Rabbi Marc Boone Fitzerman
August 13, 2009
EQUALITY CENTER MEMORIAL
Every Saturday morning at the Synagogue, we rise to remember those who have died in violence. The first name is usually a civilian victim who has been erased in an assault against private citizens. The second is a soldier, often no older than 20, killed in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan. The procession of names from week to week is a heartbreaking reminder of the chaos of our lives, the way young people, especially, are brutally extinguished.
Two new names now need to be added to the roster; not just names but real people, with dimensional lives and thoughts and emotions. Nir Katz, a counselor and LGBT activist, out at 20 and adored by his family; and Liz Trubeshi, age 16, working on the essential questions of identity and helping a friend to find a place in a complicated world. The two were part of a safe haven community in Tel Aviv, one of the most cosmopolitan cities on earth.
But late on a fateful Saturday evening, as the Sabbath was giving way to normal time, an abnormal hatred suddenly intruded itself. A gunman, masked, open fire, killing Nir and Liz and wounded many others. Despite all the gains of the period since Stonewall, what remains a fact is risk and vulnerability. Our best efforts at creating a wall of security, a culture of mutual affirmation and equality, are continually challenged by hostility and fear. Violence against people on the basis of orientation is stubbornly present in all of our lives.
There has been a great debate in the Jewish press about how precisely to describe this crime. In the absence of an arrest, of knowing the assailant, is it possible to call this a crime of hate? Is there a chance that we will jump to conclusions when there might be many factors at work?
The short answer to that question is that everything is a risk; it is impossible to speak with perfect authority and to attain to the level of God’s own omniscience. The greater risk is that we will let the moment pass without marking the death of Nir Katz and Liz Trubeshi; without expressing love and care and a sense of outrage at their violent deaths.
Whoever killed these two good people and wounded the others at the Tel Aviv Aguda Center operated within a violent crease that runs through the center of the most enlightened cities. In the intolerant mindset of many religious believers, homosexuality remains both charged and threatening. In 2005, an ultra-Orthodox zealot stabbed three participants in the Tel Aviv Gay Pride parade. There are many voices, in Tel Aviv and elsewhere, that liken homosexuality to a disease or a contaminant. That language is shameful, damaging, and irreligious. It disgraces the tradition invoked in such tirades.
Along with all of you, I mourn Nir and Liz. Their lives and deaths remind us powerfully that the great task of release is still before us. We are required by a just and loving God to stand with each other and declare our mutuality; our loving commitment to perfect acceptance; our unconditional understanding that there is holiness everywhere. May the God who creates peace in heaven, grant a measure of that peace to each of us, so that all may emerge from the corner of their fears; that all may be permitted to join hands in in blessing.
