6 | NOVEMBER 7 • 2019
guest column
The Lessons We Learn from Kristallnacht
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T
he night of Nov. 9, 1938,
marked the beginning
of one of the most
horrific anti-Jewish attacks in
history. Over two days, mobs
across Germany
and parts of
Austria and
Czechoslovakia
destroyed syna-
gogues, Jewish-
owned businesses,
homes, schools
and cemeteries.
Under instructions from the
Gestapo, local authorities did
nothing to stop the violence and
destruction.
When the pogrom was
over, nearly 100 Jews had
been murdered and 30,000
Jewish men had been sent to
concentration camps. Shards
of glass from Jewish-owned
storefronts littered the streets
of Berlin, Vienna and other
cities across the three countries,
giving the attacks the name
we now remember them by:
Kristallnacht, or “the night of
broken glass.
”
Kurt Messerschmidt, a
Holocaust survivor, recalled
encountering a crowd of people
in the aftermath of Kristallnacht
watching an older man who had
been ordered by Nazi soldiers to
clean up the broken glass out-
side his store. Messerschmidt,
who helped the man, would
later say, “I’
m sure that some of
the people standing there dis-
approved of what the Nazis did,
but their disapproval was only
silence, and silence is what did
the harm.
”
Eighty-one years after
Kristallnacht, we would do well
to remember Messerschmidt’
s
poignant words. Silence in the
face of anti-Semitism — or any
form of bigotry — can still do
great harm. And there is much
hatred in our world about
which we must not be silent.
Last year, the Anti-
Defamation League recorded
“near-historic levels” of anti-Se-
mitic incidents. There were
1,879 attacks on American Jews
and Jewish institutions, and the
number of anti-Semitic assaults
doubled. We also saw the
deadliest attack on the Jewish
community in United States
history: the mass shooting at
Pittsburgh’
s Tree of Life syna-
gogue.
This year has brought more
heartbreak and terror. In April,
a shooter at the Chabad of
Poway in California killed
congregant Lori Gilbert-Kaye
and injured others celebrating
the final day of Passover. Last
month, anti-Semitic posters
were plastered to the doors of
Grand Rapids’
Temple Emanuel.
Incidents like this aren’
t just
happening close to home. On
Yom Kippur, a gunman in
Halle, Germany, attempted to
storm a synagogue, ultimately
killing two. This followed a
May warning from Germany’
s
anti-Semitism commissioner
to avoid wearing kippahs in
public after an alarming spike in
anti-Semitic attacks.
And all of this happens under
the specter of an American
president who poses a clear
and present threat to the Jewish
people. It would be horrifying
enough had President Donald
Trump only referred to neo-
Rep. Andy
Levin
D
etroit pride. We often
see these two words
associated with our
local sports teams. While it
is a nice idea to be proud of
the skill and
efforts of the
Lions, Tigers,
Red Wings and
Pistons, I’
ve been
feeling a whole
different type
of Detroit pride
lately. Pride in our Jewish
community.
My time in the Detroit
Jewish community has been
short, relatively speaking. My
husband and I moved here
nearly 16 years ago. He is from
Troy and grew up here; but
these 16 years for me brought
with them a steep learning
curve both professionally and
personally. My parents raised
me in the Upper Peninsula,
an experience that included
many benefits. One benefit it
didn’
t have was access to an
organized Jewish community.
My home synagogue was small
and important to my own
growth and development, but
it had 25 family units living
within a radius of 100 miles.
I didn’
t really understand
what it meant to be part of
such a well-organized com-
munity until I began, in
1998, my graduate work at
the University of Michigan in
the field of Jewish communal
service.
Imagine my shock when
I learned that working in
the Jewish community was
an actual profession. The
Metropolitan Detroit Jewish
community was my training
ground.
Community lay leaders
and volunteers gave their
time and energy to assist in
my growth as a professional.
Philanthropists met with me
to teach me about the art of
fundraising, how to research
and establish communal prior-
ities, and they helped to fund
my education and the educa-
tion of so many professionals.
Numerous Jewish commu-
nal professional leaders from
many agencies, congregations
and other organizations served
as and continue to serve as my
mentors, close colleagues and
friends. Detroit pride abounds.
Especially now, as the
Midwest manager for the
Shalom Hartman Institute,
this experience is one that I
have found to be a unique part
of being in the community of
Detroit. Whenever I travel or
speak in other communities
about my work and mention
that I am from Detroit, I often
get to hear about how lucky I
am to live and work in such
a place: a place where Jewish
communal needs are prior-
itized, a place where a large
percentage of the population
participates in Jewish commu-
nal and congregational life, a
place where dollars are given
by generous donors on a scale
of very few other communities
in North America. Detroit
Rebecca
Starr
essay
Detroit Pride
continued on page 11
continued on page 8
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