James Miller
Hello, Sacha, let me first thank you for making your email easily accessible to communicate. I’ve also taken a moment to copy the other staff in your organization, Combat Antisemitism Movement. I would ask you forward this communication that is best viewed as a webpage at: First they came for the Jews, but then… | (jamesmillercreative.com) to your Advisory Board, Board of Governors and Senior Advisers and especially to Andre Azoulay, who I specifically mention.
It’s my hope you will all find time to read and consider what I have to say. And, that it will move you to produce the documentary film and production of Romeo and Juliet that I propose.
I read your article, September 15, 2024, “First they came for the Jews, but then…” and wanted to respond, which led me to the website for Combat Antisemitism Movement, discovering that you were the organization’s CEO.
It’s quite impressive that, as your bio notes, you lead “a formidable and far-reaching coalition of 850 partner organizations and five million individuals, as well as thousands of leading global decisionmakers, who are engaged in the common mission of tackling the world’s oldest hatred together.”
I can’t move on from this quote without asking you to consider removing the statement, “world’s oldest hatred.” If you believe in Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve’s sons, this must be the “first hatred” and long before Abraham established Judaism. Not an expert on Judaism but if you regard Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel as Jewish, then all hatred is directed not at or from an identifiable “other” but at the self, of which I will speak more.
Given that your organization is one of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands dedicated to eliminating antisemitism and racism, have you ever wondered why solving this problem seems so difficult? If you agree, I’m wondering if you would consider altering your approach to “combatting antisemitism.”
Consider your article largely focusses on the hatred of Jews and ends with a rhetorical question, “Will we listen before it is too late?” without providing an answer to that question. Could it be because you do not have the answer? If you do, I would suggest it is incumbent on you to provide it but while your website is piled higher and deeper with individuals of outstanding credentials and a call to “strive to create a world where every individual can live without fear of discrimination,” you say little about how you intend to do that.
And, to be brutally honest, to suggest we can get there by recording racists incidents is reminiscent of nations where neighbors were advised to report on each other. Not exactly the loving, peaceful dynamic I think you hope to eventually establish in a racist free world.
How would I approach antisemitism and racism? Please take a moment (actually quite a few moments but worth the effort) to read my application for the position of Anti-Racism Specialist at Edmonton’s Norquest College, one of the previously mentioned organizations investing in solving the problem. In it, I suggested to them, as I suggest to you now, that the solution to antisemitism and racism is not through fighting against something that needs to be overcome, but rather is found in the process of uncovering its source, and its solution, through an introspective spiritual inquiry that leads to the startling discovery that all attack is against yourself.
Think about that for a moment. If your goal is to “create a world where every individual can live without fear of discrimination” do you recognize the absolute necessity that your enemy, “the antisemites”, have that same security? Is your passion for peace so great it is willing to look beyond the gender, race, religious or other personal attribute with which you define yourself, to see the Being that God created as your brother or sister and see them no different than you? If not, you are applying your understanding to His creation, not His.
Heady (or is it hearty?) stuff but, in its logic and poignancy, apt.
The first thing I advised Norquest was to consider changing the name of the position from Anti-Racism Specialist to Inclusion Coordinator.
And I recommend you consider looking at the terms you use as well. Your site is rife with words of war: combat, fight, formidable, etc., when what you really want is peace, isn’t it?
Needless to say, I didn’t get Norquest job. I provide you with the first three paragraphs of my application to whet your appetite and hope you will read it.
The first paragraph is a quote from what I regard as the second millennium’s most important spiritual work, “A Course in Miracles”, which eloquently supports the arguments I make.
Those who believe that peace can be defended, and that attack is justified on its behalf, cannot perceive it lies within them. How could they know? Could they accept forgiveness side by side with the belief that murder takes some forms by which their peace is saved? Would they be willing to accept the fact their savage purpose is directed against themselves? – ACIM Chapter 23 The War Against Yourself III.5
Are you looking for visionary thinker advising that you will never solve the problem of racism by being against it? Is your organization willing to implement positive initiatives based on the realization that attack never brings a peaceful outcome? If so, please consider me in your search for a Peacemaker, or perhaps, Inclusion Coordinator, which is what I would suggest you look for instead of an Anti-Racism Specialist.
If not, I wish you well in what I believe will be a largely fruitless effort that adds your organization’s resources to the millions, if not billions, of dollars spent on this problem. The world’s current approach to the issue has been highly unsuccessful, to say the least, and I’m hoping that the “Difference Makers” at Norquest will be willing to look at a different approach, one that speaks of our collective union rather than emphasizing our differences.”
Of the profiles I read on your website, the one that impressed me the most was that of Andre Azoulay, because “In 1974, André Azoulay created in Paris, ‘Identity and Dialogue’, a movement of Sephardic Jewish intellectuals in which for the first time Jewish voices were raised to call for a just and lasting peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, living side by side in two states equal in rights and dignity.”
These are the kind of ideas I believe you should be promoting. And here’s an image I designed to promote that concept.
In your article, you speak of extreme progressives that are antisemitic, anti-Israel and anti-USA when you state, “The Jew is just the easiest of targets, but the synergy between the far Left and far Right bodes ill for our societies. It leads them to extremes whereby moderation, fairness, and dialogue are the enemy.”
To which I must ask, “Are you prepared to promote the concept that the solution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict can be found with moderation, fairness and dialogue? And, are you prepared to promote and defend Palestinian’s and their right to dignity and rights as much as you do for Israel?”
If not, then I would respectfully suggest you are not interested in peace but conflict.
In that vein, let me suggest yet another reading, “Pure Love Comprehends All” my response to the article, Hamas is pure evil, and our minds can’t fully comprehend their horror, by Moshe Taragin, an ordained (smicha) rabbi at Yeshivat Har Etzion/Gush and a hesder yeshiva.
Here again, we see the intellectual machinations that are used to make one side “right” and the other side, “wrong.” Keep in mind, as well, my belief that in the demonization of others, your humanity is lost.
In “Pure Love Comprehends All”, I quote The Torah:
“It was for this reason that man was first created as one person [Adam], to teach you that anyone who destroys a life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed an entire world; and anyone who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world.”
I follow that with an inquiry into what that salvation is like and another series of quotes from “A Course in Miracles.”
“The real question to ask is, “What does saving a life in this context really mean?” I believe it’s far more than saving someone physically and really means the “spiritual salvation” that comes from releasing someone from the belief that they can be innocent while others can be “pure evil.”
- The world but demonstrates an ancient truth; you will believe that others do to you exactly what you think you did to them. ²But once deluded into blaming them you will not see the cause of what they do, because you wantthe guilt to rest on them. ³How childish is the petulant device to keep your innocence by pushing guilt outside yourself, but never letting go! ⁴It is not easy to perceive the jest when all around you do your eyes behold its heavy consequences, but without their trifling cause. ⁵Without the cause do its effects seem serious and sad indeed. ⁶Yet they but follow. ⁷And it is their cause that follows nothing and is but a jest. (ACIM, T-27.VIII.8:1-7)
- How differently will you perceive the world when this is recognized! ²When you forgive the world your guilt, you will be free of it. ³Its innocence does not demand your guilt, nor does your guiltlessness rest on its sins. ⁴This is the obvious; a secret kept from no one but yourself. ⁵And it is this that has maintained you separate from the world, and kept your brother separate from you. ⁶Now need you but to learn that both of you are innocent or guilty. ⁷The one thing that is impossible is that you be unlike each other; that they both be true. ⁸This is the only secret yet to learn. ⁹And it will be no secret you are healed. (ACIM, T-27.VIII.13:1-9)
This leads to realizing, to experiencing the lifesaving, life enriching truth about ourselves, Our Self.
- The Holy Spirit’s function is to take the broken picture of the Son of God and put the pieces into place again. ²This holy picture, healed entirely, does He hold out to every separate piece that thinks it is a picture in itself. ³To each He offers his Identity, which the whole picture represents, instead of just a little, broken bit that he insisted was himself. ⁴And when he sees this picture he will recognize himself. ⁵If you share not your brother’s evil dream, this is the picture that the miracle will place within the little gap, left clean of all the seeds of sickness and of sin. ⁶And here the Father will receive His Son, because His Son was gracious to himself.
- I thank You, Father, knowing You will come to close each little gap that lies between the broken pieces of Your holy Son. ²Your Holiness, complete and perfect, lies in every one of them. ³And they are joined because what is in one is in them all. ⁴How holy is the smallest grain of sand, when it is recognized as being part of the completed picture of God’s Son! ⁵The forms the broken pieces seem to take mean nothing. ⁶For the whole is in each one. ⁷And every aspect of the Son of God is just the same as every other part.
You mention that “Any person who has approached these radicals, united only by a despisal of Jews, Israel, and the US, and questions them finds not even the scantest of knowledge of a conflict raging thousands of miles away.” To which I ask, “Do any of us have a clear picture of what’s going on in Gaza and Israel?”
Just this weekend in Edmonton, AB a major parade of people with Palestinian flags marched down our main street. Among them were several Jews who identified themselves as anti-Zionist.
So let me make a proposal to “humanize” the conflict.
I’ve dreamed of a production of “Romeo and Juliet” featuring a young cast (perhaps no one older than 16) of Palestinians and Israeli Jews. You are familiar with the play, I’m sure, and how it looks at fundamental divisions in a society that lead to tragedy, which proves, too late, that there’s something that transcends those divisions.
What I’d like to do is produce the play and present it in parts of Gaza and Israel. But I’d like to do it in a special way. I’d like to “rewind” the Bard’s work to a point in the play where a change of thinking, a change of awareness, is reached that allows us to see an end that leads not to the mass of death and suicide that Shakespeare gives us, but to lives redeemed and reshaped by love.
We could make a documentary film of the process. One where Palestinian and Israeli parents and others share their hopes and desires for the future. In it, we could also provide a greater understanding of this “conflict raging thousands of miles away.”
Would you be willing to put the “formidable resources” you command in the service of such a project? I hope so.
Thank you for taking time to read this and I do hope some of you take the time to respond. It is my fervent hope that the ideas presented will lead in some measure to the solution to this conflict.
James Miller, September 2024