This article, written by Rabbi David Geffen, appeared in the January 21, 1994, issue of The Jewish Voice. Fifty years ago, Rabbi Geffen was one of the founders of the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware. Today he lives in Jerusalem. The Jewish Historical Society of Delaware continues to preserve the memories and history of the Delaware Jewish community and the life experiences of community members. Learn more about the events and programs planned to celebrate our 50th anniversary at https://jhsdelaware.org/events.
Reflections of a Rabbi on Martin Luther King, Jr.
By Rabbi David Gefen
We welcomed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the evening of March 25, 1968, with the singing of “We Shall Overcome” in Hebrew. He had come to the Concord Hotel in upstate New York to participate in the celebration marking Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel’s 60th birthday, being given at the 68th annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly.
Colleagues in the civil rights struggle, Heschel and King had marched hand in hand in Alabama, from Selma to Montgomery, in the summer of 1965. The two had challenged the clergy of America to enter the struggle for Black civil rights.
“Martin Luther King,” Heschel stressed in his own inimitable fashion, “is a sign that God has not forsaken the United States of America. His presence is the hope of America. His mission is sacred, his leadership of supreme importance to every one of us.”
Heschel then called upon “every Jew to hearken to King’s voice, to share his vision and follow in his way.”
As Heschel called King forward, the audience rose as one to give this non-violent leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate a standing ovation.
Almost immediately, King remarked on our song of greeting. His face shining, he said that hearing the Black struggle theme song “We Shall Overcome” in Hebrew for the first time had been a “beautiful experience.”
He did not deliver a speech that evening. Instead, he answered questions which we had submitted earlier.
A preacher in the Southern tradition, his words carried both passion and softness. When he urged us to “take a stand for that which is just,” he used the words of the Prophet Amos, “Let justice roll down like the waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
King’s career was one of striving for equality for Black Americans. But in a sense, it was a greater struggle for the just treatment of all humankind.
Most of the questions that evening focused on the civil rights movement, but, at one point they turned to Black-Jewish communal relations. King argued that antisemitism, in its historic sense, did not exist in the Black community. But he did not rule out the fact that other forms of antisemitism might be present.
He was very forthright about what had to be done to rectify the situation when it arose. “I think our responsibility in the Black community is to make it very clear that we must never confuse ‘some’ with ‘all.’ And certainly, in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (King’s group) we have consistently condemned antisemitism.” Then he underlined a basic tenet of this philosophy, for which he stood out among Black leaders.
“We have made it clear that we cannot be the victims of the notion that you deal with one evil in society by substituting another evil. We cannot substitute one tyranny for another.
“For the Black man to be struggling for justice and then turn around and be antisemitic is not only a very irrational course but it is a very immoral course. And whenever we have seen antisemitism, we have condemned it with all our might,” he said.
Right after making this moving statement, King gave his last and most often quoted pronouncement about Israel:
“I think it is necessary to say that what is basic and what is needed in the Middle East is peace. Peace for Israel is one thing. Peace for the Arab side of the world is another thing.
“Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all of our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity,” said King.
He then waxed eloquent in his inimitable style.
“I see Israel, and never mind saying it, as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done. How desert land can almost be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality,” said King.
Ten days later, on April 4, 1968, he was dead, the victim of an assassin’s bullet in Memphis, Tennessee. The voice of King had been silenced, but his spirit lived on, bringing change to America and serving as an example of the rest of the world.
Born in Atlanta in 1929, King was raised in his father’s congregation, the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Earning a doctorate at Boston University, he became a pastor in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1954.
There, he initiated his non-violent campaigns, boycotts, and sit-down strikes aimed at rolling back the segregation laws then in existence there and in other parts of the South.
Returning to Atlanta in 1960 to be co-pastor with his father, he subsequently organized the freedom rides of the early 1960s.
On August 28, 1963, leading the historic march on Washington, King delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech before the Washington Monument.
In 1964, at the age of 35, he became the youngest man ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Four years later, at the height of his power, he was assassinated.
While King was leading the march on Washington, my wife Rita and I were students in Jerusalem.
The newspapers and radios were trying to accurately depict the meaning of that event. It was only a week later, however, while Rita and I were sitting in a cinema to see a movie that we actually understood the universal impact on that march.
As we watched the march unfold on a newsreel preceding the feature film, a young Israeli behind us stopped the traditional Israeli cracking of sunflower seeds. He listened as King intoned the words “I have a dream.”
“Zeh manhig—that’s a leader,” the young man said aloud to his girlfriend.
Annually, when the United States celebrates Martin Luther King Day, the State of Israel also recognizes King and the importance of his work. The process began in the 1970s when the King Memorial Forest was planted in Galilee.
Then, in 1986, the city of Jerusalem and the State of Israel chose two ways to mark his memory. In January of that year a street adjacent to Liberty Bell Park was named in King’s honor, in the presence of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, U.S. Ambassador Thomas Pickering, and Mayor Teddy Kollek.
Later that day, a reception was held in the Knesset’s Chagall Hall at which speeches were made by Shamir, Pickering, Defense Minister Moshe Arens, Knesset member Abba Eban, and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. When the Knesset session was opened, tribute was paid to King’s memory by Knesset Speaker Shlomo Hillel and Education Minister Yitzhak Navon.
Moreover, the Israeli government issued a Hebrew-language booklet for students about King, which included his biography and selections from his speeches. The booklet was distributed to over a quarter of a million Israeli public school students.
Now and forever in the city of Jerusalem, a city of prophets and dreamers, Martin Luther King, Jr. Street will forever be a testimony to that great leader who stood for freedom, justice, and an end to bigotry.
Rabbi David Geffen is religious leader of Temple Israel in Scranton, Pa., and author of “The American Heritage Haggadah.”
