Progressively Speaking! Listen but also take action to fight injustice

Recent protests against racial injustice, triggered by the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota, have prompted many organisations to examine their past and present.  

This should be warmly welcomed by any of us who wish to stand against racism. While some have argued that proposed actions would “erase” our history, the real erasure comes from not engaging with the dark side of our past and how it still hurts people. 

In the Jewish community, we often hear that we have a special understanding of prejudice and ability to recognise its presence.  

While we certainly know what it is like to be persecuted, this does not make us immune to displaying the same structural prejudices as the societies around us.  

We, too, must grapple seriously with how racial biases play out in our communities. As we say on Yom Kippur in our confessions, “we are not so obstinate as to say before the Eternal that we are righteous and have not sinned, for we and our ancestors have sinned”.  

So now, we also must examine ourselves for the structural racism that afflicts much of society. How do we approach this constructively? 

First, we must centre the experiences of black people, especially of black Jews, and make space to hear their experience.  

This is about what they have to live with, and the rest of us need to create the venue for that to be heard, in full and unfiltered. Initiatives such as the Board of Deputies’ Commission are to be welcomed as spaces to achieve this.  

We must be ready to hear this testimony with an open mind and know we will almost certainly be made uncomfortable by what we hear.  But listening alone is pointless. 

When the children of Israel are given the commandments from God, they respond na’aseh v’nishmah – we will do and we will hear. The priority is placed on the action. It is vital to do the listening and the understanding, but the purpose is to inform the actions we take.  

We must be committed to doing whatever is needed to address the issues we hear about – making the exercise one of informing how we change. Anything else is a mere gesture. 

For all of society, making the necessary changes is not a simple process. But “justice, justice we must pursue”. Some of the hardest work will lead to the most important paths to repairing our world. 

•  Laura Janner-Klausner is Senior Rabbi for Reform Judaism