In memory of the Beth Israel library in Jackson, Mississippi

All the Jewish books burned

Rabbi Yohanna Kinberg

I inherited a Jewish library once.

Far too young to inherit.

Boxes and boxes and boxes—

Talmud, Hasidic tales,

Jewish political theory, ancient and contemporary,

Midrash, halacha, piyyutim,

the books of the Gedolim,

Haskalah, poetry,

Torah commentaries meant for shelves I did not own.

A Jewish library.

A collection of a lifetime arrived at my door—

my studio apartment—

just months after my dad died.

Delivered to my doorstep.

For you.

I was not even a rabbi,

had not even begun my studies,

and still I inherited a whole rabbinic library.

It was now in my care:

wisdom and tales and laws and recipes,

and poems and songs and histories of my people—

in boxes,

to move with me wherever I go.

Today it is kept safe

behind gates and locks and alarms

in my husband’s study at Temple Beth Hatifloh.

My inheritance.

And when I look at the burnt-out library in Mississippi this morning,

I see precious inheritance lost.

Burning our books is violence to a people.

We are a people of the Book.

Our books are heavy.

We have lived and died

by their words and ideas and stories.

Left unprotected,

they will burn our books.

They will burn us.

They want us to inherit nothing.

The violence is ongoing—

not only bodies,

but memory,

lineage,

names.

But I did inherit something.

Boxes and boxes:

a lifetime refusing to vanish.

Spines that say: we were here.

Margins that say: we argued, we sang, we made law, we made soup, we made God.

They can burn a building.

They cannot burn the carrying.

So I will carry this library for the rest of my life.

Share it and teach it and keep it safe—

a precious inheritance—

keep it safe

for the next generation.

Fire and text and survival.