Don Isaac Abarbanel was one of the greatest statesmen in European Jewish history. Born in 1437, his family fled the massacre of Jews at Castille, and settled in Lisbon, where Isaac was born. A brilliant young man, Isaac became Treasurer to King Alfonso V.
Despite his prestige, Don Isaac eventually had to flee Portugal. He settled in Spain, where he became a senior financial advisor to Queen Isabella. Then came the Spanish Inquisition of 1492. He once again picked up his wanderer’s staff, joining his expelled brethren in exile.
I grew up reading about Don Isaac and others like him.
I, an American boy feeling safe and respected in my own country, struggled to understand how Don Isaac’s world tolerated such irrational injustice.
“It was a different world and a different time,” I said to myself. “Thank G-d for the USA."
My Holocaust readings brought the question chronologically closer. How could the world have stood by and watched such murderous insanity?
“It was a different world and a different time,” I said to myself. “Thank G-d for the USA."
In 1989-90, I spent months teaching Jews in the former Soviet Union. I found the anti-Semitism so tragically irrational that it was almost comical. The “Jews and the Capitalists” were being excoriated in one part of the country at the very same time that “Jews and the Communists” were being lambasted elsewhere in the very same country.
“This is a different world,” I said to myself. “Thank G-d for the USA."
In the past week, there have been violent demonstrations against Israel and Jews in Berlin and Paris. The Don Isaac Abarbanel Synagogue in Paris was attacked by a mob protesting Israel’s response to Hamas lobbying thousands of rockets at non-combatant Israeli citizens while hiding among their own civilians. Is this sane? Would they tolerate that attacks in their own cities?
Sadly, Don Isaac has no rest from history’s eerie and irrational echo. But, tragically, it’s not just Don Isaac. And it’s not just Europe.
According to news reports, Jews were vocal participants in Manhattan’s anti-Israel demonstrations; some of our own brethren are swept up in the insanity. Right here in the USA. In our time.
We don’t have to be passive victims of history. We live in a great and free country. We can guide our history to a saner place.
Educate yourself. Speak up.
Future generations are relying on you.
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