In response to disheartening times, Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” All too often though, we allow fear to blind our eyes and cloud our judgment. We approach individuals and situations with preconceived biases that result in unwarrantedly lashing out with discrimination against imagined threats. With this Action Theme, NFTY refuses to take anything for granted, instead recognizing and addressing the imperfections of the world and us. We are part of the problem, but we are also part of its solution. In response to perceived threats, our society has often entered into a state of irrational fear, including fear of the unknown, fear of leaders, and even fear of our fellow citizens, based upon premature assumptions. In just the last century, we witnessed the unjust internment of Japanese Americans and Canadians as well as the hysteria of the Cold War’s Red Scare. Fear manifesting itself in oppression was nothing new in the 1940s, and history has a nasty habit of echoing itself. Today, we battle with the fear of terrorism and immigrants; of sexuality and more. We are affected largely by the pressures and biases conveyed by the media and by our society, in which discrimination already has its roots. Such discrimination manifests itself all too often in the form of violence, such as in the Matthew Shepard case. The Anti-Defamation League claims that the reported 7,163 hate crime incidents in 2005 is “clearly incomplete” and nowhere near the actual total.
As individuals, we have been both victims and perpetrators of personal and society fears. As Jews, we value Kibud Habriot (the dignity of all people) and can affirm this value by looking within ourselves to confront our biases and treat all equally. As Reform Jews we have a responsibility to act in response to such stimuli in the world to provide greater understanding and compassion and to reject blanket fear and bigotry and love the stranger, as extolled in Ex. 23:9. One of NFTY’s core values is Hitpatchut: Personal Growth and Ethics, a prerequisite to approaching all of NFTY's other values.
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