This address was given Sept. 17, 2002, at morning prayers at Harvard University\’s Memorial Church in Cambridge, Mass.
I speak with you today, not as president of [Harvard] University, but as a concerned member of our community, about something that I never thought I would become seriously worried about — the issue of anti-Semitism.
This address was given Sept. 17, 2002, at morning prayers at Harvard University\’s Memorial Church in Cambridge, Mass.
Their subjects will range from anti-Semitism to baseball\’s Ted Williams, from the messianic era to Disney\’s \”The Lion King.\”
Last Rosh Hashana began with the most terrible noise. Terror, trauma, tragedy and evil triumphant filled the air. In addition, Israel and Jews worldwide were subjected to the vilest outburst of anti-Semitism since the 1940s.
As we enter the year 5763, the mood of the Jewish people is justifiably dark indeed.
It has been a year of increasing violence in the Middle East, growing anti-Semitism in Europe, hostility toward Israel, and a general air of crisis and ominous headlines — a shared misery of collective despair.
One day during his junior year abroad in Vienna in 1978, Jon Marans told a professor of his intention to visit the concentration camp Dachau. Her response stunned him. \”She said, \’Why do you want to go there for? It\’s just a bunch of dead Jews,\’\” recalled the Pulitzer-nominated playwright, whose \”Jumping for Joy\” opens Sept. 7 at Laguna Playhouse.
If pro-Israel activists hoped that the U.N. conference on sustainable development would pass without the anti-Israel attacks that characterized last year\’s U.N. summit against racism, they have been proven wrong.
A few months ago, in the aftermath of violent attacks against Jews in France, I stood with other activists in front of the French consulate in Los Angeles accusing the country of being anti-Semitic and yelling, \”Shame on France.\”
Although Shelley Ventura-Cohen had been to France several times before as a tourist with an interest in French culture,this visit — on an American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) mission to counteract French anti-Semitism — was unique.
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