Not In My Name

President Biden, do not allow innocent children, Israeli or Palestinian, to be killed. Not in my Name. I am a Jew.  My grandparents escaped the shtetls of Eastern Europe before the Holocaust and came to America. My Family has known of loss and oppression.

President Biden, do not allow humanitarian aid to be denied to any person, Israeli or Palestinian.  Not In My Name.  Some of my great aunts and uncles did not escape the Holocaust.  They were innocent people killed in concentration camps by those who sought a “final solution.”  I wish the world had offered them humanitarian aid.

President Biden, do not allow any country we support financially to keep refugees in unlivable conditions. Not In My Name.  After the end of World War Two, some of my Aunts and Uncles were turned away from American shores and took refuge in Cuba.  They were not allowed into the “Land of the Free” because of their heritage.  I wish America hadn’t decided to close its doors based on race and ethnicity.

Like many Jewish “baby boomers,” I grew up under the shadow of the Holocaust.  My father served in the Combat Engineers assigned to Patton’s 3rd Army.  Some nights, after my mother was asleep, after a few drinks, he would get teary-eyed and talk about the war.  He would wonder why the world looked the other way.  I don’t want to look away.  I don’t want to be silent. President Biden,  do not allow hospitals to be closed, the flow of water to be stopped, or the sick and infirm to be denied care. Not In My Name.

I grew up sending money to Israel to plant trees.   Like thousands of Jewish children before me, I was told that the most important thing to have is an education because when “they come for us,” they can take your wealth and your land but not your education.  Everyone needs a homeland.  A place they can feel safe and welcome.  I support a homeland for Jews and Palestinians.  President Biden, do not allow anyone to be denied a safe haven.  Not In My Name.

I grew up with the words of the Jewish sage Hillel the Elder. “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the entire Torah, and the rest is its commentary.”   We, all people who have been oppressed, know that harming innocent people, depriving innocent people of life and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is hateful to us.  President Biden, do not allow it to happen, Not In My Name. 

For those of us who feel compelled to answer Hillel’s three questions:  “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?” We should answer the third question by acting today.

As for the first question, we must stand up for the right of our people, whoever our people are, to be free from oppression, bigotry, and attacks.  But we must also answer the second question by acknowledging that if we only stand up for ourselves and our people, we are people without empathy.  If we know what it is like to be oppressed, to see our families attacked, enslaved, and placed in concentration camps, then we are compelled to answer the second question by saying: I am not only for my people to have a homeland; I am for all people, including Palestinians to have a homeland. President Biden, do not allow any people to be oppressed, Not In My Name.

I urge all people, including those I share a heritage with, to speak up.  We cannot ignore the horror of killing innocent people, no matter who is slaughtering or being slaughtered.  Accepting the killing of children, ignoring war crimes, and making excuses for inhumane behavior because we have been attacked and our children killed is not justice.  It is barbaric.    We cannot be like the silent people we abhorred who watched the Holocaust unfold.  We must tell our representatives do not allow the crimes against humanity to continue, Not In Our Names.