Global Jewish Reflections: If I Forget You, O Jerusalem

Global Jewish Reflections is a recurring feature highlighting the spiritual wisdom of rabbis, Jewish educators, and others from around the JDC world.

Arriving in Budapest this past winter, I didn’t know what to expect or what we — five Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) rabbinical and cantorial students traveling through our JDC Entwine/HUC Weitzman Fellowship — had to gain from a few days in Hungary.

But then we spent our first evening with the Shalom Club of the JCC Budapest-Bálint Ház and it all became crystal-clear. The room was abuzz when we first entered, and the Holocaust survivors and other seniors who made up the choir made sure we all had chairs and felt totally at home. As the women began to sing through their repertoire — Jewish staples like “Hava Nagila” shifting into Chalav U’dvash’s “Hallelujah” in Hungarian and other pieces of modern Israeli and Hungarian popular music — my apprehensions melted away as their multicultural mélange of music made it clear how much we truly had in common. After they finished their performance, we started to chat with the ensemble, and I left feeling like I had known these women for years.

Truthfully, for most of my life, I’ve seen the American Jewish community as the center of the Jewish world. Given that roughly 40 percent of world Jewry lives in the United States, so many American Jews live with that same perception — seeing a Jewish world made up only of the U.S. and Israel. The concept of vibrant and thriving Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe was foreign to me and was counter to so many of my assumptions.

In this season of Tisha B’Av, I am reminded that the center of our ancestors’ world was Jerusalem and its Temple — life or Judaism without it was impossible. At the time of Jerusalem’s destruction in 586 BCE, a future without a rebuilt Temple was unfathomable. As Psalm 137 recounts, “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, sat and wept, as we thought of Zion … If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither; let my tongue stick to my palate if I cease to think of you, if I do not keep Jerusalem in memory even at my happiest hour.”

For those Jews, it was imperative that Jerusalem — the symbol of Judaism and all its practices and culture — be remembered to ensure continuity and the possibility of a true Jewish future. Read this way, the psalm cautions against neglecting Judaism, not necessarily Jerusalem as a physical place.

Today, we face a similar crisis: If we continue to see ourselves as the center of the Jewish world and fail to lift up the Jewish life that exists beyond our own communities, then we too will lose sight of the things that matter most to Judaism — our Jerusalem. The modern psalm ought to read, “If I forget you, o Jewish people, let my right hand wither; let my tongue stick to my palate if I cease to care for you.”

It is one thing to speak of keeping Jewish people all around the globe in the front of your mind at all times, but it is another thing to truly heed that call to action. I heard this charge on my trip to Budapest, and it clarified the importance of the Pesach Project, an opportunity I was involved in that gave me the chance to visit a small progressive Jewish community in Gdansk, Poland, for Passover. The congregation rarely had the opportunity to read Torah, so it was clear to me that just leading a Seder was not enough to honor and support them. With that in mind, I decided  to stay for Shabbat so we could read Torah together as a community, even calling up two members of the synagogue to bless the Torah. It was the first time either had ever had the opportunity to give the blessing. I was reminded once again that Jewish peoplehood is a massive responsibility, but one that can lead to some of the most special Jewish moments. 

It’s one thing to speak of keeping Jewish people all around the globe in the front of your mind, but it’s another thing to heed that call to action.

Generally the final Kinah (mournful poem) recited in the evening on Tisha B’Av, “Eli Tzion”is known for its haunting melody and poetic refrain: “Wail, O Zion, with your cities, like a woman in travail…” It is our losses and our efforts to retain that sense of “Jerusalem” as the center of who we are that propels Jewish life, thought,  and community.

As a people, we are continually reborn each time we reconnect to our past and our common roots to support one another. Only when we remember and experience the challenges of Jewish life globally can we truly fulfill Tisha B’Av’s redemptive promise that “our days may be renewed like days of old.”

Levi Gettleman is a second-year rabbinic and education student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He grew up in Phoenix, Ariz., and Seattle, Wash., and earned his B.A from Indiana University-Bloomington in Jewish Studies and Folklore & Ethnomusicology. Levi previously worked at Temple B’nai Israel in Oklahoma City and has spent many summers as a camper, staff member, and rosh eidah (unit head) at URJ Camp Newman in Santa Rosa, Calif. Levi is proud to be a JDC Entwine/HUC Weitzman Fellow and eager to talk about the importance of global Jewish peoplehood and responsibility. 

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