My Journey as a Shomer - Column 1
Written by Lana Melman for the SOUTH FLORIDA JEWISH JOURNAL / SUN SENTINEL. Originally published on Jan 2023.
In Jewish religious law, a shomer is a guardian entrusted to take care of others. In today’s world, when antisemitism is coming from every direction and mounting daily, we all need to become a shomer for the Jewish people and for the Jewish homeland, Israel.
Each one of us will have a different path and can act in different ways, but we all need to work toward one end – to shake off the shackles of being the world’s scapegoat. I am a shomer and this was my journey.
I grew up in a safer time. I rode my bike around my neighborhood in Los Angeles until dark and took the bus to the beach with friends when I was twelve. No harm could come to me, so it seemed, as long as I observed the golden rule, which was always some version of “don’t get into a car with strangers.”
My family was not religious. My sense of identity came from the holidays, some Yiddish words, and my sense of tribe. I lived in a middle-class Jewish community where the local movie theater’s outgoing message began with, “Shalom, bubbe. Here is this week’s movie schedule for your enjoyment.”
My feeling about the world changed forever, however, when I learned about the Holocaust. I was nine-years old sitting crossed-legged on a white shag carpet gazing up at my mother as she told me about the starvation, the ovens, and the six million who were murdered solely because they were Jews. It was as if my DNA changed. Her lesson ended with the miracle of Israel and the promise of “Never Again.
Before long, I learned that anti-Jewish discrimination existed in the United States as well as in Europe. My parents explained that we Jews had to live in our own neighborhoods, go to our own schools, and join our own clubs because we were not welcomed in the non-Jewish neighborhoods, non-Jewish schools, and non-Jewish clubs. When Blacks and other minorities speak of intergenerational trauma, I understand exactly what they mean.
While I was raising my children and working in Hollywood as an entertainment attorney and then creative executive-turned writer/producer, I believed that the dark cloud of antisemitism had finally passed over us. After all, the doors that were closed to my parents were open to me. The horror of the Holocaust had shaken the soul of the world and awaken all to the evil that is Jew-hatred.
But I was wrong. Jew-hatred had once again taken hold in our academic institutions and then invaded the world of art and entertainment. In 2011, I took up arms against the cultural boycott campaign which pressures international artists to boycott Israel and international venues to discriminate against Israeli artists. I served as the premier director of an entertainment-based nonprofit called Creative Community for Peace and contacted the representatives of almost a thousand artists who were being attacked for defying the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. I let them know what to expect and encouraged them to continue their role as peace ambassadors, among other things.
It became increasingly clear to me that the cultural boycott campaign is the newest, and potentially most dangerous, face of modern-day Jew-hatred. It traffics in age-old lies about Jews, uses the celebrity of artists to spread disinformation about Israel, and is stirring up worldwide antisemitism.
In 2015, I created Liberate Art to take my work into the public square and share my knowledge with hundreds of thousands of people. As CEO, I have interviewed artists, spoken to groups, written for international publications, and have been interviewed by international multimedia platforms.
This past year, I published my first book titled Artists Under Fire: The BDS War against Celebrities, Jews, and Israel. It serves as a textbook and toolbox in the battle against BDS. I am traveling across the US and abroad to share my message with diverse audiences, and today, I am writing the first piece in my new column for the Florida Jewish Journal.
Rising antisemitism is like quicksand beneath our feet. We cannot let it engulf us again. What can you do? Raise your voice. Sign petitions. Learn our history. Arm our children against the hate they face.
When we claim our right to live free of fear and discrimination and call out anti-Jewish racism in every form, we make the words “Never Again” a reality, not a promise.
Follow my column, and we can do this together. You are more powerful than you think.