The War Against Community
Nov. 01, 2018
In the aftermath of this latest massacre, 11 expressionless on a Sabbatum morning within a Pittsburgh synagogue, we've heard the predictable expressions of thoughts and prayers, and the total-throated denunciations of anti-Semitism. That's no minor thing: Acts of anti-Semitism were upwards 57 per centum concluding year in the United States, and it's been far worse than that around the globe.
Simply what happened in the idyllic community of Squirrel Hill in Western Pennsylvania, though an attack on a synagogue, went fifty-fifty beyond anti-Semitism. For it was also an attack—as and then many are these days—on the very notion of customs itself. Later on all, the shooter—let's not name him, media brethren—was a loner, sequestered with his hate in his cyberspace echo chamber. Tin it be casual, then, that his target was a tight-knit neighborhood's premier communal space? A homo who had no real community—save a virtual one—had declared war on its very notion. On the very idea of the public square, of eastward pluribus unum : Out of the many, one.
What happened in Pittsburgh should thing to Jew and not-Jew alike for its sheer atrocity, but besides because it'southward notwithstanding another in a series of attacks on shared spaces: Schools, picture show theaters, mosques, synagogues. David Adelman knew this instinctively, fifty-fifty before hearing the news from Pittsburgh. Just days before, the 46-yr-old CEO of Campus Apartments, had stood before hundreds on the triangular site where Curvation Street and the Ben Franklin Parkway meet, unveiling the new Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Plaza, for which Adelman had raised $ix.5 million. What made this memorial stand out was that information technology would do more than just commemorate a horrific history.
"We didn't just want to retrieve horrible things, just also ask, 'How can we come up together to prevent horrible things from happening in the time to come?'" Adelman said when I defenseless upward with him before this calendar week. "We want this memorial to start a conversation about tolerance. I of the best things nosotros did was to partner with the Shoah Foundation, which Steven Spielberg founded afterwards Schindler's List to certificate survivor stories. So y'all tin can download an app and hear survivor stories not merely from the Holocaust, but from other human being rights atrocities, similar the genocide in Darfur."
When the news broke from Pittsburgh on Saturday, Adelman, shaken, began hearing from friends far and wide. The text and calls poured in, specially from non-Jews. They were heartfelt, offering expressions of honey and reminders that nosotros're all in this together. "It really restored my faith." Adelman says, "that so many non-Jews saw this as an attack on humanity."
There'due south this lovely Jewish expression for how to live: Tikkun Olam ways "repair the world." Which, when you think of it, is an uplifting prescription no thing where you pray, or if you pray at all. Information technology says that nosotros're here to finish the work of creation, and it reminds us that the virtually Godly thing we can do is see ourselves in others. It's telling, and so, that this attack occurred in the late Mr. Rogers' bodily neighborhood, a community that, by all accounts, lived the Tikkun Olam creed. In fact, information technology'southward telling that it happened in Pittsburgh, where, 133 years ago, Judaism's Reform movement adopted what were then some revolutionary principles.
Reading the Pittsburgh Platform at present is to hear a communitarian response to the deranged Pittsburgh shooter, whose posts included such nihilistic rants as "variety for you but non for Jew" and who was driven to his mad act in protest of the work of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a refugee-resettlement group:
"We recognize in Judaism a progressive religion, ever striving to be in accord with the postulates of reason," the Pittsburgh Platform reads. "…Christianity and Islam, being daughter religions of Judaism, we appreciate their providential mission, to assist in the spreading of monotheistic truth…"
Elsewhere, the Pittsburgh Platform talks about extending "the manus of fellowship to all" and calls regulating "the relations between rich and poor" the "corking task of modernistic times." In 1885, in other words, Jews in Pittsburgh came together to declare what was and so a radical mission to repair the globe. And it's that mission that came under attack not only final Sat, merely also in endless ways in a country and world that seems to have gone sideways.
What happened in Pittsburgh should matter to Jew and not-Jew alike for its sheer atrocity, but besides considering it's all the same another in a serial of attacks on shared spaces: Schools, movie theaters, mosques, synagogues.
To talk to a guy like Adelman is to be reminded of the comfort of community. He's not overly pious; he attends synagogue only on the High Holy Days of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. He'south someone more than likely to engage in Sixers talk (perhaps it'southward a sign of his deep organized religion that he's far more optimistic about Markelle Fultz than I am) than Judaica. But his story is a reminder that none of united states advance alone.
The name, after all, of our new Holocaust memorial is the Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Plaza. Sam Wasserman was Adelman's grandpa, who lost his family unit in the Holocaust and who escaped the Sobibor concentration military camp and and then fought in the resistance. Like so many survivors, Sam Wasserman didn't talk about his experiences. "I didn't know almost his story until I was 16, when my mom told me," Adelman recalls. "I saw the scars on his back, and I pieced together subsequently that that's where he he'd been shot while fighting in the resistance. I merely knew him as this quiet, somber guy."
Which is partly why, Adelman says, the Plaza focuses and so heavily on using engineering to brainwash. "There are so many Philadelphia survivors whose stories should be heard," he says. "Sadly, they're aging out."
To talk to a guy like Adelman is to be reminded of the comfort of community. He's non overly pious; he attends synagogue only on the High Holy Days of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. He'southward someone more likely to engage in Sixers talk than Judaica. But his story is a reminder that none of united states advance lone.
The Plaza is also named for 75-yr-old Alan Horwitz, i of the great remaining Philly characters. You may see him tooling effectually Rittenhouse Square in his black Lamborghini or courtside during Sixers games, where he often appears to be part of the squad'due south huddle. In one case—infamously—he was ejected from Boston Garden (yes, he goes to road games) for heckling the Celtics too enthusiastically. Watching him emote during a Sixers game—the players line upwards to high five him before games, and sometimes there he is on the actual floor, letting the refs hear what'due south what—you recollect: At that place's a guy who knows how to ring joy out of life.
Well, Horwitz was a close family friend to the Adelmans. Growing upward, David called him "Uncle Alan." When David was xi, the two engaged in what has become a legendary game of one-on-one basketball game. David, proclaiming his hoops superiority, challenged Horwitz to a bet.
"I'm going to teach you a lesson nearly betting," Horwitz said. When information technology was over, and Horwitz had dismantled his de facto nephew, Horwitz confiscated the child'southward basketball, football game, baseball game glove and passbook checking account. Horwitz, who endemic a Philadelphia real estate firm, demanded that the child show up to piece of work every Saturday, sweeping sawdust and stacking lumber, in club to earn the return of his property.
"When I tell the story now, sometimes people are like, 'How could he practice that to a child?' Well, he was competitive, and he's that competitive still," Adelman says, laughing. Adelman'southward parents idea Horwitz's tough love would build character, and they were correct. The kid started hanging around, listening, learning. Two years afterwards, he handed $2,000 of his Bar Mitzvah coin over to Horwitz, buying a minor stake in his uncle'south company. Today, Adelman is CEO of that visitor, Campus Apartments, having built it into the nation'south premier provider of university campus housing, and Horwitz is its chairman. (Campus Apartments is a sponsor of The Citizen.)
"The Muslim community in Pittsburgh is standing shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish community," Adelman says. "That'due south the great man moment nosotros should be focusing on."
That was Adelman'south offset lesson in the ability of customs: No ane really builds annihilation alone, which is a kind of Tikkun Olam awakening. Tough love mentoring, it turns out, can repair the world. When Horwitz—who has not been traditionally philanthropic—wrote a bank check for $ii million for David'due south Holocaust Plaza, information technology was a reminder that purpose tin can be found in giving.
When I tell Adelman that I'm not a particularly expert Jew, that I can't remember the last time I went to shul, and that I only fast on Yom Kippur because information technology's such a good deal— Yous mean I don't eat for a solar day and I get all my sins wiped abroad? Where do I sign up? —he challenged me.
"I accept an assignment for yous," he says. "Become 1 weekend to the Jewish Relief Agency warehouse and box upwardly nutrient and deliver it to those in demand. I started doing it virtually seven years ago, and it inverse my life. The people are so appreciative. I have my kids, considering I wanted them to feel what giving feels like."
What giving feels similar. When Adelman says his life was changed, what he's really maxim is that, in moments of serving others, this business macher found some purpose bigger than the orbit of his own ego. At JRA, he and his kids are role of a customs, acting on a shared set of values. It makes sense, correct? He's a businessman who is really in the community business, oft reminding his employees to never forget that their customers are someone's son or daughter. To our west these final days, where these very notions were attacked, various groups have gathered publicly in acuity all week, as if to answer the assault.
"Yes," Adelman says, "but we'd be remiss to not point out that it'south not just Jews. The Muslim community in Pittsburgh is standing shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish community. That's the great man moment we should be focusing on."
Photograph via Wikimedia Commons 
Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/the-war-against-community/
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