Explaining facts and emotional arguments are not going to deter anti-Semites. “When you stand your ground, and you show that you’re completely unintimidated by them, and just live your life, they tend to back down,” said Rabbi Yankel Lipsker, Director of Chabad at Adelphi University, at the annual Kristallnacht commemoration at Congregation Machane Chodosh in Forest Hills.
Rabbi Lipsker has been on the front lines with Jewish students who sometimes are intimidated by the hatred. Rabbi Lipsker said, “I’m not aware of any Jews who successfully made themselves small enough to not antagonize an anti-Semite. When we make ourselves smaller, they just take the extra space that we give them, and they become more aggressive.”
“It’s not pretty advice, but I say that the only thing you can do is to be more Jewish, and to be more proudly Jewish.”
“I can’t promise that nothing will happen to you for doing that, but I know that the opposite, hiding ourselves more, will have disastrous results.”
Rabbi Lipsker had good relationships with the president and many department deans at Adelphi University until the day after October 7, 2023. “We found out that many of our supposed friends did not stand with us at all.”
A Chabad student board member at Adelphi University wanted to invite a childhood friend who was a lone soldier in the Gaza War to speak. Adelphi University had just approved a pro-Hamas campus club, Students for Justice in Palestine.
“They were keying students’ cars and following them around.” Chabad decided to make it a small event and to email just Chabad student members at Adelphi University instead of putting it on social media.
One of the Jewish students on the Chabad email list gave the information to Students for Justice in Palestine. Adelphi University wanted Chabad, and not the school, to pay for the extra security needed.
Chabad decided to make the event small, with ten people. Instead, the room was full, 50 people were watching live on Zoom, and the YouTube video received more than 400 views.
Jewish students, out of some sort of guilt or a misguided sense of tikkun olam, have been part of the anti-Israel crowd, said Rabbi Lipsker.
Demonstrators, including a female Jewish student, were outside Chabad during a Seder and again on the last day of Pesach while the rabbi and his students were observing the holiday. “They’re just anti-Israel, not anti-Semitic,” said Rabbi Lipsker derisively.
That same female Jewish student is the token Jew speaking at pro-Palestinian rallies. At the same time, Rabbi Lipsker invites, and has had, this female Jewish student for classes. He tries to show the beauty of Judaism and that being Jewish is like a family. “We have this intimate connection that can never be broken.”
“We have very good role models for this.” Moshe Rabbeinu argued with G-d after the Jews created the golden idol and rebelled against Moshe with Korach.
Moshe “is the first Jewish rabbi.” “Moshe teaches us this perspective that we have to fight for the Jew who stands against everything we believe.”
Quoting Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Rabbi Lipsker said, “Our mission after the Holocaust is to hunt down every Jew in love as they had been hunted down in hate.”
“Every Jew is infinitely precious. If your brother or sister was going through a hard time, you don’t just cut them off because they are inconvenient. It’s our family.”
Rabbi Yossi Mendelson of Congregation Machane Chodosh said, “When we argue, but the facts say, and morality says, that’s not what they’re about. They’re fighting for themselves.”
Rabbi Yossi Mendelson gave German-Hebrew prayer books to four descendants of German Jews, representing the future: his daughter, Abbe Libby, and a 12-year-old Talmud Torah student and congregant, Jake Mullayev. They then lit six memorial candles.
Jane Stiefel’s mother, Erica Goren, was in Berlin, Germany, during Kristallnacht. Goren said in the past that she watched her synagogue burn while firefighters made sure the neighboring buildings weren’t burned.
Pam Wertheimer and Rachel Wohlberg dedicated four plaques at Machane Chodosh for their German-Jewish grandparents.
Julius Wertheimer was arrested by the SA in 1933. His butcher shop was boycotted, subjected to repeated police harassment, and gradually deprived of its customers. He and his wife, Kathe, came to America in 1936. Their son, Henry, served with the US Army’s 10th Mountain Division and as a translator in Germany during World War II.
Dr. Karl Josef Mayer was a respected surgeon and gynecologist operating a private women’s clinic with his wife, Käte Ellinger. They fled from Germany to Iran after Kristallnacht.
Moshe Jaffe honored his grandfather, Herbert Jaffe, past president of Machane Chodosh. Herbert Jaffe’s father was wounded and earned the German Iron Cross during World War I. After Kristallnacht, his family fled to Peru. Herbert Jaffe came to America after World War II.
“The Night of Broken Glass” happened on November 9-10, 1938, in Germany and Austria, where 91 Jews were killed, more than 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps, over 7,000 Jewish business windows were smashed, and over 1,000 synagogues were burned. It is considered the beginning of the physical persecution that led to the Holocaust.
Keil Malei Rachamim for the Jews murdered during the Holocaust was recited by Rabbi Mendelson. Rabbi Elisha Friedman of the Young Israel of Forest Hills recited T’hilim 130. Rabbi Judah Kerbel of the Queens Jewish Center and Rabbi Mendelson’s father, Rabbi Mordechai Mendelson, Rav of the shul Zemach Zedek in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, were among the attendees.
By David Schneier
