Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, speaking at the Kyiv Jewish Forum 2020, said that in the history of mankind there have been and there are many individualist cultures, as in Greece, Rome and in the modern West, and collectivist cultures, as in the USSR and communist China; but only in Judaism these two cultures coexist together.
“There was a Catholic historian called Paul Johnson, who wrote a book called “A History of the Jews”, one of the best histories of Jews ever written. And one day I asked him: What did most impress you about the Jews? And this is what he said: “There have been many individualistic cultures in history; there have been many collectivist cultures in history, but I only know of one case that teaches both individual and collective responsibility at the same time – and that is Judaism. However, in the last 50 years we have lost it,” Sacks said.
In his opinion, the competitive “I” began to force out the cooperative “We” after 1946, that is, after the Second World War: “This is how we became “I”- society”.
“The pandemic, I don't know if anyone has noticed it, is the most curious empirical test of “I” versus “We”, ever. Because already in March it was announced that wearing masks did not protect you against others, but it did protect others against you. So wearing a mask was a measure of altruism: it said you cared about others as much as you cared about yourself. But in the United States and Great Britain there were very few such people, because the rest considered wearing a mask an infringement of their personal liberty. These great countries, which have turned into the “I” societies, are among the worst in the world in the fight against coronavirus because they have forgotten “We”. And I have friends in America who even say they have fear of the civil war,” Sacks said.
Sacks noted that in order to restore balance, a nation has to have a story that we all share. It has to have a day in the year when it tells that story and it celebrates it together, the way Jews do it on Pesach.
“It has then to empower young people to do something to build that society in accordance with their ideals. And no country, I think, right now, does that as effectively as Israel. Every young Israeli somehow serves the Jewish people. And this, I think, is the most impressive thing in Israel,” says Sacks.
As reported, Kyiv Jewish Forum 2020 was held online on September 8-9. The forum was organized by the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine in partnership with the Jerusalem Post. On the first day of the forum, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the participants with a welcoming speech. According to the JCU President Boris Lozhkin, the annual Kyiv Jewish Forum has become a global platform for discussing the most relevant issues of the Jewish community and the whole world.