Perspective:Herman Melville and the Skokie Problem
Brusin, David
PERSPECTIVE DAVID BRUSIN HERMAN MELVILLE AND THE SKOKIE PROBLEM A Time to Protest Herman Melville's paradoxical story, "Bartleby the Scrivener" (1853), concerns the relationship between a quiet,...
...Several Jewish sources on protest help clarify the issues...
...At such a moment, we would do well to follow Mordechai's example, responding to those who would challenge the legality or propriety of our actions with one insight, no more and no less: Ich bin a Yid...
...The justice or injustice of the Nazis' presence in Skokie or elsewhere is presumably a matter for the law, in its own exacting and painfully objective way, to determine...
...When the Nazis announce that they are going to march in Skokie, our reply must be: "We prefer not...
...His work has appeared in Philo-sophia and The Reconstructionist...
...There is a limit to what others can do to me without regard for me...
...Right and wrong, justice and injustice do not enter into Bar-tleby's silent and negative protest...
...yet he can never forget what he saw, what he did, or what he failed to do...
...In Parashat Korah Moses objects to the severe punishment for those who joined Korah's rebellion...
...Rabbi David Brusin is Director of Education in Niles Township Jewish Congregation in Skokie, Illinois...
...Moses pleads, "When one man sins, will you be wrathful with the whole community...
...The community of Skokie was not prepared to accept responsibility for the sins of the world, though it was not clear then how being Jewish affected this particular kind of response...
...I, loo, am a person who feels and thinks and hurts and loves...
...if he could protest and prevent his fellow citizens, he is accountable for the sins of his fellow citizens...
...Did they think they could remain neutral, unmoved and untouched by the controversy that raged around them...
...He said to them: What does it matter to you, am I not boring under my own place...
...His fellow travelers said to him: What are you doing...
...What bothers the employer is that Bartleby is not "cheerfully industrious" but writes on "silently, palely, mechanically...
...This passive resistance in the form of "I prefer not to" continues until the inevitable occurs: Bartleby prefers not to do any work at all, at the same time preferring not to quit the office...
...Response bility as a legal category falls far short of its function in halachic Judaism...
...Bartleby labors in an isolated corner of the office, completely shut off from the other law clerks, yet close enough to be within range of his employer's commanding voice...
...Shabbat 54b) Failing to act is to render oneself an accessory to the fact...
...Whether in the context of our constitutional democracy it is right or wrong, proper or improper, for this band of idiots and imbeciles to parade through the streets of America, on the sidewalks of survivors, is not the issue that we as Jews must address...
...So spokesmen for the Holocaust survivors, for the rabbis, for the JDL and for Federation, explain and debate and debate and explain...
...But the time was ripe for protest...
...Unlike Bartleby, however, we want the world to understand why we feel as we do...
...When he said, "I prefer not to" again and again, he was in effect saying: / will be noticed now...
...It is sometimes difficult to justify such a stand from a required legal or moral point of view...
...A well-known midrash comments as follows: R. Simeon ben Yohai taught: This may be compared to the case of men on a ship, one of whom took a borer and began boring beneath his own place...
...Through this act he asserts that he does after all exist as a self...
...This is at the root of our protest as well...
...you figure out why, if you care...
...Perhaps there is no better expression of this view of protest than is found in Mordechai in the Purim story...
...One day when asked to compare a copy sheet, Bartleby quietly informs his employer, "I prefer not to...
...By railing to act against Korah, they thereby became involved, like it or not...
...hence they are made to suffer the same punishment as those directly responsible...
...For Bartleby the ultimate issue was his very humanity...
...I am a Jew...
...With no anger or resentment, Bartleby sets a limit to his willingness to be treated as a non-human machine...
...One can learn a great deal by comparing Skokie's yearlong protest against the National Socialist Party of America and the character of Bartleby...
...The Jews of Skokie sensed from the start that there was no middle ground to which they could retreat...
...Similarly, there are moments when the justification for the Jews' protest makes sense only in the context of our own unique and enigmatic history...
...Ours is the question that Bartleby the Scrivener had to confront...
...Did they think they could observe passively and not be affected...
...if [he could protest and prevent] the whole world [from sinning and does not], he is accountable for the whole world...
...The Talmud uses more literal language to make the same point: Rav, R. Hanina, R. Johanan taught the following: Whoever can protest and prevent his household from committing a sin and does not, is accountable for the sins of his household...
...There were times, though, when I wished we had followed Bartleby's lead and merely stated: We prefer not...
...There comes a time for realistic, non-apologetic self-assertion...
...And a midrash explains: They said to Mordechai: Don't you realize that you are going to make all of us fall by the sword...
...Mordechai replied: I am a Jew...
...PERSPECTIVE DAVID BRUSIN HERMAN MELVILLE AND THE SKOKIE PROBLEM A Time to Protest Herman Melville's paradoxical story, "Bartleby the Scrivener" (1853), concerns the relationship between a quiet, unassuming, "pitiably respectable" copyist and his employer, a tax lawyer and a simple man who by his own admission was filled from his youth "with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best...
...Yalkut Shemoni II) Melville's Bartleby knew what he had to do...
...A witness doesn't always choose his role as witness...
...Vayikra Rabba 4,6) The community witnessed what Korah was doing...
...He simply will no longer allow himself to be treated as a nonentity...
...How long will we, as Jews, allow ourselves to be ignored, to be overlooked...
...They said: Because the water will well up and flood the ship for all of us...
...the consequences of his statement do not concern Bartleby—he remains a simple, non-reflective man throughout the work...
...Who do you think you are, nullifying the King's decree...
...We are told: "But Mordechai would not kneel or bow low" to Haman...
...Yet certainly there are other times and other priorities when there really is no need to make explanations...
...Hiding behind the complexity of the law is still a form of hiding...
Vol. 4 • January 1979 • No. 3
