December 10, 1948, is an important date for all humanity: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in Paris, France. This past December, we celebrated the 75th anniversary of World Human Rights Day.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt and consists of 30 articles documenting an individual’s fundamental freedoms and affirming basic human rights regardless of race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, language, and religion. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education among many others. The UDHR has been translated into 530 languages, more than any document in history. We need to revisit the UDHR given the injustices, violence, and disregard for human rights throughout the world including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and the Israel-Hamas Gaza War.
On the day the UDHR was signed, 5,637 miles away in Los Angeles, I was born. Human rights has been a major theme throughout my parents’ lives and have been a guidepost for my brother and me.
My father, Erwin, was born in Preussich Starogard and moved to Schloppe, Germany. As the Nazis gained power, discrimination against Jews, Communists, Roma (derogatorily known as gypsies) and others exploded. As a teenager my father experienced a shocking event. He approached the one-window post office to buy stamps. A gentile school friend who worked at the post office screamed: You are a stinking Jew. You should keep your filthy Jewish hands off of Barbara, that girl you are dating as she is a Christian. Moreover, I am not going to sell you any stamps, you filthy Jewish pig. He slammed the metal grate window on my father’s fingers and blood spurted everywhere. In 1937, my father escaped from Germany to Los Angeles.
My mother, Ruth, grew up in a Jewish household in Little Rock, Arkansas. She witnessed institutional racism when one day she boarded a bus, walked to the back, and sat down. The bus driver yelled, “Young woman you cannot sit in the back of the bus. That is for the colored” — which is how white Southerners spoke so rudely then. My mother thought, “I have to leave the racist South.” For all of her adult life, Ruth fought for the rights of Black people and other minorities.
When I was three, my family moved from Los Angeles to Burbank — a lily-white, ultra -conservative community where there was an unwritten ordinance that a Black person could not stay overnight. My father and his business partner, Manfred, who survived four long years in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, owned a store. My father convinced the merchants to allow the first Black businessman to open a book store in Burbank.
My mother worked tirelessly to help the underprivileged. She drove 50 miles round-trip each week to a women’s prison to teach a Black woman to read and write. She co-founded the Burbank Human Relations Council to promote human rights and foster “an environment accepting of every person without regard to race, religion, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation or age.” My mother was a founding member of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) in West Los Angeles.
During my junior year at UCLA, I studied at Georg August University in Göttingen, Germany. I traveled to Israel with Ulrich, a German fraternity brother. We worked on Kibbutz Beit HaShita in Northern Israel, where Ulrich was warmly welcomed by Holocaust victims from Germany and shunned by Sabras, native-born Israelis.
My brother, Ron, and I worked to improve the lives of children: Ron, a professor of Clinical Psychology, focused on prevention of violence in young children. I taught at universities, training teachers to develop language/literacy skills in Deaf and disabled children — especially learners of English as a second language.
As a gay high school student, I struggled with coming out of the closet and feared being beaten and ostracized. All my adult life I have fought for LGBTQ+ rights. I volunteered with the Shanti Project providing support for individuals with HIV and promoting social justice and racial equity for individuals who identify as LGBTQ+. I worked with Bend the Arc, a national organization fighting against racism and antisemitism.
I was shocked by the events of October 7 — the murder, rape, and hostage-taking of Israelis. Radhule Weininger reminds us that there are derogatory views on both sides — Israeli and Palestinian. I am troubled about Arab Israelis and Palestinians being treated as second-class citizens and inferior human beings. The recent killing, wounding, and displacement of innocent Palestinian citizens (especially women and children) in Gaza is horrendous. This is where I return to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for guidance.
I distinctly recall the words of Mark Sobel, the former Rabbi of Temple Beth Emet in Burbank. Regarding the suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians, he urged his congregants to pray for the innocent harmed on both sides. Rabbi Sobel argued that Judaism teaches us that all human life is sacred, that thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself and, as Rabbi Hillel argued, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.“This all beckons back to the precepts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
There are glimmers of hope: Many people are striving to promote human rights and peace. My German friend Ekki, with whom I studied in Germany 55 years ago, and Rabbi Steve Cohen, senior rabbi at Congregational B’nai Brith in Santa Barbara, introduced me to the organization Eretz Kulum, A Land for All, proposing a two-state confederation in one homeland based on shared principles of equality, freedom, and dignity. With the UDHR as our template, we must support and nurture these groups. It is up to all of us to strive to implement the goals of peace, social justice and freedom — otherwise, what is the result — the disaster of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.
In a recent sermon, Rabbi Cohen told the congregation, “Just as fear and anger and hatred can spread … so too can light, hope and love.” May the guiding light of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights shine upon us all and illuminate the road to lasting peace throughout the world.