The last few days have been full of today being Martin Luther King's fiftieth Yahrzeit. He was killed fifty years ago today.
Ten days before Martin Luther King was assasinated he was the keynote speaker at the Rabbinical Assembly convention at the Concord Hotel in Kiamesha Lake, NY. The Rabbinical Assembly is essentially the union for Conservative rabbis. Note this is Conservative with a capital C, meaning not Orthodox nor Reform. The Conservative relates to Jewish law and not to politics.
I was six years old. I was present for the dinner in the massive dining room and Dr. King was on the dais along with other dignitaries. It was the first time I had seen a person of color on the dais of a Rabbinical Assembly convention.
Last week one of my husband's friends, Naomi, was visiting and she mentioned that she was there that night too. Her father was also a Conservative Rabbi. She commented, that I must have been too young to stay up and hear his talk. I was. Naomi was a teenager and was old enough to hear King speak.
This morning I found a link to the talk, which is actually more of an interview conducted by Everett Gendler. You can read it here.Martin Luther King at the RA convention.
I remember that my parents were excited to hear King speak and were deeply inspired by the evening. I have always felt badly that at six I was too young to have heard him speak.
I remember being horrified when I heard the news of the assassination on the news on the way to school. Later that day our principal, Rabbi Moses Cohn got on the school intercom and read some of King's writing to the entire school. Perhaps I wasn't paying attention to Rabbi Cohn's introduction. I remembered assuming that Rabbi Cohn was speaking so movingly about himself. Rabbi Cohn read about death threats to himself and his family, bomb threats to his home.
Rabbi and Mrs. Cohn were both what we called in those days refugees. While they hadn't survived the concentration camps in Europe they were uprooted by the Nazis and escaped to Boston.
A little further in I realized that Rabbi Cohn was not telling of his own experiences but was reading from Dr. King's writings.
I know now that Rabbi Cohn had more than a fair share of experiences fearing for his life as he moved the student body of the Mir Yeshiva from Poland to Shanghai China. I know now that Rabbi Cohn was an individual who went up against a government with terrible laws that threatened his safety.
So perhaps my six-year-old self heard more than a man movingly reading words written by a man just assassinated.
Ten days before Martin Luther King was assasinated he was the keynote speaker at the Rabbinical Assembly convention at the Concord Hotel in Kiamesha Lake, NY. The Rabbinical Assembly is essentially the union for Conservative rabbis. Note this is Conservative with a capital C, meaning not Orthodox nor Reform. The Conservative relates to Jewish law and not to politics.
I was six years old. I was present for the dinner in the massive dining room and Dr. King was on the dais along with other dignitaries. It was the first time I had seen a person of color on the dais of a Rabbinical Assembly convention.
Last week one of my husband's friends, Naomi, was visiting and she mentioned that she was there that night too. Her father was also a Conservative Rabbi. She commented, that I must have been too young to stay up and hear his talk. I was. Naomi was a teenager and was old enough to hear King speak.
This morning I found a link to the talk, which is actually more of an interview conducted by Everett Gendler. You can read it here.Martin Luther King at the RA convention.
I remember that my parents were excited to hear King speak and were deeply inspired by the evening. I have always felt badly that at six I was too young to have heard him speak.
I remember being horrified when I heard the news of the assassination on the news on the way to school. Later that day our principal, Rabbi Moses Cohn got on the school intercom and read some of King's writing to the entire school. Perhaps I wasn't paying attention to Rabbi Cohn's introduction. I remembered assuming that Rabbi Cohn was speaking so movingly about himself. Rabbi Cohn read about death threats to himself and his family, bomb threats to his home.
Rabbi and Mrs. Cohn were both what we called in those days refugees. While they hadn't survived the concentration camps in Europe they were uprooted by the Nazis and escaped to Boston.
A little further in I realized that Rabbi Cohn was not telling of his own experiences but was reading from Dr. King's writings.
I know now that Rabbi Cohn had more than a fair share of experiences fearing for his life as he moved the student body of the Mir Yeshiva from Poland to Shanghai China. I know now that Rabbi Cohn was an individual who went up against a government with terrible laws that threatened his safety.
So perhaps my six-year-old self heard more than a man movingly reading words written by a man just assassinated.
I was a high school junior in a Midwestern urban school, where many of my classmates' families were WWII refugees. When we heard the news of King's murder our school was stunned, and our city exploded for many months. A year later I entered university, and that day colored my activism there and ever since. I now live on the Texas/Mexico border, and I see the current climate of hate and fear as a parallel . And again find myself thrust into activism by the threats against the refugees of the 21st century. I pray that we can find a solution so my grandson will not face the same issues in 50 more years .
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