I spoke at the Lions Club tonight. The topic was Social Justice in Judaism. This speech is easy for me. So much of what I do, as a person, as a rabbi, centers around tikkun o’lam, healing the world. So much of the social justice agenda comes from last week’s portion, the Holiness Code. I began by quoting “Don’t put a stumbling block before the blind or curse the deaf.” It seemed like the right place for a group that is dedicated to helping people with sight issues. The organization is the embodiment of this verse. I talked about welcoming the stranger and taking care of the widow and the orphan. About feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, housing the homeless. This group gives money to FISH a local food pantry and to the Community Crisis Center.

Then it happened, I was asked about Sterling and about anti-semitism. I told them that anti-semitism is on the rise. That we have only to look at an incident like Overland Park to see the results in this country or fire bombings of synagogues in the Ukraine to see it in Europe. I explained that all of my middle school students, in three different school systems, U46, District 301 and District 300 feel bullied, isolated, teased because they are Jewish. That groups like FaithBridge in McHenry County and CERL the Coalition of Elgin Religious Leaders and organizations like the Anti-Deflamation League of Bnai Brith and the Southern Poverty Law Center actively work on these issues and do a better job of tracking such things than I do. That in Elgin, we feel pretty safe, but never entirely. That we actively partner with the police and our ROPE officer.

I clearly said that Sterling’s comments were wrong and not representative of Judaism, that we were at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act being signed on the conference room desk of the Religious Action Center in Washington and the NAACP was founded with help from Kivie Kaplan. That the African American community and the Jewish community share the experience of the Exodus from Egypt, having been slaves and becoming free. That Adam Silver, the commissioner of basketball is more representative than Sterling and that Sterling is a “shonda” a shame for the Jewish people.

I explained that Jews and African Americans still partner on social justice projects. That the JCUA hosts an annual seder that is usually sold out.

And then it happened. Someone said, when he was a youth, he was a member of an anti-Semitic group and how could I say that anti-semitism is on the rise. He wondered if the cause is economic and that maybe a piece of the puzzle. Someone else said that the world is so different than it was in the 50s. His brother had married a Jew and serving that Catholic wedding mass as an altar boy was a nightmare. I let the comments go. I think I was too shocked. No one has ever admitted to me in public that he belonged to an anti-Semitic group. However, that was not the punch line. Later he told me he is sure that anti-semitism is lower. How does he know? He was widowed two years ago and his new girlfriend that he met online through a classical music website is Jewish.

It is true that Jews have experienced unprecedented assimilation and that in this country we experience freedom, including freedom to choose whom to date and marry. It is true that there are not quotas at major academic institutions, hospitals and law firms. It is illegal to discriminate in housing or hotels.

Our ancestors fled Europe rather than being persecuted or killed. They escaped conscription into the Tsar’s army by leaving Russia under hay in a wagon. They came in steerage in ships that left Germany, France, Italy rather than face pogroms and to make it in America, the goldeneh medinah. We, their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren have access to our elected officials. With that freedom, with that access comes responsibility.

There is a responsibility to speak out, to speak up so that the terrors of antisemitism in Europe that led to the Holocaust do not happen again, anywhere to anyone. There is a responsibility to work for peace as the leaders of CERL do, to work for an age without hunger, homelessness, poverty, racism., A world where our environment is protected and we are partners with G-d in this glorious creation. To protect the widow, the orphan, the stranger. To not put a stumbling block before the blind or curse the deaf. To not stand idly by while our neighbor bleeds. To love our neighbors as ourselves.

I am glad I went last night–but it illustrates just how much work there is to be done.