I had to take a second look at this article "Extremists Threaten to Burn Talmud, Rip Israeli Flag, at London March in Jewish Neighborhoood" to make sure I had read it correctly.
The Neo Nazis who are planning on staging a rally in Golders Green on Shabbat July 4th have now upped the stakes. Drawing inspiration from their medieval predecessors they are seeking to provoke, insult and enrage us by burning volumes of the Talmud.
Why this would not be considered a hate crime is beyond me, and we must contact the authorities to make sure that this evil plan together with this hate filled rally does not get off the ground.
There is a reason why we are known as ‘the people of the book’, from time immemorial, literacy and scholarship has been part of our national identity. Jews pioneered universal education at a time when in the wider world, knowledge was power and literacy was preserved for the elite few who sought to retain that power.
But our relationship with the written word goes beyond scholarship, we revere our books. When a book falls to the ground we pick it up accompanied by a loving kiss. If a Sefer Torah, the holiest of all books is dropped, all present are required to fast. On Simchat Torah we dance with our books in an ecstatic whirl, showing our emotional connection with our intellectual legacy.
British society stands at a crossroads not knowing where to draw the line between extremism and freedom of speech. Yes, these are tough questions, but an act of provocation such as this, is designed to evoke memories of previous book burnings in Europe from the middle ages until the Nazi era. And unfortunately we know what happened in the aftermath.
But at the same time, we are always taught to focus inwardly, in fact that is the reason why we fast when a Sefer Torah is dropped, ‘why has this happened to us’?
It is no coincidence that the Nazi rally is taking place on Shiva Asar Be Tammuz, the day when a wicked man called Apostomus burnt a Sefer Torah and this is one of the reasons why we fast. This ushers in the period of the three weeks culminating in Tisha B’Av, the day when both our Temples were burnt to the ground and our people were exiled from our land. These fast days are not times to get angry, but times to focus inwardly and resolve to make a change for the better.
Do we respect our books and use them for study or do they gather dust on our shelves? Do we respect those who both study these texts and embody their values as we should? Why does it take the threat of a Neo Nazi conflagration to wake us up?
