ljy – Sim Lev

Why do giants feature so prominently in our stories for children?

I recently had the joy of reading some chapters from Roald Dahl’s BFG to my six-year-old godson. Reading to him as he got ready to sleep gave me such warm nostalgia. I remembered my own childhood, hearing this story for the first time; feeling at once so safe, and like anything was possible.

To children, the whole world feels populated by giants. Grown-ups are so much larger and, just like in Giant Country, have built everything to their size. Some adults, like the BFG, are kind and fun. But some, like Fleshlumpeater and Bonecruncher, are decidedly nasty and cruel.

So we give children stories where they defeat giants, and help them process these menacing creatures so much larger than themselves.

The Austrian-Jewish psychiatrist Bruno Bettelheim explored fairy tales as one of the ways that children gain their sense of self and develop confidence. In The Uses of Enchantment, Bettelheim writes that “although adults can be experienced as frightening giants, a little boy with cunning can get the better of them.”

Such is the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. I remember so gleefully participating in the school pantomime of this story. (I played Jack’s mother, of course.) Through play, we children could act out a world where we saw those bigger than us for the lumbering oafs they were and used our wits to bring them down.

Giant stories have probably existed as long as we have had the words to tell them. In our Torah portion, Shlach Lecha, Caleb, Joshua, and their intrepid band of boys set out on an adventure to see the Promised Land.

Upon arrival, they spot frightening giants, the children of Anak. “We looked like grasshoppers compared to them, and they must have seen us the same way.”

To show the other Israelites back in the wilderness how enormous their foes were, they brought back the ogres’ food. A bunch bearing a single cluster of grapes required two of them to carry it on a pole. They rolled a pomegranate the size of themselves back out of the land of Canaan.

Throughout the camp, everyone burst into terror. Only Joshua and Caleb had faith that the giants could be beaten. We, of course, identify ourselves with those fearless leaders.

“Fairytales,” says Bettelheim, “intimate that a rewarding, good life is within one’s reach despite adversity – but only if one does not shy away from the hazardous struggles without which one can never achieve true identity.”

“Do not be afraid,” say Caleb and Joshua. “Have faith. Trust in each other. Trust in God.”

Here our Torah gives us the same gift of instruction as a fairytale. It reminds us to be brave and use our cunning, because the giants can surely be defeated.

In Torah, grammar is always important. Joshua and Caleb insist: “we can defeat them.” This is not an instruction to others or a profession of their own greatness. It is an invitation to collective power: together, we are going to conquer the giants.

Later, Joshua and Caleb are proven exactly right. They destroy the children of Anak and drive them out, cowering, into Philistine towns. Later still, King David will slay the last of the remaining giants, a monster called Goliath. No wonder this is one of the best stories to tell at cheder.

These fairytales continue to serve us long after we have outgrown them. Now that we are grown-ups, the world may not still feel so magical, but we still have giants to slay.

The problems facing us are manifold in this world dominated by racial injustice. The oppressions of our age are many-headed monsters, far bigger than the enormous ogres of our stories.

I look at the children in our synagogues and feel pained that, perhaps, they will be less protected from the horrors of the world than we were. I wish we could insulate them a little longer from harsh realities.

As an adult, I discovered that my beloved Roald Dahl actually didn’t much like Jews, but, by then, I was secure enough not to be bothered by it. I see that our young people are far less protected from the nasty views others hold. They are already having to learn the skills to deal with antisemitism in their schools and in the material they see online. I feel blessed not to have had to confront such evils until much later.

I do not envy the challenges our young people face, but I feel deeply proud of how they have risen to the task.

On Sunday 10 May, members of RSY and LJY joined the rallies against antisemitism in central London. Holding true to our Progressive values, one of the movement workers’ placards denounced Islamophobia, racism, and anti-immigrant hatred, alongside their condemnation of antisemitism.

They held their heads high, and refused to back down on the prophetic call for unity. Racism are enormous giants to conquer, but these are the battles that have animated the Jewish religion since its inception. The earliest prophets promised “vindication and justice for all who are oppressed” (Psalm 103:6).

For the supposed infraction of drawing connections with other oppressed groups, our young people were harassed as they marched. They were completely unobtrusive, but drew great ire from the Christian fundamentalist sect, Stop the Hate.

Yet, according to the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, the UK’s only academic thinktank on anti-Jewish hatred, drawing connections with others’ struggles is precisely what we need to do.

In their report last year for the Runnymede Trust, these scholars showed that, by pitting the fight against antisemitism against the struggles of other minorities, the problem was only getting worse. Jews were becoming more isolated, and finding their battles harder.

What we needed, the Institute said, was to build alliances with other racialised minorities, so we could take on the mammoth system of racism together.

Here, the wisdom of established academics meets the optimism and zeal of youth. Just as in the earliest days of Judaism “the old dream dreams and the youth see visions” (Joel 2:28).

Young people – as you go out to fight antisemitism; as you lock arms in the struggle against all forms of racism; as you protest for a more equal world – please know that you are never alone. We are with you, and struggling alongside you.

However small you may feel, come stand on our shoulders. Don’t worry: we are standing on shoulders too. Shoulders of generations before us who battled poverty, war, pogroms, and genocide.

Yes, we Jews stand on the shoulders of ancestors going back centuries, who fought against the same giants you tackle now.

And when you realise that you are standing on top of this human pyramid, you will see that the ogres are much smaller than they first appeared. We may feel like grasshoppers in their eyes, but we stand together on a foundation they cannot even imagine, and that makes us enormous.

Just as Caleb and Joshua once cohorted the Israelites in the desert, we know we need not fear.

Have faith. In your traditions. In each other. In our God.

Together, we are going to slay these giants.

Take a moment and think about what you love about being Jewish.

When I think about it, there are certain feelings, sounds, tastes and smells that transport me into this place of true Jewish joy.

I smell cloves, absolutely anywhere and at any time, and I am immediately transported to havdallahs of my childhood.

Similarly, leather seforim- those big bound Jewish books. I touch them and I can suddenly feel myself back in my grandfather’s study.

That feeling of stillness of being in a Jewish sanctuary. I used to love sitting in our little rented synagogue in Reading. Sometimes I come into this space, when nobody is here, and feel that same connection.

There’s the music, there’s the text study, there’s the Friday night dinners, there’s meeting a complete stranger and finding you’re related, there’s the beigels, so much better here in East London than anywhere else… I could go on.

Yes, I love Jewish life. And I love seeing others love their Jewish lives.

Last week, I felt a certain eeriness walking around central London. Wherever I went, wearing my kippah and tzitzit, there was a massive picture of a smashed Star of David in every newspaper stand. The Evening Standard bore the harrowing headline “London’s antisemitism shame.”

This came after Mark Gardner from CST said Central London had become a “no-go area for Jews” on Saturdays. He wasn’t explaining where the eruv boundaries were.

He was saying that Jews were not safe when the protests for Palestine were happening.

I don’t feel I need to go into much detail on the headline. We all know that antisemitism is real, and some members here have had horrible experiences. It is not just about central London, as the local area can feel very intense. The demonstrations outside Lidl this week were intimidating, and clearly did include antisemitic harassment.

We all also know that London is mostly very safe, and comparisons with Nazi Germany of talk of mass Jewish departure are overblown. I have always felt absolutely fine being visibly Jewish in London. I can also feel the great tension that affects this area. We are all smart enough to come to a balanced judgement about the true picture.

What struck me about Mark Gardner’s statement was not in the headline, but buried in the text of the newspaper article. When asked about Jews who themselves go on the Palestine marches on Saturdays, the CST chief said:

“There are two types of Jews who attend the protests in the main – ultra orthodox Jews who believe the state of Israel prevents the Messiah coming. Then you have revolutionary socialists using their Jewishness so people get the impression the movement is not fundamentally antisemitic.”

This was such a dismissive and unkind way to talk about fellow Jews, as if they could just be brushed aside and ignored. I bristled with indignation.

Certainly, Haredim and socialists have always been regular attendees of pro-Palestine rallies. But, so what if they are?

Are Haredim, the most visibly Jewish group and the most likely to experience structural discrimination for being Jewish, any less qualified to comment on what is antisemitic? Are socialists, who pride themselves on their culture and traditions, any less able to say what being Jewish means?

These are two groups of people who love being Jewish.

You may not want to be Haredi (I don’t) and you may have criticisms of their approach to their religion (I do) but I would never dream of questioning their love of Jewishness, or their sincerity of conviction.

The strictly Orthodox Jews in places like Stamford Hill and Hendon are crucial to London Jewish life. We have our kosher delis, our judaica shops, and our bookstores because of the commitment of Haredim to building up Jewish life here.

When I think of the strictly Orthodox, I have no doubt that they, too, love being Jewish. They might not love all the same things that I do, and they might love some things I don’t, but they are fellow Jews, creating vibrant community.

I do not know the Haredi world, and have never been part of it, but I believe they have important things to say about being Jewish and facing antisemitism.

I feel I can speak with more confidence about the revolutionary socialist Jews. That’s much closer to my world, and one that I interact with readily. That is a group of people I can say, with certainty, love being Jewish.

It would be easy for such people to disregard their Jewishness, or downplay it. Plenty of Jews have, in all times and from all political persuasions, for varying different reasons. But the Jewish socialists have chosen to wear their Jewishness as a badge of honour.

These are people who have regular book groups, looking at Jewish thought. They are deep-divers of Jewish history, who keep alive the stories of the East End and the shtetl. They are Jews who will insist on telling me they are atheists, before heading off to Friday night dinners with each other, where they will sing the same songs and recite the same blessings that you all will at your dinner tables.

The revolutionary socialist Jews often see their politics coming precisely from their Jewishness, and not in spite of it. They are, in my experience, serious thinkers about antisemitism, who have done the reading, experienced the vitriol, and arrived at smart and nuanced conclusions about how to combat anti-Jewish hatred.

They are with us, loving being Jewish, and building Jewish life.

What good does it do to dismiss them out of hand like that?

Perhaps it is simply that they are easy to dismiss. They have no stake in the formal institutions of Anglo-Jewry, like the Board of Deputies, nor do they want to. In both cases, they will carry on living their Jewish lives as they want to, unhindered by such dismissal.

But I don’t think Gardner is quite right that socialists and Haredim are the only groups who march on Saturdays: increasingly, they are joined by young people who grew up in movements like Reform Synagogue Youth (RSY-Netzer.) They are the bulk of Jews in groups like Naamod.

To see such people marching, especially in such numbers, was unthinkable only ten years ago. When they demonstrate, they are singing the songs they learnt in Reform youth camps. When they speak, they talk about the rabbis and leaders that shaped our Jewish world. They are attending as Progressive Jews.

One month ago, the movement workers for LJY-Netzer issued a statement, calling for a ceasefire, and decrying Netanyahu’s war. In their public message, they shared their dual sadness: on the one hand, at rising antisemitism; and, on the other, at a seeming inability to talk about Gaza.

LJY-Netzer is Liberal Judaism’s youth movement, parallel to the Reform one, RSY. The “Netzer” part is Hebrew, meaning Reform Zionist Movement. Today, while I lead here, Rabbi Jordan is meeting with them at Chagigah.

These critics of Israel are young people firmly within the institutions, who participate in their local synagogues. They love being Jewish, and, more than that, they love Progressive Judaism, our Judaism.

Are they to be dismissed too? Will they find their Jewishness cast aside in some press release? Will they, for their principled stance, find they are no longer worthy to comment on Jewishness or antisemitism?

Ignoring them is not an option. It would be unconscionable to throw them away, with their opinions.

That doesn’t mean you have to agree with them. You should certainly disagree with them if that is how you feel!

But do so from a place of love. Because you love being Jewish. Because they love being Jewish. Because you should love each other as Jews.

Disagree, by all means, but disagree as Jews. What could be more Jewish than lovingly disagreeing?

If we are faced with hatred, we will only love more. We will love ourselves more. We will love being Jewish more. We will love the sights and smells and sounds and rituals and families and discussions and Scriptures and songs.

We will love each other more. We will love others’ ways of being Jewish more. We will all embrace each other, seriously, and with affection, as fellow Jews. We will encourage others to love what they love about being Jewish. So that they will keep on loving being Jewish, long into the future.

Shabbat shalom.

Tag: ljy

We, who love being Jewish