Part I

As we find ourselves in the period of Bein Ha-Metzarim, the Three Weeks, the need for communal introspection is at once self-evident and novel. As opposed to all other years, the prevailing sense of churban that has persisted since the pogrom of Simchas Torah compels us to consider our current national crisis anew in light of historical suffering.

As we reflect on what has transpired in our community over the last nine months, we seek the clarity that will enable us to, with God’s help, chart a course forward. And yet, to arrive at the kind of concrete, practical communal guidelines which we will present at the conclusion of the piece, a more fundamental understanding of the specific nature of the antisemitism we confront is required.

This is as it must be. The struggle between Yaakov and Esav, while externally manifested through military, political, diplomatic and economic confrontation, is, at its core, a contest of ideals, of incompatible visions of morality and value structures.

Part II

As we conclude Sefer BaMidbar this week, we note that the sefer presents us, through the personae of Korach and Pinchas, two very different models of response to grievance, real or perceived.

Korach is aggrieved. He feels that he, and not Aharon, should have been Kohen Gadol; if not Kohen Gadol, at least the prince of the tribe of Kehat, but instead, the honor Korach thought was rightly his was given to his younger cousin, Elitzafan ben Uziel. And Korach, as Ramban points out, patiently nursed these grievances, and waited for the opportune moment to strike against Moshe.

Of course, the result of this kind of grievance politics is destructive to Korach personally and to the entire Jewish people, who end up suffering a massive plague, with 14,700 deaths.

Pinchas, by contrast, might have had a very legitimate reason to feel aggrieved. He was the only person in Jewish history whose father was a Kohen, whose grandfather was a Kohen, but who was not himself Kohen, even though he had never violated any of the code of the Kehunah. If anyone should have felt aggrieved, and perhaps even angry at Moshe, it should have been Pinchas, not Korach.

As such, when Zimri was attempting to publicly humiliate Moshe Rabbeinu, who had married a woman from Midian, by consorting with a Midianite in a public and obscene way, perhaps Pinchas might have reveled in that moment.

And yet, Pinchas does not yield to a sense of victimhood and grievance. Rather, Pinchas acts solely l’shem shamayim. Unlike Korach, who brought destruction upon himself in seeking the kehunah, Pinchas is elevated to this very position precisely because he did not seek this honor. Unlike Korach, who brought destruction to the Jewish people through grievance politics, Pinchas, by rejecting grievance politics, rescues Israel from a devastating plague.

The Torah’s message to us regarding grievance and victimhood is unequivocal. Grievance is not goodness, and victimhood is not virtue.

Part III

At the ideological core of the pro-Hamas movement that has captured international bodies like the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, as well as poisoned “great” institutions of higher education in this country, is precisely this distorted notion of grievance and victimhood.

Ein chadash tachas ha-shamesh: properly understood, the ideology is far from new.

Marxist-Leninist ideology of the previous century divided society into irredeemable class enemies and virtuous laborers, a binary structure that resulted in the death and torture of untold tens of millions. Wherever Marxism took hold, from the Soviet Union to Communist China to Cuba, conventional notions of morality were discarded and human rights ceased to exist, leaving only class identity. No matter how depraved, the actions of the “oppressed” worker were justified. No matter how virtuous, the actions of the “oppressor” manager or land owner, kulaks, were evil. The expropriation of his property, the expulsion of his family, even his wanton murder, were completely legitimate in Leninist class struggle.

In parallel, the neo-Marxist ideology of the 21st century, which simply takes Marx’s dichotomy and shifts it from the economic realm to the racial and ethnic plane, of oppressor and oppressed, yields similarly tragic results.

Anything, even the barbarism, sadism and sexual violence of October 7, can be minimized and justified, as long as it is being directed by the so-called aggrieved and oppressed party, Hamas, against the newly-minted racial and ethnic oppressor, the Jews. Words, such as “decolonization” have been invented to justify what in a normal universe would just have been called terrorism and mass murder.

In this new morality, Israel’s manifest commitment to the dignity of all human life, including those of Gazans, is immaterial. Hamas’ basic indifference—and to their credit, they do not try to hide it— to all human life, including those of Gazans, is equally irrelevant. The facts cease to matter, and all that remains is the so-called racial oppressor and the oppressed.

As a case in point, Israel was alleged to have bombed a hospital in Gaza killing 500 innocents in October 2023. The subsequent revelation that it was not an Israeli bomb (it was yet another misfire from Palestinian Islamic Jihad), that it was not a hospital (it was the parking lot), and that it wasn’t 500 people (it was an order of magnitude less) could not be more irrelevant.

The moral equation is predetermined. This is precisely what makes Israel advocacy such a maddening and, at times, a sisyphean task. While the malicious distortions of the media, conventional and social, are unhelpful in the effort, the basic problem lies deeper. For the virtuous “oppressed,” aggrieved group, any inhumanity is resistance, while for the evil racial “oppressor,” the most basic act of self-defense is indefensible, even genocidal.

Part IV

Locally, the campaign of harassment and intimidation against Teaneck’s Jewish community for nine months following the pogrom, is but an iteration of the same basic pathology.

It was not, despite claims to the contrary, the council resolution of October 17 denouncing a pogrom of historic proportions, unseen since the Holocaust, which actually triggered the harassment campaign.

It was not the so-called illegal real estate sales, which were neither illegal nor sales, which precipitated the first massive protest against a house of worship. Similarly, it was not the fact that one shul had the “temerity” to host members of ZAKA, who gave final dignity to those brutalized and murdered on October 7, drawing another massive protest against a house of worship. Finally, it was not the fact that another shul hosted a speaker from the IDF, drawing a third protest against a house of worship.

It is, rather, the simple fact that the overwhelming majority of Teaneck’s Jewish community proudly support our brothers and sisters in Israel renders us part of the oppressor class. It is not what we did, but simply, who we are.

Presenting Jews as the oppressor class, to put it mildly, presents certain basic historical challenges. Our millennial history of suffering is a thorn in the side of the pro-Hamas neo-Marxist community’s narrative, and no single historical episode presents a bigger problem than the Shoah itself. Predictably, this is why it has become a core tenet of the pro-Hamas movement to “reclaim” the word genocide from the Shoah, and apply it to the current war. We must be prepared for ongoing historical distortions for the very narrative of oppressor-oppressed requires it.

Part V

In light of this understanding of the roots of the antisemitism we confront, four practical, logical conclusions emerge which I hope will anchor our communal approach in the months ahead.

First, engaging in debate regarding the conflict with pro-Hamas agitators is misguided, as it unintentionally dignifies outrageous and slanderous claims. There is no sense in debating facts at council meetings with those who have no use for them. What is critical is to continue to attend these civic forums and engage local issues constructively, as so many community members have.

Second, in light of the fundamental cause of the disturbances— not any single event, but our identity as members of the “racial oppressor class”— the notion that self-censorship is advisable is a delusion. As such, no changes to the patterns of our communal life are justified, as they do nothing to prevent antisemitic harassment and risk demoralization of our community.

Third, Teaneck is home to a large and vibrant Black community. Sadly, Hamas’ disinformation campaign of Jews as racial oppressors has strained relations between the Jewish community and portions of the Black community. The conflation of barbaric Hamas terror with the noble, non violent Civil Rights Movement, which did so much to advance the cause of tzelem Elokim, in which Jews proudly participated and for which Jews died, is a historical travesty that must be addressed.

It is critical that we continue to engage directly with our friends and neighbors from the Black community, to strengthen neighborly bonds. Successfully combating the cruel disinformation of Hamas of Jews as racial oppressors will not be done by engaging in philosophical discourse, but rather, through establishing deeper interpersonal bonds. When good people get to know each other, good things happen. I encourage all to contact me or the Bergen County Jewish Action Committee to discover many healthy opportunities for this kind of engagement.

Finally, and most importantly, it is incumbent upon us to maintain an ironclad state of achdus, of communal cohesion and unity. During this period of Bein Ha’Hetzarim, with the echoes of sinas chinam reverberating across the generations, our well-being here is inextricably linked with transcending internecine conflict.

While never constructive, cracks in communal cohesion at the current juncture are uniquely damaging. As was the case with Israel itself prior to October 7, weakened by rancor over judicial reform, any internal strife renders our community far more vulnerable to the scourge of antisemitism. Chazal’s timeless wisdom, “Kasheh tarbus ra’ah bi’soch beso shel adam yoser mi’milchemes Gog u’Magog,” that internal discord is worse than even the greatest of external foes, resonates profoundly in this hour.

Differences of opinion, often legitimate in principle, which impact upon communal policy, must be resolved internally and in good faith, as only a unified Jewish community can succeed in weathering the current array of challenges, especially as it concerns critical local elections in the months ahead. Here, too, we benefit from the guidance and direction of the Bergen County Jewish Action Committee.

We are filled with deep emunah, that like Marxism-Leninism of the previous century, long delegated to, in President Reagan’s celebrated prediction, the “ash heap of history,” that the neo-Marxist ideology of Hamas, will, in due course, be exposed for the insidious falsehood it represents. Until that time, our capacity to weather the current storm will largely be determined by the degree of achdus we are able to achieve.

Rabbi Daniel Fridman is rabbi of The Jewish Center of Teaneck and vice president for communal engagement, Rabbinical Council of Bergen County.