June 4

On June 4th, 1939, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull denied the request of the MS St. Louis to dock in Florida. The boat was carrying 963 Jewish passengers who were fleeing Hamburg, Germany. Anti-immigrant and antisemitic policies in Cuba, the U.S., Canada, and England meant the boat was forced to return to Europe, and let off most of its passengers in Belgium. 254 of those returning died in the Holocaust. The event has been referred to as “The Voyage of the Damned.” This rejection of refugees by “civilized” nations accelerated and justified Zionism and the creation of a homeland for Jews, and is one of many reasons why generationally-traumatized Jews continue to perpetuate genocide in Gaza against Palestinians. 

Today in 1919, the U.S. Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting the United States or its member states from denying a citizen the right to vote “on account of sex.” It was ratified by the states a little over a year later. 

Today is also the birthday, in 1928, of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, holocaust survivor and sex therapist. After earning her doctorate, she began her famous career by training women in Harlem to be community sex educators, a grassroots harm reduction campaign. She died just last year, in 2024. 

Reflection:

In 2021, speaking of the holocaust, Dr. Ruth said: “We must keep saying to the young people, 'Think of these words — never again! Never again!' All of this must never happen again." While she was solidly in the Zionist tradition and, I think, too supportive of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians, she posted this in October 2023, after Hamas’s massacre and kidnapping of Israeli citizens: 

I share this not to “both sides” what is clearly an ongoing genocide in Gaza, but to point out the circularity of violence and trauma. Many people who say “never again” are perpetuating genocide right now. 

The rejection of the Jewish refugees aboard the MS St. Louis reminds me of Resmaa Menakem’s work on generational trauma from his book My Grandmother’s Hands:

When I visited Israel in 2006, I heard a Jewish settler-colonizer in the West Bank explain how he justified taking land from Palestinians: “The Jewish people have suffered more than any others in the world,” he said, “and God gave us this land, from the Nile to the Euphrates.”

It is against this rhetoric that a similar saying developed: “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free.” It is frustrating to me that so many Americans have heard this chant associated with antisemitism, but have no knowledge of the “Nile to the Euphrates” quote (which comes from Genesis 15 where says that God will give the land to all Abraham’s descendants—not exclusively his Jewish descendants).

It is important to understand the story of the rejected refugees in order to understand why the Israeli military is currently dismembering and burning entire families in Gaza. This is what generational trauma looks like. Menakem points out that racial trauma in the United States likewise began with the religious and political violence of Europe, in which the church burned witches and heretics at the stake, and the violence of poverty created by the feudal system and then later, by capitalism. Menakem talks about “white-body supremacy” instead of just “white supremacy,” reminding his readers that trauma happens to embodied human beings. 

We acknowledge this past not to justify what oppressors do, but to understand how important and intertwined the work of political activism and spiritual/psychological healing are. The trauma we allow to continue will come back on this generation’s children and great-grandchildren. 

Prayer: God, we live in a wounded, traumatized culture. Help us to be about the work of healing and justice. Amen.