Last year, on the 80th anniversary of the pogrom widely knows as Kristallnacht, and after the attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, we invited congregations of all faiths to leave the lights on in their houses of worship during the night of November 9/10.
Many of us were shocked by the murderous attack on worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue on October 27.
Many of us gathered the following Monday at the Temple to mourn, to show our solidarity in resistance against evil, and to affirm our shared vision of community.
In a climate where hateful speech has further lowered the threshold for violent actions, many of us suddenly find ourselves wide awake to the persistence of anti-Semitism in our society.
November 9, 2018 marks the 80th anniversary of a night of terror in Nazi Germany, known as Kristallnacht. In a carefully coordinated campaign, thugs attacked Jewish houses of worship, businesses, schools, and homes, bringing death and devastation. There were few public condemnations, and the evil of anti-Semitic violence continued to spread and increase.
Mindful of that failure of conscience and courage, we invite congregations of all faiths, as a quiet act of remembrance and resistance, to keep the lights on in their houses of worship on the night of November 9/10 this year.
May we be beacons of hope.
Sadly, there is little reason to change the wording a year later. Nashville and the United States may be far from Halle geographically, where a gunman killed two people in an attack on a synagogue on Yom Kippur, but geography matters little in the spread of this kind of violence, and the fear and hatred that fuel it. On the night of November 9/10, we will keep the lights on in our sanctuary, and we invite other congregations of all faiths to join us in this “quiet act of remembrance and resistance.”
