Rabbi Calls To Stop Using Racist Term "Shvartzer", Calls Term "Heretical", "Reprehensible"
The controversial Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, of TLC "Shalom In The Home" fame (as well as from works like Kosher Sex, his magnum opus on Jewish love and marriage) wrote an article in the Jewish Press last week which could not possibly be more relevant.
His article, "The 'S' Word Has No Place in a Religious Jew's Vocabulary" is perhaps one of the most powerful condemnations of the word 'shvartzer' that I have seen to date:
Last week I delivered a sermon based on the Torah portion of the week and which compared Moses, the great Jewish redeemer, with Abraham Lincoln, the martyred American emancipator. When I finished, I was approached by an acquaintance who happens to be an Orthodox Jewish engineer. He seemed, up until that time, to be devout, educated, and sophisticated. But what he told me was sacrilegious, ignorant, and primitive.
This gentleman maintained that Lincoln was no hero, seeing as he had freed a people who were the descendants of Ham, the son of Noah, who was cursed for humiliating his father. “Ham’s children are black, and are condemned by God to eternal slavery,” he said. “There was even a rebbe in Poland who predicted that Abraham Lincoln would be shot for liberating a people against God’s wishes.”
I looked this man in the eye and said to him, “I’m confused. Judaism believes that every man is judged according to his actions. Now you are telling me that every black person in the world is cursed for something an ancestor did millennia ago. We Jews don’t believe in Original Sin, and we don’t believe in vertical accountability. So how can you tell me something so abominably racist like the fact that blacks are cursed?”He responded that I was denying scripture. I told him that his views were repugnant to everything Judaism stood for in terms of the equality of all mankind. And on an angry note, our mini-debate ended.
I would not even mention this unhappy episode if I had not, at times, heard similar sentiments expressed by others purporting to be religious.
This is a famous d'var Torah no black Jew is unfamiliar with. Ham was the only person who had sex on the Ark where sex was forbidden (Talmud, Sanhedrin), and as punishment, he was given black skin, "longer foreskin", and his hair was "singed" (Midrash Tanchuma). I personally had my chavrusa once, while learning this with me, look at the roots of my hair and start laughing.
Rabbi Boteach -- whose views on all issues I can not say I uniformly agree with -- continues:
The foundation of Judaism is God’s moral law. The cornerstone of the Bible is that every human being is created in God’s image. One cannot call oneself a religious Jew and harbor even the smallest hint of racism.Which is why it is time for all Jews to forever retire the odious term “shvartza.”
From the time I was a boy I have heard the word shvartza used by many Jews to describe blacks. These were decent people with no intention of causing offense. To them, the term connoted nothing more than the Yiddish word for black. But, truth be told, the term has become one of condescension; a pejorative, a word that incorporates within it a hint of derision.
My children were raised around many black men and women who are close family friends. From Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, who is like a brother to me, to Peter Noel, my esteemed colleague and former co-host on America’s oldest black radio station, to countless others, our Shabbos table has been a home away from home for African-Americans whom we have treated as family. So when my children went to a chassidic sleep-away camp one summer and heard the expression shvartza thrown about so loosely, they returned upset and disillusioned.
When they asked me why so many religious Jews used the term, I had no real explanation. The overwhelming majority of religious Jews are committed to the highest humanitarian and ethical standards. Racism, to them, would be utterly unconscionable. So why use the term? There is no excuse. And it must be permanently retired.
I have wanted to write this column ever since my children expressed their indignation, but refrained from doing so for fear it might be misunderstood as implying that there is racism among Orthodox Jews. To be sure, there is racism among all groups, just as there is, unfortunately, anti-Semitism among all groups. It seems that humanity is destined to forever harbor irrational hatred, even as we do our utmost to stamp it out. But of late, I have heard the term shvartza with such frequency that it could no longer be ignored. My children were absolutely right and we must all speak out.
Yes, there may be racism among other groups. But among Jews it is especially reprehensible.
First, because we Jews know what it is like to be hated simply for being what we are.
Second, because Jews and blacks share a common spiritual history that includes slavery and emancipation, followed by discrimination and a shared yearning for entry into a promised land of acceptance and hope. We share also a mutual love for the redemptive utterances of the great Hebrew prophets like Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Micah, which formed the backbone of the most memorable speeches of Martin Luther King Jr.
Third – and this applies to religious Jews even more than to non-observant Jews – because we Jews are entrusted by God with spreading the message that all human beings are God’s children. The first great theological declaration of the Torah is that all people are created in the divine likeness.
I don’t think there is anything as off-putting in a religious person as even a hint of racism. When a businessman wearing a yarmulke uses the word shvartza, he undermines the spiritual integrity for which that yarmulke stands.
And I would be remiss to not include this vignette:
Likewise, many Muslims are today infected by an irrational hatred of Jews that belies Islamic history and which cannot be accounted for merely by the territorial dispute between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Such racist views are a sin against Islam which subscribes to the biblical belief of the divine character of all humanity.
Religious Jews, especially, must never empower such heretical views by harboring even the slightest hint of bigotry or prejudice.
The view that Arabic-language media is spreading against Jews? The same "heresy" that manifests itself as racism.
A religious Jew must never empower heretical views by harboring...bigotry or prejudice.
In Islam, there is a concept called takfir, calling someone a heretic for their out-of-line views and beliefs. Will we see a similar thing in Judaism, will gedolim rally around and call racism for what Rabbi Boteach has called it?
Comments
There's unfortunately a lot of anti-black racism within even Islam. I've heard personally Arabs call blacks "abed" (slave) and our imam, a black man, travelled to do business with Phoenix Muslims over a new masjid and was treated like dirt. It's a shameful problem common to pretty much every religion (witness the caste correlation in Hinduism with light skin). Muslims have a tendency to resort to slogans, one is "there's no race in Islam" so we ignore the problem. I've been mostly writing about race lately, partially because of this and partiallly because Americans on all sides of the political spectrum do not seem able to deal with race in a realistic fashion.
Incidentally, not to challenge your point but in Islam takfir is something to be VERY careful with. If you declare takfir on someone, it does more than simply say that their ideas are heretical; it means that you deny their status as a believer. If you do this to someone and you are wrong, then you yourself will be considered an unbeliever before allah (swt) on the last day. While we must fight untruth and bigotry within our community, takfir would be a last resort.
Posted by: DA | February 7, 2007 02:15 AM
Here in SF, in Chinatown, it is quite common to hear the words 'hak-kwei' and 'pak kwei' (black ghost-daemon and white ghost-daemon respectively). It is not that there are no better terms in Cantonese to describe or name the two non-Chinese ethnicities so referenced, but that both terms are in such common use that speakers seldom even think about the implications of those terms.
[And it should be noted that specifically excluded from the definition of those terms are non-Chinese who speak Chinese, as knowledge of the language implies knowledge of protocol and etiquette; ergo not a ghost-daemon (non-Chinese barbarian).]
This is much like a native speaker of Yiddish thoughtlessly throwing terms like Goy and shwartze into the conversation.
The problem is when people who do not speak Yiddish use those terms as referents - if 'Gentile' and 'black' are neutral, then 'Goy' and 'Shwartze' are clearly not. Arguing that the terms are harmless only has validity if you can also prove that Yiddish is indeed your native tongue and first language.
Posted by: At the back of the hill | February 8, 2007 09:21 PM
I agree with the idea that the "s" word needs to be removed from the Jewish lexicon, completely.
However, noticing another part of that article, I find that comparing Abraham Lincoln (who was a RACIST!!!) to the holy Moishe Rabbeinu to be very offensive!!! Very offensive.
Posted by: shmuel | February 13, 2007 12:28 PM
Personally, I'd rather be comparing Nat Turner to Korach. Lincoln wasn't "martyred", as Shmuley claims, he was assasinated in a politically motivated act.
Posted by: Sholomanarchy | March 27, 2007 08:43 AM