Jewish Solidarity

“It was [in 1967] that an extraordinary thing began to happen. Throughout the university, Jews suddenly became visible. Day after day they crowded into the little synagogue in the centre of town. Students and dons who had never before publicly identified as Jews could be found there praying. Others began collecting money. Everyone wanted to help in some way, to express their solidarity, their identification with Israel’s fate…I had witnessed something… that didn’t make sense in the rest of my world. It had nothing to do with politics or war or even prayer. It had to do with Jewish identity…. What I discovered in those emotional days of the summer of 1967 – perhaps what each of us discovers when Jewish identity takes us by surprise – is that this covenant is still alive.”

Radical Then, Radical Now, pp. 27, 29