Holocaust Memorial Day: The Fragility of Freedom and the Courage to Listen and to Talk

When I was a rabbinical student we were expected to go to JCM - a Jewish-Christian-Muslim conference held in Germany once a year. For a whole week we would be learning, eating, singing, and sharing with people of other faiths, in a deep and meaningful way. Not just as a one-off, one hour encounter but sustained for a whole week. It was a really inspiring event that we returned to year after year. But one year showed what happens if we don't talk about the difficult issues, but play it safe for the sake of harmony.  I don’t remember which year it was, but the conflict in Israel-Palestine escalated while we were there and yet during that whole week, not once was it mentioned by the organisers or given any official space, due to the fear of how it might affect the conference experience.

At the end of the week, one of the Muslim participants stood up and said ‘all the lovely meals and conversations, going to each others services and wishing each other ‘peace be with you’, learning with each other, singing each other's songs…it doesn't mean anything when it could not even be acknowledged that people were dying on both sides, and both sides were sheltering, fearing the worst’.

Though we were trying so hard to meet and find common ground, when we don’t mention the biggest elephant in the room, it has the potential to undermine all the other things we are trying to do. When the fear of discord, and arguments stood in the way of talking about what was actually happening it hollowed out everything else. I still remember his anguish more than 15 years later.  Though the Israel-Palestine conflict is notoriously tricky to talk about in interfaith relations and indeed even in our own communities, never mentioning it when things are happening can render other things meaningless. 

This weekend is Holocaust Memorial Day Remembrance, which began with a multi-faith event held this morning at George Meehan House, and will be followed by many other events and educational sessions, culminating in a large Haringey event on Sunday at the Spurs stadium. This year is an especially difficult time for many of us, because of the atrocities of 7th Oct, and the antisemitism and fear that are now prevalent in many of our lives. We are hurting, and we are fearful, and we are angry. 

It is also a really difficult time for the war in Israel and Gaza is bringing up painful questions for us that we cannot answer, or that we do not know how to answer in relation to proportionality, justice and rights to self defence. And we are wary of even trying to engage in them. 

And yet, I think that is what we must do, we have to find the courage and the respect to talk and to listen, engaging in conversations with family, with friends, with colleagues, and with those from other communities who we might not know so well. It is not about getting to ‘the truth’, or even to try and convince others of our standpoint. Sometimes silence is the best option, sometimes there are no words. And other times we have to step in, we have to listen and we have to share, for if we don’t we hollow out trust, we undermine our connections with each other, by avoiding the topics that are painful.

The theme this year is ‘The Fragility of Freedom’, one of which is the freedom to learn, listen and live with others. The time now is to listen and to talk, carefully and considerately, even if/when we do not agree.