The Rabbi Sacks Legacy - Rabbi Sacks on 'The Home We Build Together'

Short Summary

Main recommendation: Rabbi Sacks argues that societies facing mass migration should adopt a "home we build together" model, where natives and newcomers construct a shared home side by side, rather than the country house, melting pot, or hotel models that he says failed. He contends this model fosters integrated diversity because "building leads to belonging."

Key Points

• The "country house" model (19th-century Britain and Europe) made immigrants feel like guests rather than members; Rabbi Sacks notes this model worked in England but failed in Germany, Austria, France, and other European countries that decided they no longer wanted Jewish guests, contributing to the Holocaust.
• The "melting pot" (19th and early 20th century America) produced hyphenated identities such as Irish-American and Italian-American, and discrimination, especially against African-Americans, meant no single national identity emerged.
• The "hotel" model, known as multiculturalism (adopted in the 1970s), gave everyone their own room and services for paying taxes, but Rabbi Sacks says "no one belongs" in a hotel and it led to segregation rather than integration.
• The "home we build together" model emphasizes responsibilities more than rights and treats differences as contributions to the common good, so the town grows through new food, music, and fashions while natives still feel at home.

Details Worth Noting

• Concrete instructions: No step-by-step instructions, checklists, or actions for individuals are given. The only actionable guidance is the model itself: natives and newcomers work together side by side, newcomers learn local ways while contributing their own gifts, and newcomers keep many old customs while the natives benefit from their skills.
• In the hotel model, natives who had long been there felt their home was being diluted, and the strategy did little to foster collective identity because hotel guests "don't constitute a community."
• The "home we build together" is contrasted with the hotel by the newcomers' houses merging architecturally with the other houses in town, symbolizing shared belonging.
• The question framed at the start concerns sustaining cohesion amid "unprecedented religious and ethnic diversity" and integrating minorities without losing identity on either side.

Bottom Line

Rabbi Sacks presents integration as a shared project rather than a set of arrangements for guests, lodgers, or assimilating hyphenates, with belonging coming from the act of building together.