In our darkest days, I find myself returning to the brilliant ceiling of the wooden synagogue that once stood in Gwoździec, Ukraine. Its splendid hues, fantastical illustration, and delightful ornamentation belie the fact that its community had recently rebuilt itself from unimaginable terror: the Chmielnicki Massacres, in which tens of thousands of Eastern European Jews were murdered from 1648 to 1649.
Of course, this community grieved. But their despair was not endless. Believing that they were punished for divine sins (also a complex tragedy in itself), there began an outpouring of mysticism and a steadfast commitment to joy in the face of hopelessness. I imagine that as these artisans painted double-headed eagles, unicorns, and lions, they were still filled with the grief of everything they had lost. And yet, they weren’t about to let those who wished them ill extinguish their hope.
Some say that this hope kept the Jews alive for thousands of years. Its flame was burning bright when the Jewish anti-Zionist labor movement known as the General Jewish Labour Bund exclaimed: “Doikayt!” A common translation: “Strengthening Jewish communities wherever they live.” They rejected the idea that a mass migration to Palestine (and the subsequent expulsion of the Palestinian people) would bring Jewish safety. Instead, they fought for that Jewish life in their homelands, intertwined with the fight for workers’ rights. Today, as then, many anti-Zionist Jews in diaspora hold tight to our cultures in that same rejection of “safety” in Israel that comes with the price of blood. Zionism, I believe, requires us to abandon that hope, that we can succeed in the fight against hatred.
By the end of the Holocaust, the warm glow of candles inside the Gwoździec Synagogue was eclipsed by the fires set by the Nazis, burning it to the ground. As in the massacres of the 1600s, Jews were being scapegoated for economic hardship. It’s terrifying to know that so many people fail to see the same cruel pattern repeat — or worse, wish it. Our next president has promised to expel tens of millions of immigrants, whom he says are “poisoning the blood of this country.” Indeed, I have considered my own escape plan, if this genocidal vision grows to include the not-so-well-hidden antisemitism of Trump and his allies. My only attempt at hope is to remember that we, like so many others throughout history, have been here before. Refusing despair, embracing each other, and holding on to our own humanity is the only way we will continue to survive.
