If there is one part of the annual dinner that I would avoid altogether if I could, it would be the president’s farewell address. Therefore, in the interest of saving time at the annual dinner while still doing justice to the thoughts that have been percolating in my mind over the course of this wonderful year, I wanted to share some of my thoughts here on the Decalogue Society’s Facebook page. I’m the first president to talk to our membership through Facebook. I think it has made Decalogue more accessible; and I hope that future presidents follow this model.
First, I want to give recognition where it is due. Being president of the Decalogue Society is not a full-time job. In many ways, it is much more than that. At the same time, I’ve remarked many times that the Society could really run itself. We have a number of committees that function fairly independently, including the Social Action committee, the Judicial Evaluations committee (known affectionately… or sometimes not so affectionately, as JEC), the Committee Against Anti-Semitism, the Tablets committee which produces our publication, The Tablets, the CLE committee, the Technology committee, the Young Lawyers committee and the Law Students committee that work in tandem. We have a Board of Managers. We have the Executive Committee, whose Second Vice President is charged with chairing our busiest committee, the Events committee.
The committee chairs, board, and executive committee members run this Society. They work hard. They should be recognized. I don’t think any of our events this year would have been anywhere near as successful as they were without the help of Patrick John, our second vice president. He has worked tirelessly for the Decalogue Society, and he has done so largely in the shadows (despite how tall he is).
Aviva Miriam Patt, our executive director, is our rock. She is our secret weapon. At the annual dinner last year, I said that she runs the Society, and I can now confirm that with firsthand experience. She deserves our thanks.
I’ve leaned on a number of people this year, but none more than Mitchell Goldberg, the immediate past president, who can now (finally) take a rest from some of his labors for our Society. I doubt he’ll fade into obscurity. But I hope he at least takes a short break. Knowing him, that isn’t likely.
This year, we set out to increase our connections to the bar at large, and to the affinity bar associations we work with. One of the ways we did this was to have regular low-key socials with other bar associations. This not only gave Decalogue members the ability to mingle and network with other attorneys – one of the most important immediate benefits of membership in our organization – but it helped us forge relationships with other bar associations. I’m proud that this happened on my watch, and I hope that we continue to cultivate relationships with bar associations.
To put it in the vernacular, we have each other’s back. Decalogue was one of the bar associations that stood beside the Arab American Bar Association in the weeks after 9/11, when Islamophobic and anti-Arab sentiment was rising. They had our back this year in light of the rising anti-Semitism we’ve seen here in Chicago and elsewhere. We put on a joint program with the Advocates Society regarding changes in Poland, including the rising anti-Semitism there. The Chicago Bar Association and others put together a CLE on hate crimes and hate speech in the wake of anti-Semitic events late last year. We’re thankful for these partnerships, and we will only build on them.
This may be as good a place as any to point out one of the fascinating things I’ve learned in this role: the Arab American Bar Association appoints their presidents to two-year terms. I’m thankful that we haven’t adopted that model yet – I need a break – but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Developing a rhythm, understanding how to lead an organization like this one, takes time. I was amazingly involved in this organization as the second vice president (I never held the office of first vice president). I put in a ridiculous number of hours. Still, the unique challenge of being president of the organization was a shock. I doubt I would have a different opinion of the matter if I’d taken the office ten or twenty years down the road. One of the areas where we have specific challenges is in the area of continuity. Whatever we are today may or may not be what we are in a handful of years. Giving the president the ability to establish continuity through a longer term in office is something we should look into.
As both a board member and in the role of president, I’ve focused on that continuity as part of the long-term sustainability of the organization. This year, I did that in part through reconstituting the Strategic Planning committee. I’ll continue to be involved in that committee in the coming years as we ascertain our core strengths and build on them. Decalogue is important, and one way we can ensure that we will always be there as a bulwark against anti-social movements is to ensure, in the most literal sense, that we will always be there. Technology and changing social patterns have threatened the sustainability of nearly ever bar association out there. Decalogue is not unique in facing these challenges. But we will rise to the challenge and become greater for it.
Finally, I’ve tried very hard to respect the independence of the Judicial Evaluations Committee. One of this year’s honorees is Su Horn, who was one of JEC’s pioneers. She’s done the bulk of the logistical work in making sure that our JEC is among the most respected of the Alliance bar associations. A Recommended rating by Decalogue is not easy to achieve. It carries weight. That’s partly due to our JEC’s fierce independence. The president and the board have no say over the ratings given by JEC. That has allowed our JEC members to honestly appraise judicial candidates. I wouldn’t have it any other way; and I say that not only as an outgoing president, but as an incoming co-chair of the JEC.
That brings me to a touchy subject: Jewish judges. The number of Jewish judges as a percentage of Cook County judges has fallen in recent years. On one hand, Decalogue is committed to as qualified a judiciary as possible – and that means that in a given race, we want to see the best candidate win, whether or not that candidate is a member of the tribe (or, for that matter, the Decalogue Society). On the other hand, we view the changes in the judiciary with some trepidation. One of the things that the Strategic Planning committee is going to have to face, along with the Board of Managers, is promoting the qualified among us. I can think of quite a few of our membership, including members of our Board and past presidents, who would make phenomenal judges. How we promote qualified Decalogue members while simultaneously respecting the independence of JEC and its role in rating judicial candidates is a task for the incoming Board. I’ll be part of that conversation, but only part. It is an important conversation to have, and it’s one of the areas where we may have room to grow.
Speaking of room to grow, the zero-sum nature of the modern political scene may not be new – though some have claimed otherwise – but it certainly is corrosive to American society, and I believe that it is becoming more and more corrosive rapidly. I’m not talking about electoral politics. Frankly, I think Andrew Breitbart was right when he said that politics is downstream from culture. I’m talking about our culture. When I spoke at the annual meeting last year, I made the comment that our influence is usually the strongest among those who are closest to us. Here in Chicago, we frequently pat ourselves on the back for our brave stance against Donald Trump, a figure who had no more chance of winning Cook County than he had of defeating Michael Phelps in a swimming competition. I see no bravery in that. Bravery is in taking a meaningful stand when the expedient thing is not to.
The rise in anti-Semitic and authoritarian activism on the left may be paralleled by a similar rise in the right. It may even be the case that, on the right, the problems are more acute. There is plenty of evidence of that. I wouldn’t know because I live in Chicago, where the problems aren’t on the right. They couldn’t be. In general, right-wingers in Chicago either don’t exist, or they’re too afraid to show their faces. But anti-Semitism and authoritarian behavior, the refusal to hear the other side – or, worse, the refusal to allow another side to exist – flourishes here all the same.
We can point fingers, of course. And we would be right to do so. A national media that turns a high school student into the embodiment of 1984’s Emmanuel Goldstein – an enemy of the progressive regime – for the crime of smiling with a hat on should not be trusted to report on anything, much less to drive the national conversation on issues that matter. And the New York Times, with its anti-Semitic cartoons, and its cartoonish portrayal of national and world affairs shouldn’t be trusted as anything other than toilet paper.
But in reality, our influence only stretches so far. Indeed, our influence is usually the strongest among those who are closest to us. A couple of years ago, the Dyke March in Chicago threw out Jews for brandishing the Star of David, the symbol of our religion. The symbol that Hitler forced our people to wear so they could be identified – as Jews, not as Zionists – was now a triggering event for cowards and authoritarians alike. The scene has now repeated itself, most recently in Washington, D.C.
If you’re brave enough to call out Donald Trump for his latest stupid tweet but not brave enough to call clear anti-Semitism what it is, you are not brave.
Historians will tell you that the rise of the Third Reich was not an overnight electoral success. It first took hold in the culture of the Weimar Republic. The Weimar Republic had a constitution. It had due process. It had well-meaning laws meant to protect the rights and freedoms of the German people. It had all of the things that people impotently point to as evidence of why what happened there couldn’t happen here.
The culture of authoritarianism, which seems to always accompany anti-Semitism, is a tumor in this country. If it ever was benign, it is no longer.
That is as good a segue as I’ll manage for how happy I am that Helen Bloch is going to be taking the helm of this important and historic organization. She is a fierce advocate. She is brave and strong. She’s forged connections within our community and without. Her family should be proud of her for many reasons. But I’m happy that one of those reasons will be for her leadership of the Decalogue Society of Lawyers. I’m happy to call her a friend, and I wish her the best of luck as president of this organization.
Very Truly Yours,
JL