Rabbi Seth M. Limmer
I didn’t think anything needed to be said.
“Rabbi, how could our congregation not do anything to commemorate Kristallnacht?” Nov. 9, 2015, didn’t fall on a Friday night, and, at our Shabbat services that week, we made no mention of that horrifying historical event. With all the dates crowding the Jewish calendar, it simply didn’t feel necessary to spoil a Sabbath with painful memories of an autumn night in 1938 when German citizens and Nazi paramilitary forces began perpetrating a pogrom against the Jewish community. The vandalism of Jewish homes, destruction of Jewish spaces of worship and menacing of Jewish citizens seemed to belong to a past that was easier not to recall in the present.
How wrong I was.
This year is the 85th anniversary of this “night of broken glass.” Kristallnacht earned its name when antisemitic mobs rampaged and destroyed at least 267 synagogues and more than 7,000 Jewish businesses in Germany from Nov. 9 to Nov. 10, 1938. Hundreds of Jews — a precise number can’t be ascertained — were murdered that evening in an attack that was allowed to happen by the German police who remained passive or joined in.
Since Oct. 7, when Hamas waged a brutal terror attack on Israelis that included the capture of hundreds of hostages, it is not glass that has been broken in the American Jewish community but our hearts. Yes, we have seen signs these past six years of a rise in the deep hatred of Jews that goes by the somewhat antiseptic name of antisemitism. But this past month, that hatred has risen to levels many of us have never seen — or even feared — in our lifetimes. Most Jews wonder when, not if, another Kristallnacht will occur.
Hoping it is not already too late, we ask what we can do to prevent a Kristallnacht in America.
The 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, showed us that antisemitism was alive and well in the United States, that torch-wielding crowds could march past synagogues chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” A year later, the massacre at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh demonstrated that violent American white supremacy firmly kept Jews in its crosshairs.
Reports from our kids on college campuses taught us there was little room for nuance — let alone complicated history — in shouting matches about the state of Israel and the need to create an independent Palestinian state alongside it. And of course, not long in the rearview mirror of our history is the Holocaust, the systematic murder of more than 6 million Jews.
Even with all this history, recent and past, I do not believe I was really ready for what happened last month. And I do not believe I am alone in my sense of shock, anguish and fear. So much of what I held dear, so much of that for which I held hope, is now shattered.
The basic fact of the matter is that most Jewish people in America today are experiencing greater feelings of fear and isolation than at any moment in recent generations. American Jews are afraid.
Since the Oct. 7 attacks, there has been a 400% increase in antisemitic incidents, year over year, from 2022. (And 2022 was already the worst year of recent record.) These are scary times.
On this commemoration of Kristallnacht, I am reminded that it was not just Adolf Hitler’s forces that perpetrated the violence but also ordinary citizens. There are few, if any, historic reports of non-Jewish German citizens who tried to prevent or mitigate the rampaging night of broken glass. Jews were left to fend for themselves.
I am glad to say that such is not entirely the case here in Chicago. Communally, many of those who have been allies of the Jewish community have remained supportive; personally, most of my Christian clergy colleagues call and check in with me on a regular basis. My Muslim partners on the Illinois Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes likewise have shared concerns about the rise in hate both our communities are experiencing.
And, I will say, most of those calls and check-ins have been personal, one-on-one, private.
Because so much happens that no one sees, it mattered a little more when one friend’s congregation hosted a night to learn about Israel and Palestinians; it mattered a lot more when a different Christian leader took to social media in an active campaign supporting and defending my Jewish community. These things did not happen 85 years ago.
It really matters when those who aren’t Jewish stand up for and defend those of us who are. To be under attack is bad enough; to have to defend yourself with few or no vocal allies is not only dispiriting but also impossible.
Chicago Ald. Debra Silverstein found herself in this impossible position when unruly crowds at City Hall continually interrupted her testimony and accused her of genocide. Mayor Brandon Johnson ultimately cleared the chamber following these outbreaks, but he did not clear the air and explain that what is happening in Israel and Gaza is not genocide or make it crystal clear that his City Hall colleague was in any way a perpetrator of such a heinous crime. None of the other 49 other aldermen did, either.
If you agree, my friends, I ask: Why am I the one who has to say this? And what will happen to my community if we are left, even by our good friends, always to be the ones who defend ourselves?
For the entirety of my career as a rabbi, I have been arguing and lobbying and speaking and praying for a two-state solution in the Middle East, working to create a Palestinian state to stand alongside Israel as neighbors in peace. I have been unafraid publicly to criticize the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and Gaza before that. I have brought my congregational trips to visit Palestinians in Gaza, so that these people living under occupation have the opportunity to speak about their own struggles for freedom.
I see the Palestinian and Israeli flags as symbols of hope for two peoples who simply want to live in freedom and autonomy. I am as deeply horrified by the loss of civilian life in Gaza as I am emotionally eviscerated by the terror attacks in Israel.
I refuse to accept the false binary that I must stand either for Israel or for Palestinians. I can stand for dignity, freedom, and autonomy for all people. Even if it’s complicated.
But I would like others to stand with me. And I would like others to stand up for me, publicly. And I would like not to feel like I have to make all these arguments by myself. I have to admit that events of the past month have haunted me, have made me wonder not how this could all happen again, here in America.
Still, I would like to feel that if today, mobs came through Chicago to destroy synagogues and Jewish businesses, my neighbors would stand alongside my family and me and help defend us. Still, I would like to believe Kristallnacht will not happen again.
Please — through your words and your actions — help me hold on to that belief.
Rabbi Seth M. Limmer is the founder of Open Judaism.
