07/22/2026
I am so honored! The Sarasota Herald-Tribune ran my op-ed about John Lewis and antisemitism today! It’s called “John Lewis Taught All of Us to Stand up and Speak Out.”
In case you don’t have a copy of the paper, here it is:
By Rabbi Jennifer Singer
Years ago, I spent a few hours with the former Congressman John Lewis. We were volunteering at a health fair in Atlanta and had been assigned to the same booth. It was long after his days marching with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but months before his memorable speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention.
We spent the day chatting. Nothing earth-shattering, nothing historic. Just two people committed to serving the community, standing side by side.
The sixth anniversary of John Lewis’s death was last week, and I found myself remembering our time together.
We stood for hours because someone had forgotten to bring chairs. I was too shy to ask for one. He was too modest.
He was a quiet man, dedicated to doing what’s right. We love to quote him about getting in good trouble. Here is the entire quote:
“When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to stand up, speak up, speak out, and find a way to get in the way and get in trouble. Good trouble. Necessary trouble.”
John Lewis lived a life of service to his community, and he did indeed stand up and speak out.
Don’t Let Antisemitism Define Us
The idea of standing up has taken hold in my mind as I consider the recent upsurge in antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Not that it is anything new. Antisemitism has been around for thousands of years. It’s not going to go away.
The question today is the same one that Jews have been asking ourselves from time immemorial.
What do we do about it?
How do we function, how can we possibly flourish, in a world that continues to turn against us, to weaponize words, religion, ethics, and conspiracy theories?
The remarkable thing about Jews is that we have continued to flourish. Again and again, we have succeeded.
We have written great literature, made great discoveries, led the world as scientists and physicians and composers and artists.
We have done wonderful things. It’s just that we tend to think back to the times when things were really bad. Don’t get me wrong – I know that history has proved ongoing hatred for and violence against the Jews.
I believe that what we need most is not to make fighting antisemitism the center of Jewish life.
That battle matters, and we should never ignore it. But our greater task is to nourish ourselves as individuals, as communities, and as a people.
I want to see us become so deeply rooted in who we are that hatred loses its power to define us.
And I think John Lewis was right: We have to stand up.
One of the most amazing things about the Jewish people is the prayer called the Mourner’s Kaddish. It’s written in Aramaic, which was the lingua franca — the common language — of its day. It’s too bad that we don’t pay attention to the meaning of the words. Because it doesn’t talk about mourning. It doesn’t talk about death.
It talks about transcendence. It talks about rising above the mundane and understanding that there is something greater than. Something greater than me, something greater than you, something greater than prejudice, something greater than death.
It is an affirmation of the power of community. This is why we are required to have a minyan to recite the prayer. It is not said solo. We have many other prayers that we can say on our own which proclaim God’s oneness, God’s greatness, God’s majesty. But that’s not really the point of this particular prayer.
Let’s Rise Above the Hatred
This prayer is about rising above. Perhaps that's one reason Jews have long stood to recite it. Standing becomes its own declaration: even in the darkest times, we remain upright. We have the strength and the conviction, and we demonstrate that by standing together in community.
Most of us are not politicians or famous civil rights leaders. We will never march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge or address Congress. But every one of us has opportunities, every single day, to choose who we will be.
We can choose to stand up, to stand tall.
We can define ourselves by the richness of Jewish life—by learning, by kindness, by generosity, by prayer, by justice, by community, by joy.
That, I believe, is how the Jewish people have survived for thousands of years. Not because our enemies disappeared—they never did—but because we refused to become merely victims. We kept building communities. We kept raising children. We kept asking difficult questions, creating beauty, arguing with God, studying Torah, comforting mourners, feeding the hungry, and blessing one another.
That is our answer.
Not simply to fight antisemitism, but to outlive it. To outcreate it. To outlove it.
To stand so firmly rooted in who we are that hatred cannot define us.
That has always been the Jewish way—not merely to endure history, but to keep creating it.
Rabbi Singer has served the Sarasota community for nearly 30 years. She is founder of The Jewish Open Tent, offering online education to adults.
