We Appreciate Your Concern, Now We Need Your Courage!
Plaque Displayed in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall
Honouring the Jewish Founders of the Edinburgh International Festival
Professor Joe Goldblatt
Each time there is an attack upon the Jewish community in the United Kingdom I am inundated with an avalanche of sympathetic messages from non Jews. Whilst I greatly appreciate this outpouring of love and concern for my welfare I am also distraught that more is not being done to demonstrate the courage of the convictions of our democratic society and demand that all of society publicly celebrate the achievements of the Jewish people.
Annually we commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January, however, each year I also ask what are we doing the rest of the year to insure this tragedy never happens again? Obviously we are not doing enough as the evil virus of antisemitism is rising in British society as evidenced by thousands of attacks in the past year alone.
Perhaps now is the time to plan and launch a national campaign celebrating the achievements and essentiality of Jewish people in society? Most people do not realise that 20% of all Nobel Prizes have been awarded to Jews, a small group of people, only 0.4 of all society, for their achievements in science.
Still others may be unaware that the achievements of the Jewish people in culture from film, to theatre, to the visual arts has greatly enriched our society in so many ways? All you need to do to better understand the breadth and depth of these achievements is to remember the names of Albert Einstein, Stephen Spielberg, MGM (founded by Jewish refugees), Rodgers and Hammerstein, George Gershwin, Billy Joel, Irving Berlin, Amy Winehouse, and in Britain our own theatre and film luminaries Esther Rantzen, Maureen Lippman, and more recently Rachel Weisz.
Even closer to home, most people do not realize that the Edinburgh Festivals were founded by two Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in 1947. Sir Rudolph Bing invited his fellow Jewish refugee Bruno Walter, the conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic, to perform at Usher Hall for the first ever Edinburgh International Festival and together they erected a platform for the flowering of the human spirit that was firmly constructed and has annually bloomed for 77 years.
Their pioneering efforts are enshrined upon a large plaque within the dress circle level of Usher Concert Hall. When the idea for a plaque was conceived I asked a civic leader who I should submit a petition to, how many committees I needed to speak before, and what other hoops I would need to jump through in order to gain permission to erect this plaque.
This civic leader, a person of courage and valour, invited me to speak directly with the manager of the concert hall. I soon visited the hall and he recommended placing the plaque in a very prominent location and that is where it is displayed today as a reminder to hundreds of thousands of audience members of the numerous large and small achievements of the Jewish people in Edinburgh and around the world.
However, more is required during these tremulous times. Whilst symbolic gestures such as plaques and annual programmes are welcomed, much more is needed each and every day if we are to move from sympathy to empathy and finally to extolling the virtues of the Jewish people and other groups who are threatened today.
Most weeks I join other faith leaders and representatives in local primary schools to present the award winning Edinburgh interfaith Association Faith Road Show. During this one hour programme over 100 P5 -7 pupils learn about seven different faiths and also meet constables from Police Scotland to learn about how to report hate crime. This programme regularly encourages our young people to embrace the other with respect and understanding.
When I recently asked one pupil what he had learned he replied “You are all so different and yet we are all in this together!”
Indeed we are. Therefore, now is the time to add to the sympathy for the Jews following another bloody attack a stronger backbone of courage in our nation by praising, celebrating, and respecting our ahievements to continually remind our fellow citizens of how much poorer this world would be without the Jewish people as part of our daily civic life.
Many of my fellow Jewish people have asked “Do we need to move to a safer place?” I refuse to even entertain this thought for as it is said ‘even a New York minute’. Instead, I shall stop wringing my hands and start rolling up my sleeves while ask my fellow citizens to join me, hand in hand, to work even harder to publlcly praise and celebrate Jewish and other achievements of minorities in Scotland, throughout the United Kingdom, and indeed all over the world. This could be the beginning of a precious championship season for all vulnerable minorities.
Perhaps with a few more champions we will need less sympathy in the future?
Professor Joe Goldblatt is Ambassador for Interfaith for the Edinburgh Interfaith Association. For more information about his views visit www.joegoldblatt.scot