Reflecting on anti-Semitism

After spending years in Jewish-Christian dialogue I am heartbroken at the article in the Seattle Times of Sept. 28, 2019. It told that in Seattle there has been “almost 400 percent increase in hate crimes since 2012 – impacting Jews and other minorities.”

The Jewish people represent the only national people forced into worldwide different areas for two thousand years and then reassembled to establish their nation along democratic lines. The Jewish people experienced the worst inhumanity and cruelty in history but they also give us lives that inspire.

Dr. Viktor Frankl, in his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” is most inspiring, describing ways he survived Nazi concentration camps with sanity intact.

Etty Hillesum obtained a Master’s degree in law in 1939 and also studied Russian language in her native Holland. The Nazis had a collection camp for Jews in Holland called Westerbork, from where Jews were sent to concentration camps. The Nazis allowed some Jews to work as “volunteers” at Westerbork, experiencing the pain of those taken from their homes and treated with cruelty. Finally she was placed in a train destined for a concentration camp. She wrote a note on the train to a friend in Holland which said, “We are singing on our way.” She slipped it out an opening in her car. A German farmer found it and mailed it.

Hillesum died at age 29 in a Nazi death camp. She had refused invitations to go into hiding, choosing to remain with her Jewish people.

Michael Downey, who reviewed her writings, wrote, “She discovered beauty amid atrocity. Utterly alert to mystery, she faced the truth without flinching. She lived in hope without a trace of resentment or self-pity. Her life was poured out as a balm for all wounds. Her words became a healing salve.”

Hillesum wrote in August 1943, “Many people feel their love for mankind languishes at Westerbork because it receives no nourishment, meaning the people here don’t give you much to love them. Someone said, ‘The mass is a hideous monster, individuals are pitiful.’ But I keep discovering there is no causal connection between people’s behavior and the love you feel for them. Love for one’s fellow man is like an elemental glow that sustains you. The fellow man himself hardly has anything to do with it. It is a little bit bare of love here but I myself feel so inexpressibly rich. I cannot explain it.”

America is very much in need of her spirit at this time in our history.

Father William Treacy is an Irish-Catholic priest who turned 100 years old in May. He and Rabbi Raphael Levine hosted an interfaith television series in Seattle entitled “Challenge” for many years and then founded first Camp Brotherhood and later the Treacy-Levine Center in Skagit County.