
- Teach your children what antisemitism looks like and how to respond
- When you see something, say or do something – even if it’s just a colorful paper on a wooden post
The oldest synagogue in Connecticut, Beth Israel, has this inscription outside: Ner Hashem Nishmat Adam—”God’s candle is the human soul.”
Through centuries of persecution, our collective candle has flickered but never been extinguished. In every generation, we have found the strength to rebuild, to create, to contribute to human civilization despite efforts to destroy us.
We are not victims of history but its survivors and shapers. We remember the darkness not to dwell in it but to kindle the light that drives it away.
My mother is losing her memories. The building blocks of her identity are being taken apart. But her essence—her warmth, her passion, her love—remains. And I carry her memories now. I am part of her Lego creation, and she is part of mine.
This is what zachor means. We carry the memories of our people forward. We build with those blocks. We create something new while honoring what came before.
The same tradition that commands us to zachor also teaches us Tikkun Olam—repairing the world. Our response to antisemitism must not be merely defensive but constructive, working to build a world where ancient hatreds have no place to grow.
When I walk Main Street with Nugget and take down those papers, I am doing two things: I am removing hate from my community, and I am teaching my child that we don’t stand by. We act. We remember, and we build.
[PAUSE] This Yom Kippur, I ask you: What will you remember? What building blocks will you choose? How will you build your Jewish identity in the year ahead?
May we remember in ways that become a blessing. May our being Jewish be a light to all nations, this Yom Kippur and throughout the year.
G’mar Chatimah Tovah – may we all be sealed in the Book of Life, proudly and vitally Jewish.