‘Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People’ by Gay Jewish Writer and Educator Ben M. Freeman

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‘Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People’…

BEN FREEMAN

Born in Scotland and now living in Hong Kong, Ben M. Freeman is a gay Jewish author and internationally known educator. He focuses on Jewish identity, combatting antisemitism, and raising awareness of the Holocaust. Freeman heads the Humanities Team at a progressive international school in Hong Kong, and lectures on antisemitism at local universities. In part, his book Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People draws on lessons from the gay pride movement as they apply to building pride among the Jewish people.

Quote: “Despite what we are told, Jewish people must never warp or change our identities to fit in. We do not need to make ourselves “acceptable,” because we are acceptable just as we are. Yet we cannot force the non-Jewish world to see that. This is their journey. Our journey is one of Jewish Pride.”

Sources: BenMFreeman.com (introduction), goodreads.com (quotation)

Learn more about the book on Amazon.com.” ►

Watch “Jewish Pride is a Must” with Ben Freeman” [3:27]. ►

Read “Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People by Ben M. Freeman” from goodreaads.com ►

Read “Ben Freeman: Where is our pride in being Jewish?” from thejc.com. ►

Photo: The Blogs — The Times of Israel

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Notable &
Quotable

“[T]he foundations for extremism usually are held in check by various restraints. Societies are not liberal, moderate, progressive, and free because almost all their citizens – let alone their politicians — are liberal, moderate, progressive or committed to the freedoms of others.

“But societies consistently avoid extremism when the infrastructures of freedom are strong: when key institutions and norms encourage a more decent, rights-respective, lawful politics; when powerful social movements and independent media hold leaders to account, expose rather than reinforce political fantasies, and champion the rights of the vulnerable; and when information is produced and scrutinized by scholars, civil servants, and non-governmental organizations devoid of either government repression or vested interests.

“Yet no infrastructure is rigidly immovable, and once key components are eroded and weakened, once sections of the political and cultural elite attempt to mobilize the foundations of extremism, the system of restraints can swiftly collapse.

“While genocide on the scale of the Holocaust is historically exceptional, its central lesson is that the broader danger of extreme atrocities is not. In the words of the great historian Ian Kershaw, the Holocaust ‘lit a warning beacon that still burns brightly: it showed how a modern, advanced, cultured society can so rapidly sink into barbarity… It showed what we are capable of.’ Only by rejecting false narratives of conflict and polarization, and maintaining systems of rights and freedoms for all, can we hope to prevent that capability from once more becoming a reality.”

— Jonathan Leader Maynard in his incisive article “Could It Happen Here?: The Holocaust and Atrocities in the 21st Century” To read the entire article, click here.