Category Archives: Children’s Rights

Reenacting Pharoah’s Genocidal Decree in Gaza

The introduction to the book of Exodus, which we begin reading this Shabbat, has never resonated so deeply or so powerfully for me as it does this very moment.

We’re all familiar with the events that spark the Exodus narrative: a new Pharoah arises over Mitzrayim who does not know or remember Joseph. Alarmed that the Israelite minority is growing, he oppresses them with forced labor – but the more he oppresses them, the more the Israelites increase in number.

Pharoah then attempts to stem the Israelite birth rate directly by ordering the Hebrew midwives Shifra and Puah to kill every newborn boy. When they defy his order, Pharoah orders that every newborn boy be cast into the Nile. Commentators differ on why Pharoah made this very specific decree. Some say that in his paranoia, he believed the boys would eventually grow up to be soldiers and take up arms against his people. Other say his soothsayers predicted the birth of Moses. Still others say Pharoah believed that the Israelite women would intermarry and assimilate into the majority culture.

Whatever the reason, it is striking to note that Exodus’ liberation narrative begins with Pharoah’s efforts to head off the Israelite birth rate. As I’ve noted before, there are powerful parallels between this narrative and the state of Israel’s regard of the Palestinian people as a “demographic threat” to their Jewish majority. But in the midst of Israel’s genocidal assault on the people of Gaza, I’m finding that these verses now resonate with a brutal – and almost unbearable – urgency.

On November 3, less than a month into Israel’s military bombardment of Gaza, UNICEF, the World Health Organization and other NGOs reported that “Women, children and newborns in Gaza are disproportionately bearing the burden of the escalation of hostilities in the occupied Palestinian territory, both as casualties and in reduced access to health services.” More recently, the UN estimated that “around 50,000 pregnant women are currently living in Gaza, with more than 180 births taking place every day amid the ‘decimation’ of its healthcare system.”

The most devastating details on the impact of this onslaught on Gazan mothers can be read in the South African government’s application to the International Court of Justice, formally accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. I strongly recommend reading this document in its entirety. Though South Africa’s claim was cynically dismissed by the White House as “meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” its 84 page report is painstakingly researched, citing 574 independent sources. Though it is often near-unbearable to read, I believe it is an immensely important document and deserves the widest possible readership.

Here is a sample of the report’s findings on impact of Israel’s genocidal violence on pregnant women and newborn babies. Please be warned: the following quote it includes very graphic descriptions of traumatic violence inflicted on women and children.

Pregnant women and children –– including newborn babies –– are also particularly impacted by displacement, lack of access to food and water, shelter, clothes, hygiene and sanitation, and lack of access to health services. These effects are severe and significant. An estimated 5,500 of approximately 52,000 pregnant Palestinian women in Gaza giving birth each month are doing so in unsafe conditions, often with no clean water, much less medical assistance, “in shelters, in their homes, in the streets amid rubble, or in overwhelmed healthcare facilities, where sanitation is worsening, and the risk of infection and medical complications is on the rise”. Where they are able to get to a functioning hospital, pregnant women are having to undergo caesarean sections without anaesthetic.

Given the lack of access to critical medical supplies, including blood, doctors are being compelled to perform ordinarily unnecessary hysterectomies on young women in an attempt to save their lives, leaving them unable to have more children. Indeed, the Minister of Health for the State of Palestine, Dr May al-Kaileh, confirms that the only option facing Palestinian women in Gaza who ‘bleed out’ after giving birth is to undergo a hysterectomy in order for their lives to be saved. The lack of available drugs, such as the anti-D injection –– given to Rhesus negative women on the birth of a Rhesus positive baby –– also seriously impacts the possibility of future healthy pregnancies for affected women.

Premature births have reportedly increased by between 25-30 per cent, as stressed and traumatised pregnant women face a myriad of challenges, including being compelled to walk long distances in search of safety, attempting to escape from bombs and being crowded into shelters in often squalid conditions. Particularly in northern Gaza, cases of placenta abruption –– a serious condition that occurs to pregnant women during childbirth which is potentially life-threatening to both mother and baby –– have more than doubled.

An ever-increasing number of Palestinian babies in Gaza are reportedly dying from entirely preventable causes, brought about by Israel’s actions: newborns up to three months old are dying of diarrhea, hypothermia, and other preventable causes. Without essential equipment and medical support, premature and underweight babies have little to no chance of survival. Palestinian newborn babies have died due to the lack of fuel to supply hospital generators; others have been found decomposing in their hospital cots, medical staff taking care of them having been forced by Israel to evacuate.

On 3 November 2023, the World Health Organisation warned that “[m]aternal deaths are expected to increase given the lack of access to adequate care”, with deadly consequences on reproductive health, including a rise in stress-induced miscarriages, stillbirths and premature births. The impact will necessarily be long lasting and severe for Palestinians in Gaza as a group. By 22 November 2023 the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, has expressly warned that:

“[T]he reproductive violence inflicted by Israel on Palestinian women, newborn babies, infants, and children could be qualified as… acts of genocide under Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide … including “imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group”. She stressed that “States must prevent and punish such acts in accordance with their responsibilities under the Genocide Convention.”
(Sections 96-100)

If there could be any doubt as to the question of intentionality behind these barbaric measures, the section immediately following these findings includes exhaustive quotes by Israeli politicians and military leaders that make their genocidal intentions all too clear. Most chillingly, it offers this quote from 95-year old Israeli army reservist Ezra Yachin — a veteran of the Deir Yassin massacre during the 1948 Nakba — who was called up for reserve duty to “boost morale” amongst Israeli troops ahead of the ground invasion: Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live. . . Every Jew with a weapon should go out and kill them. (Section 102)

In this week’s Torah portion, the cry of the oppressed Israelites rises up to God, who hears and hearkens to their pain. This year, there can be no more critical question posed by our Torah portion: will God hearken to the collective cry of the people of Gaza?

The answer, as ever, is up to us all.

Ceasefire Now vs. Free the Hostages: Doing the Moral Calculus in Gaza

As Israel intensifies its horrific military assault on Gaza – at current count, over 8,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 3,000 children – the popular call for a ceasefire in Gaza is growing powerfully around the US and throughout the world. Last weekend, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets. Jewish Voice for Peace, together with other Jewish groups, have organized massive actions of civil disobedience in Washington DC, New York City and other cities throughout the North America. Last Friday, “Rabbis for Ceasefire” released a new initiative that included a video calling for a “complete ceasefire now.” To date, over 100 rabbis have signed on to our statement.

As I wrote in my previous post, there is still a discernable resistance to the call for a ceasefire from members of the Jewish community. That resistance now seems to have developed a public call of its own: “Free the Hostages Now.” Over the past week or so, this adversarial binary has been echoing throughout social media in the form of dueling memes. When I posted a “Ceasefire Now” profile picture on my Facebook page, a FB friend immediately added the comment, “Free the Hostages” as a kind of knee-jerk rejoinder to my public statement. The increasing back and forth between these two demands has all but turned into a perverse game of rhetorical ping-pong.

As I consider this phenomenon, I can’t help but think that this alternative call is presenting us with a moral litmus test – as if those who advocate for a ceasefire without also demanding a release of the hostages somehow favor Palestinian lives over Israeli lives. As if calling for a ceasefire expresses concern for Palestinians only and not all who happen to be in Gaza at this terrifying moment.

Of course, any humane person would and should desire a return of the hostages. The details of Hamas’ mass murders and their abduction of hostages have been appalling and horrific to behold. But just as we struggled to comprehend the scope the trauma that occurred on October 7, our grief was weaponized and metabolized into a war of vengeance. Before we had time to even catch our breath, Israel immediately initiated a massive scorched earth military campaign in Gaza, unleashed a scale of death and destruction that has magnified this grief to unimaginable proportions.

It has been truly unsettling to witness the apocalyptic language used by Israeli leaders to describe the military objectives of this withering assault. Despite their claim to be prioritizing the release of the hostages, Israeli leaders have made it clear that vengeance and the destruction of Hamas – along with the rest of Gaza – is its primary objective. On October 11, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said, “It is an entire nation who are responsible. This rhetoric about civilians being uninvolved is absolutely untrue…We will fight until we break their backs.” More recently, Israeli PM Netanyahu compared their military assault to the commandment to destroy the Amalekites – the divine Biblical imperative to wipe out an entire people completely.

Amidst this unsparing bombing campaign, family members of hostages have been speaking openly about their fear that their loved ones will be killed before they can be rescued. The father of one hostage has said “We are very worried about our loved ones who are there and we don’t know if the military operation will take those hostages under consideration, (to make sure) that no one will be injured.” Others are imploring their government to engage diplomatically to ensure the return their loved ones in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Indeed, the issue of Palestinian prisoners raises a crucial piece of context that has been regularly been lost in discussions of the current hostage crisis. Over the past several decades, in fact, there has been precious little discussion in the mainstream media of Israel’s practice of imprisoning Palestinians in military prisons as well as in “administrative detention” – a central feature of its brutal occupation. While many Palestinian prisoners have been committed violent acts against Israelis, many more are imprisoned without anything remotely resembling due process. Israel’s Military Order 101 has essentially criminalized civic activities under the basis of “hostile propaganda and prohibition of incitement.” The order, which is still in use in the occupied West Bank, outlaws the participation and organization of protests, printing and distributing political material, waving flags and other political symbols – and any activity that demonstrates sympathy for an organization deemed illegal under military orders.

As described by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem:

In administrative detention, a person is held without trial without having committed an offense, on the grounds that he or she plans to break the law in the future. As this measure is supposed to be preventive, it has no time limit. The person is detained without legal proceedings, by order of the regional military commander, based on classified evidence that is not revealed to them. This leaves the detainees helpless – facing unknown allegations with no way to disprove them, not knowing when they will be released, and without being charged, tried or convicted.

Unjust illegal imprisonment has long been a way of life for the Palestinian people. It has been estimated that four in ten Palestinian men have spent time in Israeli jails. According to the Palestinian prisoner support and human rights organization Adameer, there are currently, 1264 administrative detainees – and 5,200 Palestinian political prisoners overall – currently being held in Israeli prisons.

As has been widely noted, Palestinian minors are also among the imprisoned. Defense for Children International – Palestine has reported, approximately 500 to 700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12 years old, are detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system every year. Israel remains the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecute children in military courts. According to child rights groups, these children are often interrogated without the presence of a parent or lawyer, subjecting them to physical and psychological torture.

Bottom line? Abducting and imprisoning civilians – whether by militant groups or militarized states – is an immoral act. But as we do this moral calculus, we must also make sure to include an honest power analysis. Israel’s imprisonment of Palestinians in administrative detention – not to mention their imprisonment of 2.2 million Gazans in an open-air prison – occurs in the context of a heavily militarized state who have been subjecting the Palestinian people to systemic oppression and dispossession for decades. Hamas’ abduction of hostages – brutal and heinous as it was – occurred in response to a colonial, apartheid regime that been governing their lives for the past 75 years.

This is key: while Netanyahu would like us to believe that Hamas are Amalekites who have abducted hostages out of sheer evil, these acts were ultimately carried out in order to gain some leverage in amidst a never-ending blockade that has left them completely at Israel’s mercy. Such has always been the case with these hostage crises: underlying the terrifying violence of these acts lie a desire for strategic leverage in potential negotiations.

When it comes to understanding the strategic realities involved in hostage negotiations, there are few Israelis with more experience than Gershon Baskin, Middle East director of the International Communities Organization. According to Baskin, who was instrumental in procuring the release of the abducted Israeli solider Gilad Shalit in 2011 and has had relationships with Hamas leaders over the years, the current situation is considerably more complex than the one he faced back twelve years ago. As Baskin has pointed out, Israel has never had to face such a massive number of civilians taken hostage. Things are further complicated by the fact that the hostages seem to be held by multiple groups in addition to Hamas, Moreover, he says:

We’re in the midst of a war with an enormous bombing campaign going on in Gaza, destroying much of the Gaza Strip. More than a million Gazans are homeless already. So there’s a horrific humanitarian crisis in Gaza as well, with so many innocent people being killed.

Baskin added that while the safe return of the hostages is the number one priority of their family members, “it’s not necessarily the number one priority of Israel. There are other priorities, like dismantling Hamas’s ability to ever attack Israel again and threaten Israel.” In other words, Israel is more interested in the destruction of Hamas than ensuring the welfare of anyone who happens to be in Gaza at the moment. At the end of the day, the hard fact remains: Israel cannot destroy Hamas without killing scores of Palestinians – and likely many hostages as well.

This, in short, is why it is so profoundly problematic to counter the demand for a ceasefire with a demand to release the hostages first. As long as Israel rains bombs mercilessly on Gaza, the chances of getting the hostages back alive grow that much dimmer. At the same time, it is utterly unrealistic to expect that Hamas will release the hostages without a ceasefire. The hostages are the only realistic leverage Hamas has at this moment. And Hamas most certainly knows if they hand over the hostages before a ceasefire is negotiated, Israel will almost certainly press on with its massive military assault until Hamas is completely destroyed – along with much of Gaza.

On both a moral and strategic level, if we want to save the lives of Israelis as well as Palestinians, we simply must put all our efforts into a demand for a ceasefire now. As ever, there is no military solution to this crisis. There are only two alternatives: engagement or annihilation. While the former now feels more remote than ever, the latter is simply unthinkable.

I’ll end now with the powerful, heartfelt, urgent words of Gershon Baskin:

My heart bleeds for all of the innocent people of Gaza who have been killed, many of them buried alive under the thousands of homes that have been destroyed by Israeli bombs. War crimes are being committed by Israel in Gaza. Killing innocent people is not “collateral damage.” We are talking about the lives of thousands of people who are victims of this conflict as well, regardless of their political opinions or their views on Hamas. If they are non-combatants, they are innocent victims. The indiscriminate bombings have to end. There will be a day after tomorrow when this war ends. There will still be two peoples living on this land and we will either look back at the horrors of what we have done to each other, or we will begin to look forward. These events are the biggest traumas for Israelis since the Holocaust and for the Palestinians since the Nakba. We will not forget. This will be the new chapters in our collective memories and narratives. The question is will we stand up from the ashes and from the pains and finally realize that everyone living between the River and the Sea must have the same right to the same rights or we will continue to say that only my side has the rights to express our collective identity on this Land?

Confronting the New COVID Normal: Sermon for Erev Yom Kippur 5784

(photo: Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)

The High Holidays we observed in 2020 were like none we’d ever experienced before. We were in the midst of the COVID lockdown – and like every other synagogue, we held our services entirely on Zoom. It all felt utterly unprecedented and surreal – apropos of a year in which pretty much everything felt unprecedented and surreal.

On Rosh Hashanah, I addressed the pandemic directly, suggesting that we were all in a collective state of grief – both for those had died and for the world we had lost:

Amidst all of this massive change, even as we adjust to this new world, there’s that nagging question lurking in the background: how long will we actually have to do this? When will we get our lives and our world back? When will things get back to “normal?”

I think it’s safe to say we’ve come a long way in the three years since then. Just a few months after I spoke those words, the first COVID vaccine was administered – and since that time, COVID related deaths and hospitalizations have decreased dramatically. Lockdown orders have been lifted, mask mandates have disappeared and social distancing requirements are now a thing of the past. While a large percentage of the workforce are still working from home, increasing numbers are returning to their workplaces.

We’re also receiving a confident political message that things are getting “back to normal.” A year ago, President Biden publicly declared that the pandemic was over during an appearance in 60 Minutes. This past May, his administration ended the Public Health Emergency Declaration, dramatically reducing funding for COVID vaccines and treatments. In its announcement, the White House claimed that “(COVID-19) no longer meaningfully disrupts the way we live our lives.”

Is this actually true? Are things really getting back to normal? Technically speaking, the pandemic is not over, though we fervently wish it were. Thousands continue to die every week – in the US, nearly one hundred are dying every day. In recent weeks, a spike has caused a sharp increase in hospitalizations, a dramatic reminder that COVID is still very much a part of our lives and our world.

What’s the reason for this normalization? On a purely human level, I think it’s pretty easy to understand. We want our lives back. We don’t want to live with uncertainty and upheaval any more. We crave the connection and community that we once knew. We want things to feel normal again.

But no matter how fervently we might back our days of old, things are still not normal. On so many levels.

In the first place, things are not certainly normal for the loved ones of the millions who have died of COVID. Almost 7,000,000 people have died from COVID globally since the pandemic began – including over 1,000,000 in the US. The mass grief caused by this pandemic is still very palpable and very real. For those who are just beginning to struggle with the loss of a parent, a partner, a child, the suggestion that it is time for things to “get back to normal” is quite simply, profane.

This insistence on normalcy dismisses the massive, life-altering consequences of these losses. Many who died of COVID were the primary or sole wage earner in their household. Moreover, hundreds of thousands of children in the US – and over 10 million children worldwide – have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID. According to a report last December by the Covid Collaborative, more than 13,000 children have lost their sole caregiver; children who were already more socially and economically at risk.

COVID normalization also amounts to an abject abandonment of elderly people in our communities. Hospital admissions, while dropping, are more than five times higher among people over 70 than those in their 50s. COVID also disproportionately affects immunocompromised, disabled and chronically ill people, whose humanity is routinely dismissed by US government and health officials that treat their conditions as expected, and thus somehow more acceptable.

In a recent New York Times article about the latest COVID spike, I read one subtle paragraph that sums up the prevailing attitude toward those who are at higher risk of illness and death:

At the moment, the numbers suggest that Americans should tailor their behavior to their own risks, some experts said. Those who are the most vulnerable to COVID — older adults, pregnant women and those with weakened immune systems — might well choose to take the utmost precautions, such as masking most or all of the time and avoiding crowded indoor spaces.

In other words, those who are the most vulnerable people are essentially on their own. Their welfare is their individual responsibility – it is not the problem of the communities in which they live.

The changes to our world wrought by the virus remain so profound. The increasing numbers of people who have developed the post-virus condition known as long COVID will attest to its debilitating and life-altering symptoms. Scores of children have lost years of their education. Teachers, health care workers and essential service workers continue to live with acute trauma and anxiety. We’ve witnessed the massive loss of small businesses and the devastation of whole economies. The list goes on and on. Truly, it would take a great deal of willful denial to regard any of this as normal.

The political motives behind COVID normalization, of course, are clear – and it is causing very real harm. When the Biden administration terminated the Public Emergency Declaration in May, it was essentially capitulating to congressional Republicans, who months earlier had passed a bill they called “The Pandemic is Over Act.” In so doing, it ended a vital series of protections for millions of Americans, causing what the Nation Magazine referred to as “a public health disaster.”

In the meantime, the Biden administration is also preparing to transfer COVID vaccines to the private market. For their part, Pfizer and Moderna have announced that they plan to increase the price of their vaccines by 400%, which will cost uninsured Americans anywhere from $110 to $130 per dose. Such is the human price of the new normalcy. It is, in the end, really just the entrenchment of the old normalcy.

This human price, of course, is symptomatic of a deeper dysfunction: a system that has always divided humanity into those who count and those who do not. In their important and powerful new book “Let This Radicalize You,” Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes put it perfectly:

(Capitalism) requires an ever-broadening disposable class of people in order to maintain itself, which in turn requires us to believe that there are people whose fates are not linked to our own: people who must be abandoned or eliminated.

When the COVID pandemic first broke out, it occurred to me that this virus was presenting us with a fundamentally different way to live. It was challenging us to live according to an ethic of collectivity rather than radical individualism. COVID was a dramatic reminder that our neighbors’ fates were linked to our own. And that if we were to literally survive, we had to accept that our personal well-being was inextricably tied to the well-being of all.

People in disenfranchised communities have long understood this truth. When you live in a system that doesn’t care about you, that regards you as disposable, you learn how to care for one another. Indeed, long before the pandemic descended, poor people, people of color, disabled people, LGBTQ+ people and Native people have been creating their own communities of care through powerful mutual aid projects.

The term mutual aid refers to grassroots groups that organize collectively outside the mainstream and are not dependent on the largess of external charity. While mutual aid projects have long existed in various forms, they mobilized and proliferated during the pandemic in ways that were truly inspiring to behold. As Kaba and Hayes have described it:

In spring 2020, unprecedented numbers of people organized mutual aid efforts to help their neighbors survive. Using technology to overcome the physical barriers imposed by the pandemic, tens of thousands of people started new groups and built new mechanisms within existing organizations to meet the needs of people who were struggling. From delivering groceries and medicine to helping people access remote therapy after the loss of loved ones, people across the country devised ways to care for one another. Contrary to fictitious, popular depictions of people in dire straits, many people coping with the grief, uncertainty, and isolation of the pandemic longed to connect through acts of aid and care and they did. Grassroots groups redistributed millions of dollars to people who were struggling. Empty refrigerators were stocked. Countless people in crisis were met with compassion and assistance. In a society where we are taught to fear each other, many were moved by the realization that we were and are each other’s best hope amid catastrophe.

To my mind, these words are a powerful description of what the new normal should be. Though we must always fight to hold them accountable, governments are not going to save us. Nor will philanthropic charities, crisis response or nonprofit organizations. Collective care will ultimately be created by communities of people honoring their interconnectedness. By those who understand that they are each other’s best hope.

As the world increasingly looks to mutual aid groups as a model for living, it will be important for privileged folks not to tokenize disenfranchised people or co-opt their efforts. But having said this, I do believe that the idea of mutual aid models a way of living for all people. One that values a culture of care: interdependence over individualism. Thriving and not merely surviving. A way of creating community that centers innate altruism and a long-term commitment to one another.

In her book, “A Paradise Built in Hell,” Rebecca Solnit pointed out that contrary to the dominant narrative, the natural human response to disaster is not an apocalyptic, individualistic “everyone for themselves” mentality. Through examining the human response to several different catastrophes, Solnit concluded, “The image of the selfish, panicky or regressively savage human being in times of disaster has little truth to it.” Rather, “most people are altruistic, urgently engaged in caring for themselves and those around them, strangers and neighbors as well as friends and loved ones.” This, I would suggest, is the true normal: a more natural culture of mutuality, not self-interest and abandonment.

As you know, last month, the Tzedek Chicago board passed a COVID safety policy for our High Holiday services requiring all in-person attendees to wear N95 masks and have up to date vaccinations. Our board’s decision was prompted by a request from chronically ill and disabled members of our congregation, which inspired our leadership to engage in honest process of discernment. It occurred to me that these conversations were utterly appropriate to our season – a time for interrogating how we can do better in our lives and in our communities.

Though mask mandates have become politicized to an absurd degree, two-way masking is still the most effective way to mitigate the spread of the COVID virus. When healthy, younger, abled people put the burden of masking on those at greater risk, whether they realize it or not they are sending the message that they health is not their problem. As one public health expert has written:

I get it—wearing a mask can suck. I don’t exactly enjoy it, and like most people, I’d rather be living life like it is 2019. That’s the final problem with one-way masking: If we can all relate to masking being uncomfortable, why would we suggest that the immunocompromised and disabled be relegated to wearing a mask in perpetuity?

As I look out into our sanctuary now, to a room full of masked people gathering for Yom Kippur, I see a powerful visual of one community’s commitment to the health of all its members. This what the new normal should look like.

In my High Holiday sermon three years ago, I quoted the great activist poet Sonya Renee Taylor who wrote these words at the outset of the pandemic:

We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.

Today, three years after those words were written, powerful interests are trying to convince us that it is time to “go back to normal.” We must not let them. We must continue to hold on to Taylor’s beautiful vision of a new garment, even in the face of such daunting odds. We must cherish this vision and resist the cynical voices telling us that what they are giving us is the best we can hope for.

Because we should hope for more. We should aspire to more. After all, isn’t this what Yom Kippur is ultimately all about? Every year, at this season, we’re commanded to take a hard, unflinching look at the status quo, openly admit what needs changing, and commit to the hard work it will take to transform it. It’s an inherently radical idea: to proclaim every year that the status quo is unacceptable and that nothing short of genuine intervention will do. If our Yom Kippur prayers are to mean anything at all, we must be prepared to act upon this radical idea.

This is also the season in which we stand before the open gates of heaven, before the open books of life and death, and pray that we may be written in the book of life for the coming year. But we also affirm that repentance, prayer and acts of justice can “avert the decree.” To me that means that we cannot wait passively for that choice to be made for us. In the end, we’ll need to take responsibility for writing our own names and the names of our neighbors in the Book of Life. If we’re going to be sealed for life, it is we who must affix that seal.

So this new year, let us affix that seal by recommitting ourselves to the value of pikuach nefesh – the moral imperative that views the saving of life as sacrosanct. Let us resist a “return to a normalcy” that values some lives over others. Let’s enter this new year affirming not only in word, but in deed, that it must be all of us or none.

AOC is Right: Trump is Running Concentration Camps on the Border

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Insider the Homestead Concentration Camp, Homestead, FL.

(Cross-posted with Newsweek)

Last December, I was arrested on the border in San Diego while standing with faith leaders to protest, among other things, Trump’s unlawful incarceration of immigrants. My experiences on the border and at immigrant detention centers in my home state of Illinois have left me with no doubt whatsoever that our nation is warehousing humanity in concentration camps—and that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is correct when she refers to them by this term.

As a rabbi, I am compelled to act on behalf of immigrants because my religious faith and historical legacy demands that I do so. And I’m not alone: most American Jews embrace progressive values of social justice—and understand that we ourselves have a history of oppression at the hands of state violence.

Yesterday, AOC stirred something of a hornet’s nest when she retweeted an article in Esquire by an expert on immigrant detention who characterized Trump’s immigrant detention centers as “concentration camps.” Almost immediately, some Republican politicians, the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York pounced, claiming AOC’s “regrettable use of Holocaust terminology to describe these contemporary concerns diminishes the evil intent of the Nazis to eradicate the Jewish people.”

It is deeply problematic, highly partisan—and historically incorrect—to declare that the use of “concentration camps” is to be constrained to the limits of “Holocaust terminology” (itself hardly an academic term.) As scholar Jonathan Katz recently pointed out in the LA Times, the term “was invented by a Spanish official …during Cuba’s 1895 independence war.” FDR, notably, also used the term in reference to his Executive Order to incarcerate Japanese Americans during World War II. And enough people have pointed out in recent days the usage of the term by the British suppressing the Boer rebellion in South Africa for it to be elaborated on here.

We Jews do not own this term. But in fact, I would argue it is imperative that we Jews use this term whenever these dreadful facilities are imposed on groups of people other than ourselves. History has shown us that the concentration of humanity into forced detention invariably leads entire societies to exceedingly dark places. This practice did not begin with Nazi policies against European Jewry—nor did it end there.

The same is true of AOC’s impassioned and all-too familiar call, “Never again.” As a rabbi, a Jew and a person of conscience, allow me to put it as plainly as I can: AOC’s use of this phrase was altogether appropriate. I do not and cannot view this call as “Holocaust terminology.” On the contrary: “Never Again” means never again for anyone, or else it doesn’t mean anything at all.

The fact that we are even debating these terms shows just how twisted the conversation has become. Rather than parsing the words of a human rights champion like AOC for petty political gain, these politicians and Jewish leaders should be directing their criticism where it truly belongs: at a morally depraved national policy that parses out access to human rights according to origin and ethnicity, tears apart families, and cages children in, yes, concentration camps.

Our Wayward and Defiant Children

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My weekly message to congregants at Tzedek Chicago:

In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tetzei, we read:

If a man has a wayward and defiant son, who does not heed his father or mother and does not obey them even after they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the public place of his community. They shall say to the elders of his town: “This son of ours is disloyal and defiant; he does not heed us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Thereupon, the men of his town shall stone him to death. Thus you will sweep out evil from your midst: all Israel will hear and be afraid. (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

So what is this, some kind of sick joke?

In fairness, it should be noted that many classical Jewish commentators have properly recoiled from these infamous verses. In a well-known Talmudic passage, R. Judah and R. Simeon went as far as to claim that this law was never actually enacted, stating, “There never was and never will be a wayward and defiant son. (BT Sanhedrin 71a)

Why then, you might ask, was this law included in the Torah? Rabbis Judah and Simeon cryptically respond: “Seek and you shall find reward” – a comment commonly understood to mean parents should study this passage and be appropriately scared enough to set their children on the right path.

In this Talmudic understanding, then, the commandment of the wayward and defiant son thus seems to serve as a kind of parental shock therapy. Whether or not we find this advice “rewarding,” I do think that these Torah verses reflect every parent’s deepest insecurities – and society’s latent fear that it might somehow lose control of its children.

When I think of this week’s Torah portion, I can’t help but think of our own city of Chicago, where the police’s customary response to youth violence too often, is more violence. As Tamar Manasseh, founder of the local South Side organization Mother’s Against Senseless Killings recently wrote:

Putting more police on the streets or sending in the National Guard will not solve the scourge of gun violence in our communities. There will be no reduction in crime; in reality, nothing will be reduced except the number of people who are left in these neighborhoods. That’s what happens when you eliminate schools and allow food deserts to exist: People who can afford to move will do so, and the people left behind will be over-policed.

“Seek and you shall find reward.” Or, as Tamar so wisely noted,

It’s time to invest in our public schools, in job creation and in training programs to give back hope to people who have so little of it left. Chicago’s ghettos are in dire need of repair; they can be healed only when our politicians pursue policies that will raise our communities up instead of keeping us under the heel of the police.

Amen and Shabbat Shalom.

The Real Wall Problem: When Will Diaspora Jews Fight For Palestinians?

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Cross-posted with The Forward.

The North American Jewish establishment is furious with Israel – and has just let loose an astonishing fusillade of collective protest. The President of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of an “unconscionable insult” and vowed not to be “still or silent.” The Executive Director of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, promised that they “will continue to protest.” The CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, Jerry Silverman, was equally direct, saying, “We are going to be assertive in asking what’s next.

What on earth is going on? Has the Jewish institutional community finally broken their abject silence over Israel’s human rights abuses? Are Jewish communal leaders finally finding the courage of their convictions on the issue of Israel/Palestine?

Not so fast. This impressive display of communal indignation was in fact mobilized in response to Netanyahu’s recent announcement that his government was suspending a 2016 agreement that expanded the southern section of the Western Wall for egalitarian prayer. This agreement followed years of protest, negotiation and maneuvering, led by the Women of the Wall and liberal Diaspora Jewish organizations seeking a joint prayer space at the Kotel.

Nothing, it seems, lights a fire in the belly of the Diaspora Jewish establishment more viscerally than the cause of liberal Jewish equality in the Jewish state. While Israel’s oppressive occupation now marks its 50th year and the cause of a just peace remains more remote than ever, our Jewish leaders are still more concerned about the rights of Jews than the rights of all who live in the land.

It’s a long-standing double standard –- and in her recent op-ed, “How Bibi Just Gave Liberal Jews the Finger – And What We Can Do About It,” Forward editor-in-chief Jane Eisner (perhaps unintentionally) cast a telling light on this phenomenon:

Recognize our more progressive, egalitarian form of Judaism, said the Diaspora, and we’ll have your back on military, defense and geopolitical concerns, even if that might violate our liberal values or put us in conflict with natural allies.

Could we ask for a better description of this patently immoral bargain that has long been struck between Israel and the Diaspora Jewish community? We will willingly violate our own values for you. Just give liberal Jews rights and we’ll remain silent on your unchecked militarism and oppression of the Palestinian people.

This silence is all the more egregious at the moment, given the humanitarian crisis Israel is currently inflicting on the people of Gaza. Now eleven years into its crushing blockade, the government announced this past month that it will start cutting electricity to the Gaza Strip, a move that could literally cause 21-hour blackouts just as the heat of the summer is gearing up.

Israel is making this latest maneuver in partnership with the Palestinian Authority, who, like Israel, seeks the ouster of Hamas from Gaza. It’s a cynical political ploy that will only harden the resolve of Gaza hardliners. As many have correctly observed, the rise of extremism can be directly tied to Israel’s cruel and draconian policies. In a recent article for the London Review of Books, Harvard scholar Sara Roy made this very point following her recent visit to Gaza:

Person after person told me that growing support for extremist factions in Gaza does not emanate from political or ideological belief – as these factions may claim – but from people’s need to feed their families. Many, perhaps most of the new recruits to Islamic State-affiliated groups are choosing to join because membership guarantees an income. At the same time, Hamas is desperate to secure enough funds to keep paying the salaries of its military wing, the al-Qassem Brigades, which is also reportedly seeing a swelling of its ranks. It seems that unemployed young men in Gaza increasingly face two options: join a military faction or give up.

While these these measures have the stated intention of toppling Hamas, it is much more likely that these measures will only “ignite an already combustible situation” and exacerbate “already-dire humanitarian situation on its doorstep,” as journalist Alex Kane wrote last week. Indeed, it is difficult even imagine an even greater humanitarian tragedy than the one that currently exists. According to Aimee Shalan, CEO of Medical Aid for Palestinians:

Surgeries have already been cancelled, and hospitals forced to cut back on essential cleaning and sterilization services. Medical equipment is rapidly degrading due to constant fluctuations in electrical current. Any further cuts to electricity supply in Gaza will therefore have potentially disastrous effects. The lives of patients in intensive care, including approximately 100 babies, will be immediately endangered should supplies dwindle further.

The effect of the Israeli blockade upon children is a particularly tragic aspect of this crisis. Almost 50% of Gaza’s population is 14 or younger. According to UNICEF, the 2014 war took a heavy toll on Gaza’s children: “More than 500 were killed, 3,374 were injured – nearly a third of whom suffer permanent disability – and more than 1,500 were orphaned. Hundreds of thousands were left in trauma.”

I can’t help but ask: where is the moral outrage in liberal Jewish establishment over these cruel human rights abuses? While I certainly believe in the cause of religious freedom, I find it stunning that so many liberal-minded members of the Jewish community are more concerned with Jewish rights in a Jewish state than the basic human rights of non-Jewish children who live under its control. Such are the sorrows of Jewish political nationalism: even the more “liberal” among us seem only to be able to express that tolerance selectively.

Roy, the Harvard scholar, noted that during her visit, she was asked again and again by Gazans: “Why is Gaza being punished in so heartless a manner, and what does Israel truly hope to gain by it?

Will Diaspora Jewish leaders ever find the courage to ask this question out loud?

Syrian Trio Hewar Returns to Chicago this Sunday!

NGO Report: Palestinian Children Kept in Outdoor Cages

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Ramle Prison (photo: Nir Keidar)

Earlier this week, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) published a report that claimed children suspected of minor crimes were subjected to a variety of human rights abuses, including threats and acts of sexual violence and “public caging”, in which minors were held for extended periods of time in outdoor cages.

According to a group of public defenders making an official visit to Ramle prison, children were caged outside and exposed to severely cold weather during Israel’s recent winter storm. In a statement to the Israel Prison Service (IPS), the lawyers reported that “they spent several hours in the freezing cold and rain, until the transport arrived to take them to court around 6:00 am.” The statement said that the practice had been going on for months, a fact “verified during other official visits and not denied by IPS.”

I read a number of news reports on the incident, and was particularly struck by this one from the Jerusalem Post (pay particular attention to the second paragraph):

The practice of placing the children in outdoor cages was halted when Justice Minister Tzipi Livni learned of it and immediately telephoned Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, telling him to end the practice…

It was unclear who within the Prisons Service initiated the practice, why it was initiated or who decided to continue it despite the adverse weather conditions, but the service responded that since it had received criticism the situation had been improved.

Livni’s attempts at fig-leaf PR notwithstanding, the issue of child detention issue far transcends this one particularly horrifying revelation. Last March, I reported on a UNICEF report that concluded the ill-treatment of Palestinian minors held within the Israeli military detention system is “widespread, systematic and institutionalized.” The 22 page report carefully examined the Israeli military court system for holding Palestinian children and found evidence of “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.”

A Huffington Post feature on the report noted:

In a step-by-step analysis of the procedure from arrest to trial, the report said the common experience of many children was being “aggressively awakened in the middle of the night by many armed soldiers and being forcibly brought to an interrogation centre tied and blindfolded, sleep deprived and in a state of extreme fear.”

Many were subjected to ill-treatment during the journey, with some suffering physical or verbal abuse, being painfully restrained or forced to lie on the floor of a vehicle for a transfer process of between one hour and one day.

In some cases, they suffered prolonged exposure to the elements and a lack of water, food or access to a toilet.

During my recent visit to the West Bank, our delegation spoke with Gerard Horton (formerly of Defence of Children International – Palestine and currently founder/director of Military Court Watch), who described for us this process in shocking detail. Much of what he had to tell us can be found in his article on the subject here.

As a Jew and a human being of conscience, I am sickened by Israel’s practice of child detention. Please join me in contacting Tzipi Livni (zlivni@knesset.gov.il) to tell her you agree – to let her know this is not a problem that cannot be solved with one face-saving phone call.

Civil Disobedience in Chicago for Immigrant Justice!

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photo: Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

This evening it was my honor to participate in an act of civil disobedience in Chicago in support of immigrant justice – a cause I fervently believe is the civil rights issue of our time. One hundred and sixty strong, a large and diverse coalition of activists, faith leaders, politicians, labor leaders and undocumented immigrants sat down together in the busy intersection of Congress and Clark in the South Loop with two demands: that Speaker of the House John Boehner bring comprehensive immigration reform to a vote, and that President Obama stop the oppressive deportations of undocumented immigrants (which have now grown to 2,000,000 under his administration.)

We gathered at 3:30 pm for a press conference, after which we filed off the sidewalk into the intersection and sat down around a banner reading “Stop Deportations – Give us a Vote.” On all four corners of the intersection, hundreds of supporters unfurled banners and held signs and chanted along with us. Eventually, after three warnings, Chicago police led each of us away one by one.

photo: Jewish Council on Urban Affairs

Our demonstration tonight was but one of a growing numbers of civil disobedience actions currently proflierating across the country. Last month, thousands rallied for immigration reform on the National Mall in Washington DC during the government shutdown – and 200 were led away by police. A few days earlier, similar rallies were held in Los Angeles, San Diego and Boston and other cities as part of a “National Day of Immigrant Dignity and Respect.”

While politicians in post-shutdown Washington dither on this critical issue in Washington, citizens are literally taking to the streets to demand compassionate immigration reform. There is a very real movement building – trust me, as long our leaders refuse to act, you will be witnessing many more actions such as these in the coming weeks and months.

photo: Tina Escobar

It was my honor to be among the speakers at press conference before the demonstration (above). Here is the full text of my remarks (which was shortened due to time restraints):

My name is Brant Rosen – I’m the rabbi of Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston and I’m a member of this amazing, diverse and growing coalition of activists who are working for the cause of immigrant justice. I am part of the majority of Americans and 80% of Illinoisians who support compassionate immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship.

And I am here to say it is time for our national leaders to lead. It is time for Speaker John Boehner and Republican leader Peter Roskam to give us a vote. It is time for President Barack Obama to end the daily deportatins that are now approaching 2,000,000 and has left 3,000,000 children orphaned. This is not simply a political issue – and shame on any politician who treats immigration reform as “business as usual.” Immigration reform is one of the most critical moral and human rights issues facing our country today.

As a Jew, my faith tradition teaches that societies will ultimately be judged by the way they treat their immigrants. My faith tradition teaches that when we label another human being as “illegal,” we diminish God’s presence in our world. When we incarcerate and deport those who come to this country seeking a better life, we diminish God’s presence in our world. And when we create and enforce laws that rip children away from their parents – and parents from their children – we most certainly diminish God’s presence in our world.

My faith tradition also teaches that God stands with the oppressed and demands that we do the same. And make no mistake: our immigration system constitutes a very real form of oppression against families in our nation. It is thus our sacred duty to stand here today, in front of US Immigration Customs and Enforcement headquarters, to say: this oppression must end. The destruction of our families must end. The daily deportations of 1,100 human beings must end. It is our sacred duty to bring it to an end.

John Boehner and Peter Roskam: It’s time to give us a vote on citizenship. It’s time to end the oppression of our undocumented brothers and sisters. President Obama: it’s time to keep your promise to the American people. 2,000,000 deportations is 2,000,000 too many. Stop deportations now!

If our national leaders refuse to lead, then it is time to take to the streets. And tonight, we will take to the streets. Our movement is the new civil rights movement growing in cities across the nation, rising up to demand compassionate immigration reform now. You will hear from us tonight in Chicago – and you will be hearing from us again and again until our oppressive immigration system is no more!

It has been my honor to stand together in this movement with so many people from so many different faiths and ethnicities and histories. It has been a particular honor to stand together with our undocumented sisters and brothers, whose steadfast courage and dignity are an inspiration to us all.

My own grandparents were immigrants to this nation. I know all too well that I am the beneficiary of their decision to come to this country, and of my country’s willingness to provide them with a path to citizenship. For those of us who enjoy the privileges of the courageous decisions of those who came before us, it would be a profound betrayal if we did not stand together here today.

We are here today. We will be here tomorrow. And we will stand together every day until compassionate immigration reform is finally a reality in our country. Ken Yehi Ratzon – as it is God’s will, so my it be ours.

Amen and thank you all for coming out tonight.

___________________________________

En Español (Gracias a Gonzalo Escobar):

Mi nombre es Brant Rosen – Soy el rabino de la Congregación Judía Reconstruccionista en Evanston y soy un miembro de esta increíble y diversa y creciente coalición de activistas que trabajan por la causa de la justicia para los inmigrantes. Yo soy parte de la mayoría de los estadounidenses y el 80 % de Illinoisians que apoyan la reforma migratoria compasiva que proporcione un camino a la ciudadanía.

Y yo estoy aquí para decir que es hora de que nuestros líderes nacionales para hagan su trabajo de legislar. Es hora de que los Representantes, John Boehner, y el líder republicano Peter Roskam nos den un voto. Es hora de que el presidente Barack Obama ponga fin a las deportaciones diarias que se están acercando a 2 millones y han dejado a 3 millones de niños y niñas huérfanos. Esto no es simplemente una cuestión política y es una vergüenza que un político trate la reforma migratoria como “como si no pasara nada”, la reforma de inmigración es uno de los temas de derechos humanos y morales más importantes que enfrenta nuestro país hoy en día.

Como judío, mi tradición de fe nos enseña que las sociedades en última instancia, serán juzgadas por la forma en que tratan a sus inmigrantes. Mi tradición de fe nos enseña que cuando etiquetamos a otro ser humano como “ilegal”, disminuimos la presencia de Dios en nuestro mundo. Cuando encarcelamos y deportamos a los que vienen a este país en busca de una vida mejor, disminuimos la presencia de Dios en nuestro mundo. Y cuando creamos y hacemos cumplir las leyes que separan a los niños de sus padres – y a los padres de sus hijos – ciertamente estamos disminuyendo la presencia de Dios en nuestro mundo.

Mi tradición de fe también enseña que Dios está con los oprimidos y demanda que hagamos lo mismo. Y no nos engañemos: nuestro sistema de inmigración constituye una forma muy real de la opresión contra las familias en nuestro país. Por tanto, es nuestro deber sagrado de estar aquí hoy, frente a la sede de inmigración y aduanas de EE.UU. para decir: la opresión debe terminar. La destrucción de nuestras familias debe terminar. Las deportaciones diarias de 1.100 seres humanos deben terminar. Es nuestro sagrado deber de ponerle fin.

John Boehner y Peter Roskam : Es hora de que nos den un voto para la ciudadanía . Es hora de poner fin a la opresión de nuestros hermanos y hermanas indocumentados. Presidente Obama: es el momento de mantener su promesa al pueblo estadounidense. 2 millones de deportaciones y 2 millones es demasiado. ¡Detengan las deportaciones ahora!

Si nuestros líderes nacionales se niegan a legislar, entonces es el momento de salir a la calle. Y esta noche, vamos a salir a las calles. Nuestro movimiento es el nuevo movimiento de derechos civiles que crece en las ciudades de todo el país, para exigir una reforma migratoria compasiva ahora. Ustedes nos escucharán esta noche en Chicago -¡y ustedes nos escucharan a nosotros una y otra vez hasta que nuestro sistema de inmigración opresivo no exista más!

Ha sido un honor para mí estar juntos en este movimiento con tantas personas de tantas religiones y etnias e historias diferentes. Ha sido un gran honor particular, estar junto a nuestras hermanas y hermanos indocumentados, cuyo valor y dignidad inquebrantable son una inspiración para todos nosotros.

Mis abuelos eran inmigrantes de esta nación. Sé muy bien que soy el beneficiario de su decisión de venir a este país, y de la voluntad de mi país para proporcionarle un camino a la ciudadanía. Para aquellos de nosotros que disfrutamos de los privilegios de las decisiones valientes de los que vinieron antes que nosotros, sería una traición profunda si no nos mantenemos unidos hoy aquí.

Estamos aquí hoy. Vamos a estar aquí mañana. Y vamos a estar juntos todos los días hasta que la reforma migratoria compasiva sea finalmente una realidad en nuestro país. Como se dice en Hebreo “Ken Yehi Ratzon” – ya que es la voluntad de Dios, y será la nuestra.

Amén y gracias a todos por venir esta noche.

“Beautiful Resistance” in Aida Refugee Camp

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Our trip is winding down, but I’m going to try and slip in a few more posts before I head stateside…

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Palestinian resistance takes many different forms. On Thursday, we received a profound tutorial in cultural resistance courtesy of the educational and theatre training center, Alrowwad.

Alrowwad (in Arabic: “Pioneers for Life”) is located in the Aida refugee camp adjacent to Bethlehem and refers to its mission as “Beautiful Resistance.” As their vision statement eloquently articulates:

(We seek to create) an empowered Palestinian Society on educational and artistic level, free of violence, respectful of human rights and values, (with special focus on children and women) based on the spirit of social entrepreneurship and innovation in self-expression and respect of human values.

We spent the afternoon with Alrowwad’s founder and director, the inspiring and visionary Dr. Abdelfattah Abusrour (below), who gave us a tour of the center and the Aida refugee camp itself. Abdelfattah was born and raised in Aida, but went to Paris to study Biological and Medical Engineering at Nord University. While in France, he also nurtured a passion for theater and painting and he quickly became involved in the educational/cultural life of Paris. He told us that he could easily have “married a French woman” and lived a comfortable life in France, but he eventually felt compelled to return to Aida and utilize his cultural training in his home community.

Dr. Abdelfattah Abusrour with the key to his family's home (it is a well-known custom for Palestinian families to keep the keys to the homes they lost during the Nakba as a sign of their hope for return.

Dr. Abdelfattah Abusrour with the key to his family’s ancestral home (it is a well-known custom for Palestinian families to keep the keys to the homes they lost during the Nakba as a sign of their hope for return.)

Abdelfattah established Alrowwad in 1998, and it very quickly became an anchor in the Aida community. It has also become a model of cultural resistance for Palestinian society at large. Their concept of “Beautiful Resistance” uses culture as a therapeutic method to encourage and promote creativity and non-violence, and to teach peace and respect for others.

Abdelfattah and Alrowwad has now introduced a future generation of Palestinian youth to this a new method of self-expression and resistance. They believe their work increases the spirit of collaboration between children as well as their sense of belonging in the community. Their hope is that given the chance to be creative and to set their own priorities, children can provide a bridge for a democratic and independent Palestinian society — to build a better future even amidst a dire present.

In many ways, touring Alrowwad reminded me the Jenin Freedom Theatre, which I visited with my congregational delegation in 2010. Adelfattah told me that his center does indeed collaborate with the Freedom Theatre, as well as other similar Palestinian cultural projects throughout the West Bank. Adelfattah also travels abroad to promote his work – and this spring will be directing a performance of “The Diary of Anne Frank” in North Carolina! Just another reminder that there is an extensive and powerful grassroots movement of Palestinian cultural resistance that is relatively unknown to the West, but is eminently worthy of our support.

During our tour of Aida (above), Abdelfattah gave us a glimpse of the life of his community – explaining its history and illuminating life amidst the ever-present reality of military incursions, night raids, etc. At one point, our group actually witnessed this reality up close: near the gate to the camp, several IDF soldiers shot tear gas at some children who were a few meters in front of us. (We did not witness the incident that precipitated this violence.) Though we were not in the immediate vicinity of the tear gas clouds, it carried toward us downwind – and though it was only a vestige of the gas, several of us experienced its powerful, lingering sense of burning in our eyes and throats. (I can’t begin to imagine what it must feel like to sustain a direct hit.)

We continued our way down the streets of Aida, along the separation wall that butts up directly against Bethlehem. As we walked, a women called to Adelfattah from a third story window and invited us up for tea. We sat together on the roof of her home, sipping our tea and looking out over the wall toward the wide open spaces that led toward greater Jerusalem. Our hostess told us that she and Aida owes their very lives to Abdelfattah and it was an honor to have us in her home.

Please join us in supporting the work of Alrowwad through Friends of Alrowward USA. Our delegation can personally attest to the power of their “Beautiful Resistance.”

Shalom Rav

A Blog by Rabbi Brant Rosen