Patrick Comerford
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican member of Congress for Georgia, embodies and typifies everything that is frightening and ugly about the Trump campaign. She is a far-right conspiracy theorist who promotes antisemitic and white supremacist views, such as white genocide conspiracy theories, QAnon, and Pizzagate and conspiracy theories that allege government involvement in mass shootings in the US, implicate the Clinton family in murder, and claim the 9/11 attacks were a hoax.
She blames weather forecasters and metereologists for the latest hurriacnes in the US but deines climate change, has supported calls to execute Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, equated the Democratic Party with Nazis, compared Covid-19 safety measures to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, repeated Russian propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine and praised Vladimir Putin.
Greene, who identifies as a ‘Christian nationalist’, supported Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and has promoted Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.
She is an embarrassment even to her own Republicans. The House of Representatives voted to remove her from all committee roles in 2021 in response to her endorsements of political violence, and in 2023 she was expelled from the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
Last Sunday, in a now deleted message to X (formerly Twitter), Marjorie Taylor Greene, sent out a Yom Kippur greeting using images linked to an entirely different Jewish holiday. In her original message, she wrote, ‘To all those preparing for the solemn day of Yom Kippur, I wish you a meaningful fast. Gamar Chasima Tova!’ Along with it was an image of a shofar in front of a Chanukah menorah.
Although she caught her error and tried to correct it, her initial message reminded many people that this is not the first time she has insulted the Jewish community. Back in March, she was similarly called out for writing, ‘Happy Purim! May it bring light, happiness, joy, and honour!’
Greene is long known for wild antisemitic statements. She claims ‘Zionist supremacists’ are secretly masterminding Muslim immigration to Europe in a scheme to outbreed white people. She once claimed wildfires in California had been started by the Rothschilds and other Jewish conspirators using space lasers to clear room for a high-speed rail project.
With those antisemitic images of space lasers in mind, I wonder why she ever thought of sending out greetings to mark Yom Kippur.
And by what right does she think she can decide who will live, and who will die, and how?
Today is Yom Kippur or the Day of Repentance, the most solemn day in the Jewish calendar, and I attended the Kol Nidre service last in Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue last night.
I spent much of this morning in Milton Keynes University Hospital at a consultation following my ECG earlier this week. But it gave me some time to reflect on, and to think about the significance of this most solemn day in the Jewish calendar.
Leonard Cohen’s song ‘Who by Fire’ was released 50 years ago in 1974 on the B side of his album New Skin for the Old Ceremony, sung as a duet with Janis Ian.
‘Who by fire’ is inspired by the Hebrew prayer Unetanneh Tokef (ונתנה תקף) chanted in the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish New Year, and especially on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The prayer describes God reviewing the Book of Life and deciding the fate of each and every soul for the year to come – who will live, and who will die, and how.
Jewish tradition dates this prayer to the 11th century when, it is said, Rabbi Amnon of Mainz was punished for not converting to Christianity by having his hand and feet cut off on Rosh Hashanah.
As he was dying from his wounds, he had a vision of God sitting and writing in a book. In his dying hours, Rabbi Amnon wrote the prayer that begins with ‘Who by fire? And who by water?’ The prayer concludes:
Who will live and who will die;
Who in his due time and who not in his due time;
Who by water and who by fire,
Who by the sword and who by beasts,
Who by famine and who by thirst,
Who by earthquake and who by plague,
Who by strangling and who by stoning.
Who will rest and who will wander,
Who will be tranquil and who will be harassed,
Who will be at ease and who will be troubled,
Who will be rich and who will be poor,
Who will be brought down and who will be raised up?
But Repentance, Prayer and Charity avert the severe decree.
In Jewish tradition, the Book of Life lays open between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and the greeting among Jews in those days is: ‘May your name be written in the Book of Life.’
Leonard Cohen heard this traditional prayer as a child in the synagogue. In Montreal In his own words, he recalls the tradition: ‘On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by stoning.
‘Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquillity and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted.’
At the age of 39, the poet and singer was famous but unhappy and imagined he had reached a creative dead end. In October 1973, he left his home on the Greek island of Hydra for the chaos and bloodshed of the Sinai desert during the Yom Kippur War.
Cohen travelled around the war front with of local musicians, entertaining the troops. In his book Who by Fire, the journalist Matti Friedman told the story of those weeks Cohen spent in the Sinai, with a kaleidoscopic depiction of a harrowing, formative moment for both a country at war and a singer at a crossroads.
The war transformed Cohen. Instead of abandoning his music career, he returned to Hydra and to his family, had a second child, and released his album New Skin for the Old Ceremony. References to war can be heard in a number of the songs, including ‘Lover, Lover, Lover,’ written during fighting, and ‘Who by Fire,’ inspired by the Yom Kippur prayer about human mortality.
The traditional catalogue or listing includes deaths that are natural, accidental, punishment, by decree, and that are unjust. Like the original, Cohen’s Who by Fire,’ tells of a litany of ways and reasons one might meet their death: to this he adds avalanche, greed, hunger, suicide, drugs and the abuse of political power, to the original prayer, and even the cruelty of failures in love: ‘Who by his lady’s command.’
When Cohen introduced the song live in Melbourne, in March 1980, he explained the melody is based on the one he ‘first heard when I was four or five years old, in the synagogue, on the Day of Atonement, standing beside my tall uncles in their black suits.’
He continued: ‘It’s a liturgical prayer that talks about the way in which you can quit this vale of tears. It’s according to a tradition, an ancient tradition that on a certain day of the year, the Book of Life is opened, and in it is inscribed the names of all those who will live and all those who will die, who by fire, who by water.’
The line: ‘And who shall I say is calling?’ can be understood in the context of hearing the Shofar or liturgical horn being blown on Rosh Hashanah. It is a symbolic wake-up call, stirring those who hear it to mend their ways and to repent: ‘Sleepers, wake up from your slumber! Examine your ways and repent and remember your Creator.’ Who is calling? At one level, it is my own heart calling me to Repentance, Prayer and Charity. But, ultimately, it is God who is calling us to Repentance, Prayer and Charity.
It is not surprising that as families in Israel tried to come to terms with the Hamas massacres a year ago on 7 October 2023, Leonard Cohen’s ‘Who By Fire’ was given new lyrics in memory of the 1,200 people murdered in southern Israel.
Meanwhile, his visit to the frontlines of the Yom Kippur war in 1973 was dramatised for a new limited TV series from Keshet International and Sixty-Six Media. Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai is an adaptation of Matti Friedman’s book.
As we come to the end of a year that has been shrouded in hatred, war and death – from the increasing hatred here and across Europe towards refugees and migrants, to the wars in Ukraine, Russia, Gaza, Israel, the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran – there is an urgency to the words of the prayer from the Yom Kippur afternoon service and in Leonard Cohen’s song.
Teach us to number our days, O Lord, that we might apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Leonard Cohen, Who By Fire:
And who by fire, who by water
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial
Who in your merry merry month of May
Who by very slow decay
And who shall I say is calling?
And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate
Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt
And who by avalanche, who by powder
Who for his greed, who for his hunger
And who shall I say is calling?
And who by brave assent, who by accident
Who in solitude, who in this mirror
Who by his lady’s command, who by his own hand
Who in mortal chains, who in power
And who shall I say is calling?
And who shall I say is calling?
And who by fire who by water
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial
Who in your merry merry month of May
Who by very slow decay
And who shall I say is calling?
And who shall I say is calling?
Leonard Cohen, ‘Who by Fire’ (Live in London)
