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Transcript of "Political Protest from Hanukah to the War in Vietnam: a Personal Odyssey"
Adina Scheinberg: Welcome, everyone to the Zoom call, alumni, students and parents and other community members. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Adina and I'm a senior at Brandeis and I've been involved in Hillel in various ways on the student board and in other member groups. We are so delighted to have all of you here tonight to welcome our special guest speaker, professor Reuven Kimelman, who is going to share his personal story and his talk about political protests to from Hanukkah to the war in Vietnam. A personal odyssey. For those of you who don't know Professor Kimelman, he is a professor in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. Professor Kimelman specializes in the history of Judaism with a focus on the history and poetics of Jewish liturgy. He's written on the interaction between Judaism and Christianity in antiquity and modernity. He is also interested in the thematic connections between Greek and Biblical literature, from Homer to Plato and from Genesis to Matthew. In the field of Jewish ethics, his focus is on the ethics of war, statecraft, conflict, and genocide. He's written extensively on his mentor, Abraham Joshua Heschel and published a book on Lekhah Dodi. Professor Kimelman is known for his novel and thought-provoking interpretations of Jewish texts and I'm sure tonight's talk will give us all a lot to think about. Regarding the format of tonight's program, Professor Kimelman will speak for about 20 minutes and then we'll follow up with questions from the audience. So if you have any questions, please, post them in the main chat rather than messaging Professor Kimelman. Post them in the main chat please, so that we can read them to him, and then he'll answer question from the audience. So, yeah, I'm very excited for the rest of this talk and we ask that you please remain muted for the entirety of the conversation. Thank you so much and Professor Kimelman the screen is yours.
Reuven Kimelman: Thank you. I just passed my first screen test. Anyway welcome to the sixth night of Hanukkah. Six down, two to go and today is also of course Rosh Chodesh, it's kind of a turning point. Which brings where the turning point in my life in the '60s and it's connection with Hanukkah. First, let me talk about Hanukkah then talk about my life in the sixties, which kind of reflected the life of Jewish who intensely involved in Judaism and intensely involved in politics and found this double intensity converge in their lives, and basically for many of us, changed our lives. But first, I want to talk about Hanukkah, because I'm a professor of liturgy. And a strange thing about Hanukkah is that Hanukkah in the prayer book, is nothing like Clinic in the Talmud. If you know the story of clinic and the Talmud, you'll focus on the miracle of the oil for eight days. If you read about Hanukkah in the liturgy as it appears in the Almeida, and the other Nicene prayer, it's all about the war and the victory with no mentioned explicitly of the miracle of the candles. So now the question is, what does it? Do we celebrate a military victory? Is that the miracle? Or is the miracle, the miracle of the candles? Like the famous story told about Israel during the 48 war and the war of independence, when Jerusalem was surrounded by the Jordanians, someone has to rub about what's going to happen. The rabbis said, well, either will solve it by natural means or miraculous means. They said, What do you mean by natural means? Oh, that God will help us out. What do you mean by miraculous means? That the Israeli army will breakthrough. That's how things were. Things have changed quite a bit since then. In any case, and Chanukah, why is there no mention of the oil? All mentioned about the war. And is done in a very strange way. At the very end of the prayer of Nicene, it gives several stages in the sanctification of the temple. It starts at the very middle of the temple, the Kurdish could assume it's a holy place and works its way out. So the very middle of the most holy place was called the Virk cut Chaka. Then they moved one step out, Kaye Hanukkah, then it moved, one step out to about the Migdal shuffle tempo, and finally it says they lit the candles or the lanterns in the courtyards of your temple because shortcut Chicago. So goes from the sacred center to the periphery. Some unusual religious drama and religious ritual starts at the sacred center and moves to the periphery. Then it says, and they fixed these eight days of Chanukah for expressions of gratitude. Now almost anybody who resist and does not read closely, sees the word hate, sees the word candles, and automatically in his mind extrapolates candles eight. Why do we like the candles? Because it candles lit for eight days. But the prayer doesn't say that. The prayer simply says they lit candles and they fixed eight days. And the prayer is totally book based upon the Book of Maccabees. The Book of Maccabees explains the reason they kept the holiday for eight days because that year sukkot, which is a pilgrimage holiday, was unavailable. It was in the hands of the Greek or the Hellenizing Jews. Two months later in Kislev, when they took the sanctuary, they had to make up for the loss of sukkot. So the original name of Hanukkah was sukkot the Kislev. Sukkot of the month of Kislev. Sukkot takes place for over eight days. Different Hanukkah was commandment for how many days? Eight days. The other explanation is if the original temple in the time of Solomon, the Hanukkah buy it. The dedication of the temple took eight days after Sukkot. So the Maccabees calculate it, that if the original dedication was eight days, then the real dedication should be eight days. So we have two explanations, historical explanations for celebrating Hanukkah, eight days. On the other hand, most people know their Talmud, celebrate holidays eight days because of the miracle of the oil. Another remarkable thing about this for the prayer is whether you think that the candle burnt for eight days, or whether you think re-dedication took place eight days, or whether you think we should have a compensatory holiday for the length of sukkot, the result is all Jewish observe what? Eight days. Is remarkable lesson that people can differ on their explanation but if they agree upon the practice, the Jewish community is kept together. Now, how does that apply to the great events that took place in the '60s? In the '60s, there were four formative ethical events. Luis for us Jewish and for most young Americans at college. Most of them had two of them, we Jewish had four of them. The first was the war in Vietnam, which started way back in the 1950s, really picked up by Kennedy and significantly promoted by Johnson . By the middle '60s, Sousa universities were being drafted. So the overwhelming number of people joined in the protest. In fact, I was at the first public demonstration, when I was a student at Columbia University in 1964, as far as I can recall, that was the first teaching to explore the ethical implications of the war in Vietnam at the subject public or foreign policy to ethical considerations and where was the focus? At the University. Columbia University was one of the first students to do this. One of the last universities to riot in 1968. I was there at the riot and It was at the founding event upon Vietnam. But in those days, I was very close to my mentor, Abraham Joshua Heschel, who was among a group of clergy who founded a group at St. John's Church way back in 1964, called clergy concern for Vietnam. Now, it started off a concern for Vietnam, but by the end of the year, the atrocities which were publicized on television in America arouse ethical concern to such a degree that almost all people of strong ethical consideration opposed the war. And in those days it wasn't Republican versus Democrat like it is now because the war was primarily promoted by Democrats, Kennedy and Johnson took over by Nixon. But it was independent of political allegiances. It was really a political versus a moral as opposed to now, when almost all moral concerns get funded or fueled into political concerns and you divide morally, almost politically. There you found a large and people coming together of different political agencies but of an intense moral allegiance. That came way back to 1964. I remember my teacher Abraham Joshua Heschel was a man of great love. I can only recall in all the years I met him or knew him only one person he hated, and that was Richard M Nixon. Now, why did he hate Nixon? He hated Nixon without getting involved in the war itself in everything he did was in the abuse of the English language. When Nixon was caught lying he would say is no longer operative. Heschel position was, if language does not have integrity then ethics have integrity. If ethics and have no integrity then our soul has integrity, that was his analysis. For his point of view, Nixon lying about the war was undermining the moral integrity of American citizens by teaching them not to honor the spoken word. He felt that the disease of not honoring the spoken word is a source of immoral life. Then the next major involvement ahead of the 1960s was Russian Jewry. This was between Hirsch and Wiesel. Wiesel went to Russia came back and wrote partly sweet to see loss. But went there at the urging of Abraham Joshua Heschel who in 1964 was the first major Jewish figure to go public on this issue. Claiming that we were quiet during the Second World War and we cannot be quiet again when a similar thing could be happening to us. Of course, a Second World War was maybe 6-7 million. Russian Jew that time may two and a half million. But they were called The Jews of Silence because they had been silenced. He took a Cajal's as if that were to compensate for the absence of doing anything by American Jewry or significantly doing anything during the Second World War. The Russian Jewry three went out. In 1964, when I was a student at Columbia University, a sophomore, we founded a group called the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. Hard for you to imagine in those days our largest request was the right to send matsa to the Soviet Union. Might've happened, it sounds absurd. But way back in 1964, nobody knew and he Jews in the Soviet Union, nobody was aware of any awareness of self conscious Jews in the Soviet Union. Later on Simcott Torah became a major event, but that was yet to take place. We were just protesting the right to send matsa and that became the opening. From there the matsa which is not exactly what it always cracked up to be, became the opening for Soviet Jewry, that lasted through the '60s through the '70s. But the students struggled with Soviet Jewry was allowed Jews as Jews to come out as political protests. We had many protests at the United Nations, but we were protesting as Jews. Many people wearing Yamakas, wear many other Jewish symbols. But it was convergence because until then most Jews who protested do not protest as Jews. Number 1, two Judaism was that well accepted in the public realm. Most Jews, as he left the private realm into the public realm would hide their Jewishness. For example, when I was an undergraduate student at Columbia University, I wear Yamaka. But most of my orthodox friends wore hats. Interesting enough. Even though they were undergraduates at the university, because it wasn't yet acceptable for Jewishness to be expressed publicly even by Jews who are quite proud of it. I was quite different from my contemporaries because at every spent a year and a half of my high school in Israel. In Israel, I was a part of a majority Jewish culture. Once you join a majority Jewish culture it is psychological liberating. Minority cultures are always a self conscious. Majority cultures just do what's natural. In America I was a self-conscious Jew. In Israel, I became part of the majority culture, my expression of Jewishness. Coming back to America I brought back the psychological liberation, which is effective the majority culture into the minority culture and was able to lead other Jews in this issue. We became a protesting group. The next thing which became excite almost everybody of unethical conscious in the '60s was the civil rights movement. Also started, as you know, in the '50s. We really didn't pick up as a national movement with a lot of white people involved until the '60s. I say white people involved because there are two major expressions of this among young people. One was SNIC, which was an organization for helping out of Negroes in the South and the other was NSM, the Northern Student Movement. I was involved in both. I had volunteered to go down South to work on voter registration with SNIC. They rejected my application because the year before that they said, "We're only going to accept two types of people, either whites from the South or blacks from the North." Is the way they express it. Whites from the South, blacks from the North. Otherwise, if you send whites from the North to the South there'll be see this carpet baggers, if anyone knows the illusion after the Civil War. I directed my little energies to the NSM, Northern Student Movement and I was very involved in demonstrations primarily in Harlem. Anyhow gets tells you one example because he learned a lot from this. We had an organization at Columbia University and we were going to protest in Harlem. Then what are the black eyes turned to me, "Rueven, you can't come with us." I said, "Why can't they come with you? I've helped plan the meeting." He said, "You can't come with us because you're a white." I said, "What's wrong with being white?" He says, "What's wrong with being white is you have an option we don't have." I said, "What do you mean by that? He said, "Well, in Harlem I guarantee you the police that are coming after us. You're white, you can disappear. Were black, they'll pursue us." One guy turned to me and said, "I can't trust somebody who has an option that I don't have. Since you can escape and I can't escape I can't rely upon you. Therefore, don't come with us." It's a very honest statement and they learned a lot about that in future Jewish protests. If a person has an option that you don't have at a time of distress and duress you never know what they're going to do. Therefore, choose a person who's all options are as limited as yours or as broad as yours. In the civil rights movement we live through even the death of King. But the beginning is a king gave a very famous speech in 1967 at the Riverside Church and there he tied together the war in Vietnam with the civil rights movement. He had been encouraged in that direction and he tried for years not to make the connection for fear that if you went on one side of the war in Vietnam he would lose the people were supporting civil rights. But repos are supporting the war in Vietnam and didn't want to split his political backing. In 1967, he gave a famous speech tying the two together and said, "One is dependent upon the other, because America doesn't have enough money for what it was bred for butter and guns. We spend the money on guns. We will not spend the money on poverty and since poverty and his position and racism were significantly connected. Then the solution of one should lead to solution of the other. Anyhow, I heard that speech at the Riverside Church across from Columbia University. I remember seeing my teacher Abraham Joshua Heschel and I saw him smiling and I ran up and said, "Why are you smiling?" He says, "Because I won." I said, "What did you win?" He said, "For a year I've been trying to convince Martin, 'I guess he called them Martin,' to combine the two. Because civil rights movement cannot advance in this country unless we saw the problem and the war in Vietnam and I finally convinced them and boy, am I happy?" The next major movement which came along was, of course, the Six-Day War. The Six-Day War in 1967 is right in the middle. If you think about the war in Vietnam, picking up steam for students in 64 Russian Jewry. Also 63, 64, 65, 66 being more powerful. The civil rights movement became stronger and stronger throughout the decade. For the Jews, that turning point was the war in Vietnam, the 60 war. Now, if you're too young, to probably recall this. But when the 60th war, before it broke out, there was two weeks where everybody thought, Israel, was going down the drain. India had removed its soldiers from the south of Israel. Egypt had blockade of the streets, and America declared public neutrality. Israel was surrounded by three or two Arab armies. Three, Jordan joined. Lebanon didn't join that year because its pilot called in sick that year. Otherwise, everybody thought it. The joke in Israel because I remember that was, if you're the last one to leave, turn out the lights. Two weeks before going into the war, people thought that Israel was going down the drain. Then the war broke out. The war broke out in the verse 24 hours with Jews in America only heard news from Arab countries. The total bracket of news from Israel. We heard radio Syria saying, "Put your sword in the body of a Jew and wash it off in the Mediterranean as you march through Haifa." That's all we knew. On that day, most people thought Israel was going down the drain. It turned out that day that Israel had only destroyed the Arab Air Forces. Of course, even the Arabs didn't believe it, because Jordan joined the second day of the war thinking that the Arabs are winning, not knowing that the war was already lost. In any case, tell your story. That day on New York TV, channel five, I remember till this day, they interviewed four people, Jews on the war. This is at a time we thought that Israel was losing the war. One person was the head of the American Jewish war veterans. The other was heading the American Jewish Committee. The third person, I forgot who it was and the fourth, representing New York city opinion was yours truly. Anyhow, the interviewers are asking the people and the first question was; why are you so destruct? The head of the American Jewish Committee said; "Don't you realize that democracy is going down in the Middle East," which I thought was hogwash. You think we were concerned about a democracy. We're concerned about losing our country. But American leaders had been taught in those days, you talk only in an idiom that you think Americans understand, and does not accentuate the distinctiveness of being a Jew. Therefore, what are we concerned about? Our democracy going down in the Middle East. Let me have this, the interviewer then turned to me, okay, young man, what are you doing? I said I signed up to go to ISSO as emits no, Dave, a volunteer. But a week before the war, all flights to the Middle East were canceled and therefore I can't go. He said, "well, if you go there, what are you going to do?" I said, "whatever they asked me to do, I'll do." "I have no idea." At that point, I got a swift kick under the table. By the force of the kick, I'm sure they came for the head of the American Jewish war veterans, because the American Jewish Committee in those days didn't have that type of kick. He interrupted me and said, what this young man needs to say, is it is going to Israel and teach them the principles of American democracy, hogwash. I mean, a country's going down the drain, and what are you going to take a slow boat to China and teach in the President of American democracy. I said to them, no. He said to me, "but how can you say no, when you know, as a President of the United States, Johnson has declared neutrality." I said to him, If it turns out there is this causes just and Johnson's call is unjust. Between justice and injustice, there can be no neutrality. Programme was over and I limped out for that swift kick on the knee. In any case, all these passions converge. Because by the time of the Six Day War, the Civil Rights and made a major turning point. A Russian Jewry was getting coverage they never got before. The war in Vietnam was getting worse. But moral opinion was turning against it. Politicians kept to it, but you had a hard time finding a moral spokesman America after 67 who supported the war in Vietnam. Those people who fought on a moral basis are almost always United because you'll hardly heard a significant moral voice who was opposed and support that we heard political voices, but not moral voices, which was not true years earlier. The years earlier people thought the dominant theory about communist was really valid, and therefore we have to sacrifice in one country for the salvation of the world, salvation of capitalism or Christianity or religion or Judaism over communism. By 67, people stop talking that way. By the end of the war, nobody as far as I know is a politicians were talking that way. With this remarkable convergence in my life, of my greatest passions as a student and my greatest passions as a Jew, converging. In fact, I was a founder of a group called the New York cover up. Our model was to pray and protests together. Meaning people before that had people that could pray with, but can protest with them, different group, or people they protested but didn't pray with them. We found that a group and the goal was; to pray and to protest together. Emphasizes because incense sense, all of these movements created my moral personality, and was a powerful decade from the point of view of moral construction of identity. That's our combination of Hanukkah and the moral pressures of the '60s and would love to open up the questions and comments. Even if you want to make a comment, not just the questions being written down here, then inflect your voice upward so we can interpret it as a question.
Adina Scheinberg: Thank you, Professor Kimelman for teaching us today, and especially for sharing a lot of personal anecdotes. I definitely enjoyed hearing from you. A few people have messaged me questions privately. Feel free to just put them in the main chat. The first question is, didn't the zealotry of the Maccabees degenerate into an authoritarian, repressive regime that may have given the Rabbis of the Talmud pause when asking and answering the question, what is Hanukkah? How would you connect that ambivalence to the events you mentioned in the 1960s.
Reuven Kimelman: There was that popular theory in Jewish historiography of the Maccabean period, to explain the absence of reference of the Maccabees in the Talmud. Because by the end of the Maccabean in period, one of them turned against the Pharisees. Therefore, this turned them off to the military victory of the Maccabees, and where they focus upon the miracle of the oil, which in a sense excludes them for being so consequential. Now, as far as zealotry God had never seen anybody combine the word zealotry with the Maccabees. The zealotry was normally combined with Hasidism. The Hasidism began the revolt against the Maccabees, against the Greeks or the Hellenizing Jews. But they didn't have the military means nor the where with all to solve the problem because they refused to fight on the Sabbath. The result was they were attacked on the Sabbath. Mattathias issued a ruling accorded the Book of Maccabees, that if we follow this, we're all dead, and he said, "Therefore, for now one, Jews have a right to defend their lives on the Sabbath, not to attack on the Sabbath." Once that ruling was issued, a large number of the Hasidism were Pietas joined his forces. Instead of having a family battle, it became a guerrilla warfare. They never really defeated the Greeks, that's a myth. But they're able to keep them out of Israel by virtue of international politics with Sparta and Rome and because of conflicts of succession among the Kings of Syria. The Maccabees, their own expression of his geometry, which you may be alluding to, was Hanukkah, and apparently the forcible convergent or circumcision of members of Edom, which out of the rose King Herod, as a boomerang effect, that may be the exemplar is pointing to. But otherwise the Maccabees are normally known as a middle group. The best evidence of that is all the Hasidism and Hebrew names. All the hellenist, even the high priest, had Greek names, Onayas, Menelaus, Jason, and all the Maccabees had two names. One Hebrew, one Greek, like modern American Jews.
Adina Scheinberg: Thank you. Another question that came to me was, what was the biggest mistake of the events you've described and that we can avoid and facing today's societal challenges.
Reuven Kimelman: What is the biggest mistake that she regretted in the 1960s?
Adina Scheinberg: It's a loaded question. I think in the event you described, I guess you can narrow it down to those.
Reuven Kimelman: Well, if I have to compare the '60s with what's going on now, there's a point I made before. People were unified on a moral perspective. Even when they were divided on a political perspective. In the last six months, maybe the last four years, at least specific in last six months. People's political perspective, so influences their ethical perspective, it's amazing. You see that with regard to the presidency, with regard to Israel, and therefore I will say, the moral ground which can unify diverse political positions has diminished and the basis of conflict has grown. If that's what the person's meaning, then I would love to go back to the '60s. I would always ask when people articulate a position on anything. I always say, well, what does your position say? Can you defend your position? Just for the heck of it. Now it's amazing how some people can not put their feet into the shoes of others, to even try to defend their position because it gets them so angry. I have found out, that when you go into an argument with somebody, the person who is wrong is probably the first person who shouts.
Adina Scheinberg: That's definitely a good piece of advice. Our next question, Ben McGolan, asked two questions. So first, where the temple was rededicated, Shouldn't Sukkot had been seven days, not eight, and Sukkot, unlike Passover, has no built-in makeup capability. So how should this be?
Reuven Kimelman: Oh, that's a remarkable question, so very moderate actually the second part. Sukkot is seven days, but Sukkot is attached to the eighth day called Shemini Atzeret. Both of them require initially the presence of the temple. Therefore, if you miss Sukkot, you miss Shemini Atzeret. Therefore, while Sukkot is a seven day holiday, the unit as a subject of celebration is an eight day unit. Therefore the phrase became, 'Sukkot in the month of Kislev.' Okay. Now, what she's talking about making up with regard to a Pesach Sheni. That's how this issue was. We were supposed to observe three pilgrimage holidays. We were not able to observe it this year's Sukkot. Rosa's idea would try to make it up and rededicate the temple. It wasn't when they're kind of the very learning come in about compensation or making up for losses. Question will mean, is that really irrelevant here? It wasn't the issue, it was a kind of a religious political issue. You missed it, can you make it up? Okay. They observed a holiday for eight days. Whether they brought, by the way, since the sacrifices, which will make a dramatic issue, those eight days of Kislev, we don't know. It could be, was eight days of celebration. By the way, also explains on Sukkot and on Hanukkah, we say a full Hamill, on Peshak, we don't do a full Hamill. Only the beginning part, not the latter part. By the way, so say a full Hamill on Hanukkah, who sees me and not say a full Hamill on your mood is really Independence Day. A Jewism Day is an expression of the fossilization of Judaism. How can you respond to the miracles of the past and not respond to the miracles of the present? In fact, if you look at the beginning of the blessing of Hanukkah, it says "she-asah nisim laavoteinu v’imoteinu bayamim hahaeim" then it says "baz’man hazeh. " Now the phrase "baz’man hazeh" there's a debate what it refers to. One position says, at this time of the year, the 25th of Kislev. Other people say no, just like you did miracles for us in the past, so you do for us in the present. Meaning it's the miracles of the past which a attune us to the possibility of miracles in the present. Therefore, it seems to me that if you study the Book of Maccabees and you study the Six Day War. If you had to make a relative statement about the miraculous nature, Six Day War would clearly out shadow Hanukkah. Therefore one says Hamill for one seems to me, you should say Hamill for the other.
Adina Scheinberg: Thank you for that answer. Our next question is from Shuami Reinharz, and she asked, what about the women's movement that was also a moral movement of that time?
Reuven Kimelman: Well, that's a type of question that Shuami Reinharz would ask because her she's so insightful in this issue. That's a fascinating question. I would say in the mid '60s... My experience, The Woman's Movement as a moral issue did not come up into the late '60s. In fact, I can recall in SDS, as democratic society on people, women, raising the women's issue. This is the mid '60s were shut down by the male leaders of the group, arguing it was diverting attention from the number one concern to a secondary concern. That's a powerful question, we're trying to recall my memory, and if she let me, I will probably give you a better memory the subject. By the late '60s, I would say to emerge as a moral issue in the mid '60s, the other passions of the day made that a secondary or tertiary, at least for men. As I remember from many women, that change the by the end and I would call that its moral expansion of our consciousness. More part to the early '70s than the mid '60s when maybe the late '60s with the transition issue here. In any case, I'm not a woman. It didn't have the same formative impact then upon me. It may be worthwhile asking in a future event, some woman who went through this asking how to what degree, in the '60s that informed her moral consciousness and sense of being. As would be a powerful question and a powerful presentation.
Adina Scheinberg: Thank you. You may have just created a new halal event. Looking forward to hearing from someone on that topic in the future. Mark Cohen asks, at what point did you feel that the Vietnam War was morally wrong and why? At what point did it seem to you as a different type of conflict than it did in the Korea's?
Adina Scheinberg: Okay, two questions here. Number one, I was too young during the time the Korean War. Have any effect on me whatsoever. I do not recall, although somebody maybe older me, that in the early 1950s, the moral protests over the Korean War, like the Vietnam War. If I remember correctly, the Korean War was opposed as an unwinnable war. That apparently even divided McArthur intrusion on what could be done to win the war. The Vietnam War convinced many people politically when it was unwinnable, maybe by '68. But the moral outrage, we saw movies that people are getting killed. They couldn't understand what we were doing there, and the number of Americans getting killed and the number of Vietnamese getting killed, and of course, if any of you've seen some of the powerful movies which came out in the '70s and '80s, reflecting that the moral dimension of the Vietnam war, I think far exceeded that of the Korean warfarin appointee of American consciousness. But I cannot tell you because I didn't live through the Korean army was alive, but I wasn't old enough for them to make a mark upon me. Nor do I remember the type of protests. Nor remember at university center, as was the Vietnam War. In the other case, the Vietnam War, by '67, '68 a large percentage said it was unwinnable. In '64, the issue is not whether it was winnable or not, it was considered an immoral war. So my own, for example, I wrote an essay called, Judaism and Nonviolence. Because I was so influenced first by Gandhi, then by Martin Luther King. I started exploring our own tradition, onward traditions of non-violence in Judaism. I know many people use that essay, in fact, a friend of mine to this day, who used that essay to ask to be a conscientious objector. He argued that his on his reading of Judaism, it does not allow him to participate in an immoral war. He was granted exemption primarily because I wrote the letter of exemption. But any case, it was that original essay which I wrote, and then I wrote a whole article on the right of protest. In other words, my scholarship in those days came straight out to my moral passions. Nonviolence, then I wrote about the Ethics of Protest. Then wrote several essays on the war in Judaism, Talking about a just war. In fact, in another year for now, Cambridge University Press is putting out a whole book on War and Religious Traditions. They've asked me to write the essay on Judaism and Just War. So all of these concerns of mine evolved out of my involvements in the 1960s. I really am fortunate to be in a position in which my moral concerns and my academic concerns can converge and reinforce each other and I feel myself blessed because of it.
Adina Scheinberg: Thank you. Our next question from Melissa Fox, who says that The New York Times recently ran an article about how Hanukkah is celebrated in Greece with regard to the Greeks being beaten by the Maccabees. The Greek Jews evidently emphasize the fact that Antiochus was from Antioch, which was part of Syria/Turkey back then. They say the Maccabees really beat the Syrians, not the Greeks. Would you say that the Greeks were innocent then?
Adina Scheinberg: When Alexander the Great died in 333 BC, the Greek worldwide empire divided into three parts, especially name for an Greek. Syria Iraq was one, Egypt Autonomy is, was the second, and the third was the country of Greece. Between Syria and Egypt was those Israel Palestine, which we call the State of Israel. The culture was Greek. The leaders spoke Greek. The urban culture was Greek. The language of the army was Greek. Greek culture dominated the ancient Middle East. Somewhat like English culture dominated India in the 18 and 1900s. All your leadership and educated classes, right? All spoke English, dressed English, talked English. I mean, for non-Americans, they talked in excellent English, quite remarkable. In any case, therefore to call them Greek. If Greek means a country of origin by geography is one thing, if Greek means by culture and language is something else. The great determiners are culture and language, not geography. After all we speak English but we don't live in England. Would you call it a non-English culture? It'd be very strange to see that. Everybody calls in Greeks, they talk like a Greek, they walk like a Greek. They're probably Greeks. Even that way.
Adina Scheinberg: Thank you. This will be our last question from Justin Hornstein. He says, Professor Heschel or Rabbi Heschel was very concerned about poverty. Do you recall any perspectives or proposals from Him that can impact policy today and going forward?
Adina Scheinberg: Oh, I wish I could answer that question. By the way, one of Heschel's great talks you can find in the book called Moral Grandeur, I think is the book. Is a lecture he gave at the contest of a religion and race in 1963 in Chicago. He talked about the monstrosity of racism. What a great word, the monstrosity of racism, right? I use a lot of essays concerned with civil rights issues, war issues, Israel issues, Soviet Jewry issues. I got to admit right now I do not recall a specific essay dedicated to the problem of poverty. There are many essays dedicated so that it can help out people in general. But I mean poverty as a political issue. Well, I mean, the only connection to constantly me with Martin Luther King was he said you cannot solve the problem of racism without solving the problem of the Vietnam War. Because the problem of racism and the problem of poverty go together. That inside, by the very significant to this day, poverty and racism significantly converge. They don't totally overlap. But the problems of one frequently get expanded in the problems or the other. But maybe somebody in the audience knows. But right now, I do not know a specific essay dedicated only to the subject of poverty independently of the other major moral concerns, was probably a deficiency of my knowledge of the subject.
Seth Winberg: Okay. I want to thank you so much Professor Kimelman for speaking so movingly about your personal story, and for teaching us about the siddur. It really, I hope it will enhance the rest of everyone's Hanukkah.