From the Rabbi

IN THE FACE OF HATE

Sometime this past Sunday night, the exterior wall of Ottawa’s National Holocaust Monument was painted in bright red letters with the words FEED ME. 

News Story, June 9, 2025:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/national-holocaust-monument-in-ottawa-defaced-with-feed-me-graffiti-1.7556179 

On Monday afternoon I was contacted by CBC radio and agreed to be interviewed on the matter.

Radio Interview, June 10, 2025:

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-100-ottawa-morning/clip/16151486-national-holocaust-memorial-defaced

In this moment, I only wish to add the words of Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jew who perished at Auschwitz in April 1943 at the age of 29. Like the younger diarist Anne Frank, she brought deep insight and maturity to bear in the face of unfathomably perilous conditions. Echoing Frank’s famous passage about still believing people are good at heart, Hillesum wrote this in December 1942:

I know that those who hate have good reason to do so. But why should we always have to choose the cheapest and easiest way? It has been brought home forcibly to me here how every atom of hatred added to the world makes it an even more inhospitable place. And I also believe, childishly perhaps but stubbornly, that the earth will become habitable again only through love.

Rabbi Liz