On Yom Kippur, my former synagogue would substitute for the traditional Martyrology a Kaddish for the victims of the Holocaust. The words of the Kaddish were interspersed with the names and places of the victims of extermination. Today, I am interspersing its words with the names of unarmed black people killed by U.S. police in 2015. My source for this information is http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed/.
Yit’gadal
Keith Childress
v’yit’kadash
Bettie Jones
sh’mei raba
Kevin Matthews
b’al’ma
Leroy Browning
di v’ra khir’utei
Roy Nelson
v ‘yam’likh mal’khutei
Miguel Espinal
b’chayeikhon
Nathaniel Pickett
uv’yomeikhon
Tiara Thomas
uv’chayei d’khol beit yis’ra’eil
Cornelius Brown
Ba’agalah
Zamiel Crawford
u-viz’man kariv
Jermaine Benjamin
v’imru: Amen
Chandra Weaver
Y’hei sh’mei raba m’varakh
l’alam ul’al’mei al’maya
Jamar Clark
Yit’barakh
Richard Perkins
v’yish’tabach
Stephen Tooson
v’yit’pa’ar
Michael Lee Marshall
v’yit’romam
Alonzo Smith
v’yit’nasei
Yvens Seide
v’yit’hadar
Anthony Ashford
v’yit’aleh
Lamontey Jones
v’yit’halal
Rayshawn Cole
sh’mei d’kud’sha
Patterson Brown
B’rikh hu.
Christopher Kimball
toosh’b’chatah
Junior Prosper
v’nechematah,
Keith McLeod
da’ameeran b’al’mah,
Wayne Wheeler
v’imru: Amen
India Kager
Y’hei
Tyree Crawford
sh’lama
James Karney, III
raba
Feliz Kumi
min sh’maya
Wendell Hall
v’chayim aleinu
Asshams Manley
v’al kol yis’ra’eil
Christian Taylor
v’im’ru: Amen
Troy Robinson
Oseh shalom
Brian Day
bim’romav
Michael Sabbie
hu ya’aseh shalom
Billy Ray Davis
aleinu
Samuel Dubose
v’al kol Yisrael
Darrius Stewart
v’al yoshvei
Albert Davis
teiveil
Sandra Bland
v’imru: Amen.
May the One who dwells on high make peace for us, all Israel, and all who dwell on earth.
And let us say, Amen.
Similar dynamics are seen wherever people are made to fear their neighbors, to anticipate that every man, woman and child of a certain group must be carrying a bomb, and are told to take “any means necessary” to eliminate, preemptively, the potential of harm. I can think of other cases– societies where statistics for violent death are heavily stacked against one or two particular groups.
It is also worth noting that, if Goldhagen’s book, “Hitler’s Willing Executioners,” is to be believed, the people responsible for the bulk of the killing in cities and towns where Jews had not yet been transported were bog-standard German policemen.
Tim Snyder’s BLOODLANDS goes into much more credible and awful detail. It was worse. Not just bog-standard policemen, but fellow villagers and people with a grudge did their neighbors in quite cheerfully.
Thanks, Haun! Another book to put on the “must read” list and then the “must read” pile!