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10 | SEPTEMBER 24 • 2020
become deeply committed
to the Republican party.
And the Republican party
has embraced a dismissive
attitude toward the pandemic.
A conservative
commentator who has
broken with the Republican
party, David Frum, derisively
characterizes this attitude:
“The coronavirus is a much-
overhyped problem. It’
s not
that dangerous and will soon
burn itself out. States should
reopen their economies as
rapidly as possible and accept
the ensuing casualties as a
cost worth paying — and
certainly a better trade-
off than saving every last
life by shutting down state
economies. Masking is
useless and theatrical, if not
outright counterproductive.”
Some American haredi
circles thus pride themselves
on stoically ignoring the
pandemic in fidelity to the
Republican consensus. The
United States has not taken
consistent measures to
control the coronavirus, and
the United States endures
more deaths per capita than
most other countries, but
the Republicans have ready
explanations.
So, too, some haredi
communities have resisted
measures to control the
coronavirus, and haredi
communities have become
centers of infection, in Israel,
in New York and Michigan,
but haredi spokespeople
have ready explanations. The
price for flouting regulations
does not figure into these
explanations for Republicans
or for their haredi acolytes.
After further reflection, I
propose a third factor: The
tendency in many haredi
circles to insist on a literal
reading of the Hebrew Bible
and even of Midrashic
elaborations of the Bible.
As a matter of faith, if a
classical source presents an
event, in whatever poetic
language, then one must
assert that event happened
exactly that way. People who
study geology or astronomy
or biology or other fields
of knowledge come to
conclusions about the age of
the Earth or the age of the
stars or about the evolution
of the species, or even about
the position of the Earth in
the solar system, and some
haredi Jews dismiss expert
examinations of the evidence
with a wave of the hand.
Some haredi Jews rely on
sophistic works of apology
to defend their literalist
beliefs, but I think most
simply reject experts without
considering evidence.
This might seem like
a harmless predilection,
but it has consequences.
Simply rejecting expertise
about matters of theoretical
significance can lead to
rejecting expertise about
matters of day-to-day
importance. Get used to
dismissing cosmologists and
geologists, and you might
have no trouble dismissing
epidemiologists just as easily.
Have I missed a better
explanation for this mystery?
of Black students attend
schools with 90% or more
students of color. More than
half of American students
live in segregated school
districts, where at least 75%
of students are either white
or nonwhite.
At the same time, Black
youth face the worst of our
criminal justice system. This
spring, a judge in Oakland
County sent a Black student
to juvenile detention for
failing to complete her online
homework — in the middle
of a pandemic, seemingly
disregarding our governor’
s
directive even as the virus
was spreading in prisons.
The New Year gives us
the opportunity to face
these stark realities with
renewed focus. It gives us
the opportunity to find joy
in the collective creation of a
more just world — and there
is much room for joy in this
work.
The size of the protests
today dwarfs the size of
the civil rights protests of
the 1960s. Young people
across the country are
organizing and engaging
with the political system
enthusiastically and
forcefully.
ORGANIZING IN
THE NEW YEAR
And organizing works: The
Michigan Court of Appeals
took up the case of Grace,
the detained student from
my district in Oakland
County, and released her to
her mother after students
from her high school staged
protests, which helped garner
the story national attention.
The High Holidays also
invite us to consider the
moments when we “missed
the mark” this year.
When we didn’
t speak
up in response to a racist
comment for fear of being
impolite. When we didn’
t
give time or money to
support protests because,
observing from our armchair,
we thought the goals or the
slogan weren’
t quite “right.”
When we white Jews assumed
people of color meant “not
us,” overlooking the beautiful
diversity within our own
Jewish community. When we
said we’
d take time to read
and reflect “next week,” but
our busy lives got in the way
and next week never came.
(Happily, there is an amazing
flowering of writing about
systemic racism to dive into
these days.)
But the High Holidays
aren’
t about beating ourselves
up for our missteps or getting
paralyzed in the past. They
are a time to remember,
atone and, most importantly,
to move forward.
I’
d like to leave you with
the words of Philonise: “I am
asking you to help him. I am
asking you to help me. I am
asking you to help us. Black
people in America.”
Andy Levin represents Michigan’
s
9th Congressional District in
southern Macomb County and
parts of Oakland County including
Bloomfield Township, Beverly
Hills, Franklin, Bingham Farms,
Huntington Woods, Berkley, Royal
Oak, Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge,
Madison Heights and Hazel Park.
Racial Justice from page 6
Pandemic from page 8