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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