Lee Diamond – Ethnic Cleansing
All of us know how evil ethnic cleansing can be when perpetrated within any nation or society. It’s an act of eradicating the different, the other from ones midst.
But there is another kind of ethnic cleansing!
This is self inflicted ethnic cleansing.
It is the desire to remove ones own uniqueness and difference in order to be viewed as SAME in the society in which one lives.
—-In order to be equal to all others in society—one cleanses his/her self of the elements of ethnicity that make for difference—-
Ethnicity includes various forms of cultural uniqueness.
A separate history
A separate language
Separate calendar
Special holidays
Special forms of clothing for special occasions
Sometimes a different land or connection to a special land.
Special foods
Special humor
Special literature
Music that speaks to the special group
A set of beliefs and values that set a group apart from others.
Customs that set one apart.
Jewish tradition explains why we survived 400 years Egyptian bondage by declaring:
*We kept our own language
*We maintained our own unique form of dress
*We kept our own unique names
In short we maintained our ethnicity against all odds–and the odds were enormous.
I recall a story that I just read about a Jew in a concentration camp who publicly donned his tefillin, knowing the punishment awaiting him for this act. At his execution he declared to all! “I WON”
One can not defeat meaningful self pride and the insistence on preserving ones values and unique ethnicity. Maintaining ones ethnicity is WINNING!
The Jews have survived because we have maintained our unique ethnicity against all odds.
The greatest challenge facing our survival today is Freedom
And self ethnic–cleansing .
