Nachum Segal’s Concert of Jewish Unity: Lighting up Paris

It is almost hard to believe that it has been just a year since the horrific events in Paris in January of 2015. 

The painful memories of the attack at the Charlie Hebdo magazine, followed by the murderous strike on the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket, persist when we are forced to contend with all that has happened since. 

It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that the times we live in are more tumultuous and uncertain than any that we have seen since the end of World War II. Rarely does a day go by in which another innocent person doesn’t lose his or her life to the madness that is modern-day terrorism.

So as we gathered in Paris last week for “Let There Be Light: A Concert of Jewish Unity,” a Chanukah event designed to unite the Jewish world, I would argue that never before has the concept of Jewish unity been more important.

It is well-known that throughout our history, the Jewish people have been the victims of hatred, discrimination, persecution, and genocide in degrees far greater than any other group. While sadly there is no easy or comprehensive response to ensure our complete safety against those threats, it is also apparent that the best-possible response that we can present in the face of terror is to stand united.

As damaging as our enemies have been to the wellbeing of the Jewish people, we must also admit that all too often our failure to unite has been the very recipe for our undoing.

The Jewish world today is divided along political and cultural lines, and we are certainly divided along religious lines. 

While this diversity can often be described as a positive, when our various factions fail to live and work alongside one another, we are largely failing to embrace the dictum which should define Jewry as one people with one heart.

Though we all can trace our roots back to Sinai, since that time those roots seem to have grown further and further from the source. We are a people of sects, streams, differing ideologies, and countless forms of practice and dress. The old joke of “two Jews, three opinions” is not just a humorous take on our social practices—it is a truism that defines who we are as a people.