Dr. Paul Socken is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and founder of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Waterloo.
Jews today do have a voice. For the moment. But we have not used it where it counts – in the mainstream media, the halls of power, on campuses, on school boards, in the public square.
The story of Cain and Abel constitutes a critical and fundamental lesson – we are all children of the covenant with the opportunity to serve each other and to serve God. We are, indeed, each other’s keeper.
The Jew is a mirror that reflects the state of the world – at times its openness, kindness and generosity of spirit, at other times its spasms of ferocious barbarism.
Today words are used in a propaganda war, not to reveal, but to conceal, not to summon truth but to distort it. Mark Twain wrote: “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on his shoes.”
Why think when you can hate? Ideology or conspiracy theories instead of critical thinking, personal opinion over professional expertise, politics over facts and truth.
There is no equal to Zola today, but the times demand another letter unambiguously standing for truth in a world losing its collective mind, again using the Jew and the Jewish state as a scapegoat.
Huck’s journey was Twain’s journey, but it extended beyond humanizing the Blacks to the Jews as well.
Percy Shelly’s 1818 poem “Ozymandias” conveys a timeless message, as important today as it was the day it was published.
Talk to any person in extreme old age who is thriving, and you find someone who is endlessly curious.