Category Archives: Current Events

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

photo: Hassan Eslaiah / AP

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?

The Radical Audaciousness of a Ceasefire in Gaza Now

As of this writing, Israel has killed over 7,000 Palestinians in Gaza – almost 3,000 of whom are children. (According to Defense for Children International – Palestine, almost 1,000 children are reported missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings.) Israel has cut off all food, water and power to the Gaza Strip. Gazans will soon run out of fuel to run their generators – their last link to medical treatment and drinkable water.

Israel clearly has no intention to end their onslaught any time soon; in fact, they are making their intentions all too clear. Prime Minister Netanyahu: “We will turn Gaza into an island of ruins.” Israeli army spokesman, Daniel Hagari: “We are dropping hundreds of tons of bombs on Gaza. The focus is on destruction, not accuracy.” President Herzog: “It is an entire nation who are responsible. This rhetoric about civilians being involved is absolutely untrue…We will fight until we break their backs.”

I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say we are currently facing the greatest moral reckoning of our time. A genocidal onslaught in unfolding before us in real time – countenanced by the international community and enabled by the US government. There can be no more pressing, urgent need at this moment than an immediate ceasefire to this unspeakable violence.

On the face of it, a ceasefire would seem to be the most morally obvious and straightforward course of action – but alas, the simple suggestion that Israel cease its carnage is tantamount to a radical – even extreme – idea at the moment. The Biden administration has made its staunch opposition to a ceasefire abundantly clear. When asked about the human toll, White House spokesperson John Kirby commented, “It is ugly and it’s going to be messy, and innocent civilians are going to be hurt.” When Biden himself was asked a similar question, he answered that he “has no confidence in the numbers that the Palestinians are using.”

Ceasefire is the last thing on Biden’s mind at the moment. Quite the contrary: he’s asking Congress for $14.3 billion in supplemental military aid to enable Israel’s war effort. The only sign of moral leadership in Washington: the “Ceasefire Now” resolution introduced last week by Rep. Cori Bush, which actually asserts currently audacious suggestion that “all human life is precious.” As Bush put it, “We can’t bomb our way to peace, equality, and freedom. With thousands of lives lost and millions more at stake, we need a ceasefire now.” (The number of endorsers currently stands at 18 members of congress. Click here to urge your representative to sign it – or to thank them for doing so.)

Yes, in the current political moment, simply calling for a ceasefire is considered to be a radically dangerous act. Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer lambasted the 18 signers, referring to them as “a very small group of extremists.” UN General Secretary António Guterres was subjected to similar treatment: after he recently called for a ceasefire, Israel’s envoy Gilad Erdan, demanded that he resign immediately, saying, “His comments … constitute a justification for terrorism and murder. It’s sad that a person with such views is the head of an organization that arose after the Holocaust.”

This is what it has come to.

I’m profoundly sorry to say that things are no better in the Jewish community. While it’s not a surprise that the Jewish communal establishment is offering its full-throated support to Israel’s military actions, The response from liberal Jewish organizations, sadly, has been no different. J Street, for instance, has warned Democrats who don’t sponsor a “We Stand with Israel” bill that they will lose the group’s endorsement come reelection time. The rabbinical organization T’ruah has also resisted calls for a ceasefire, issuing instead a tepid call for Israel to “follow the laws of armed conflict to avoid harm to civilians” and a “humanitarian corridor” to be opened so that “critical supplies” can enter Gaza.

For its part, the venerable Boston Workers’ Circle dared to sign on to a call for a ceasefire and promptly found itself facing expulsion from the Boston Jewish Community Relations Council. The organization choose to quit the group voluntarily, stating, “Rather than engage in the lengthy and arduous process to be formally expelled, we are turning our attention to focusing on building a future of peace and justice for all.”

According to the Torah, we must not stand idly by while the blood of our neighbor is being shed. And yet here we are. The world is allowing – if not actively enabling – the mass carnage Israel is inflicting on the people of Gaza. Please do what you can: contact President Biden, tell Congress, write to the press. Hit the streets. Shout it to the world:

 Ceasefire now!

Seeking Understanding Amidst the Horror in Israel/Palestine

When I heard the initial reports that Palestinians had breached the fences of Gaza this past Saturday, I will be completely honest – my first reaction was “good for them.” Israel had been collectively punishing Palestinians in Gaza for years with a crushing blockade with little to no care from the rest of the world. Now, amazingly, Palestinians had broken free from this seemingly impenetrable open-air prison. With power and ingenuity, they were resisting their oppression, reminding Israel – and the world at large – that they were still here. That they would not submit.

Inevitably, as the news of the attacks trickled in during the course of the day, however, my emotions turned to shock and grief. Along with the rest of the world, I learned about the sheer scale of violence committed by Hamas militants against Israeli civilians: the largest single day massacre in Israeli history. At last count, at least 1,200 Israelis have been killed and it is estimated that 150 have been abducted and taken hostage into Gaza. Everyone in Israel and many Jews throughout the world, know people – or know of people – who were killed, injured or taken hostage. Like so many in the Jewish community, my social media feed has been filled with heartbreaking pictures and stories of Israelis who have been slain or are still unaccounted for.

Amidst all the grief, however, I was also deeply troubled by the ominous, growing cries for vengeance voiced by the Israeli government and media, and felt a creeping dread over the shattering military response that would almost certainly rain down on the people of Gaza. And now that day has come. Israel has shut off all electricity and water for over two million Palestinians as the military wreaks complete and total devastation on across that tiny strip, attacking hospitals, schools, mosques, marketplaces, and apartment buildings.  As of this writing, the death toll has risen to more than 1,200, with 5,600 wounded. More than 250,000 people have been rendered homeless – and these numbers will almost certainly rise significantly in the coming days and weeks.

In a letter to my congregation a few days ago, I wrote that “so many of us are feeling layers upon layers of intense emotion, in often confusing and contradictory ways. For Jews who stand in solidarity with Palestinians, I know these confusing contradictions are particularly keen.” Even so, I wrote, we simply must lift up the underlying context of this horrible violence. I continue to hold tightly to this conviction. While the sheer scope of our grief may feel incomprehensible, we simply must find the wherewithal to say out loud that the facts of these events have not only been comprehensible, but in fact inevitable.

Indeed, Palestinians and their allies have long been sounding the alarm that Israel was subjecting Palestinians to a brutally violent apartheid regime with impunity – and that there would be terrible consequences if the international community failed to intervene. Over and over, we’ve been warned about the cataclysmic violence that would inevitably ensue if Israel was not held to account. As Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi put it recently, “an entire people (has been) living under this kind of incredible oppression, in a pressure cooker. It had to explode.”

As we attempt to understand the context of this recent violence, I believe it’s utterly critical to know where to plot the starting point – and to my mind, this is precisely where most of the media analyses of the past several days have sadly gone astray. To judge by any number of pundits, this current outbreak of violence began alternatively with the US – Saudi deal or the policies of the far-right Netanyahu administration. While it might be said that any of these causes may have provided the most recent spark, I’ve been deeply disappointed, if not surprised, that precious few of these analyses have even mentioned the Nakba in relation to this latest outbreak of violence.

To be sure, the Nakba was an act of violence and harm that has been reverberating through the land between the river and the sea from 1948 until this very day. To put it simply, for the past 75 years, Israel has been violently dispossessing Palestinians in order to make way for a majority Jewish state. And for just as long, the Palestinian people have been resisting their dispossession – yes, often violently.

It is not by chance that this most recent violence has occurred in and around Gaza. As many commentators have observed, Gaza has in many ways been the epicenter of the Nakba – and of the Palestinian people’s resistance to it. To grasp this fully, it is important to understand the history of this region. Gaza’s narrative did not begin with Israel’s blockade or the political ascension of Hamas. What we call today the “Gaza Strip” was artificially created in 1949, when it became a repository for a flood of ethnically cleansed Palestinian refugees from cities and villages in the coastal plain and lower Galilee. Before the Nakba, the population of this small region numbered 60 to 80,000 residents. By the end of the hostilities, at least 200,000 refugees were crowded into this 140 square mile strip of land.

At the time, most of the refugees fully expected to return home – some could even see their towns and villages through the fences. Those who crossed the border to gather their possessions or harvest their crops were considered “infiltrators” by Israel and shot on sight. Eventually, it became all too clear there would be no return. Over the years the tents turned into concrete buildings that grew ever higher along that narrow corridor. The numbers of that once sparse territory have grown to a population today of over 2,000,000 people – at least 70% of whom are refugees.

Following the founding of the state of Israel, many of the original settlements and kibbutzim founded on the border with Gaza were military outposts, most of which were built on top of or near demolished Palestinian villages. In fact, the sites that suffered the brunt of last Saturday’s massacres (including Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Re’im and Sderot) were settlements that were originally established in these locations for reasons of Israeli “national security.”

One such site was Kibbutz Nahal Oz, which was flooded by dozens of Hamas militants, and where, according to witnesses, at least two entire families were killed, and two more kidnapped and taken to Gaza as hostages. When I heard about the massacre at Nahal Oz, I couldn’t help but recall that this was not the first time this community had experienced Palestinian armed resistance. Back in 1956, a group of Palestinian militants entered Nahal Oz and killed a kibbutznik named Roi Rotenberg. At the time, this tragedy was keenly felt throughout the nascent state of Israel. At Roi’s funeral, the famed Israeli general Moshe Dayan offered a eulogy, expressing himself with brutal and unexpected honesty:

Do not today besmirch the murderers with accusations. Who are we that we should bewail their mighty hatred of us? For eight years they sit in refugee camps in Gaza, and opposite their gaze we appropriate for ourselves as our own portion the land and the villages in which they and their fathers dwelled…This we know: that in order that the hope to destroy us should die we have to be armed and ready, morning and night. We are a generation of settlement, and without a steel helmet and the barrel of a cannon we cannot plant a tree and build a house. Our children will not live if we do not build shelters, and without a barbed wire fence and a machine gun we cannot pave a road and channel water. The millions of Jews that were destroyed because they did not have a land look at us from the ashes of Israelite history and command us to take possession of and establish a land for our nation.

Dayan’s words resonate today with terrible prescience. Decades later, the descendants of this original Gazan generation still remain in refugee camps in Gaza, “gazing though the barrier fences as Israel appropriates as its own portion the land and the villages in which their ancestors dwelled.” Dayan’s eulogy also powerfully described a hypervigilant Israeli mindset that has only deepened throughout the decades. Since the Nakba could not and did not result in the complete ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homes, Israel has attempted to control them with a “steel helmet and the barrel of a cannon” for the past 75 years. During this time, Israel has widened its regime of violence in order to contain Palestinians in the occupied territories, subjecting them to a daily context of systemic, unceasing state violence every moment of their lives.

It is also telling that Dayan invoked the trauma of the Holocaust in his eulogy – and today, so many decades later, we can clearly see that this trauma was not limited to his generation alone. If anything, it has been handed down to subsequent generations in way that are all too real and all too palpable. Indeed, we can clearly see this generational trauma at work in Jewish responses to this latest violence, which is being openly characterized as “the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust.” It is painfully poignant to consider that these massacres occurred in a state that was founded in the wake of the Holocaust in order to safeguard Jewish lives once and for all.

At the same time, however, this Holocaust rhetoric is deeply troubling given the vengeful fury currently being whipped up by a far-right Israeli government that is demonizing Palestinians with unabashedly genocidal language. Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant recently stated “Israel is fighting human animals” and should “act accordingly.” Netanyahu has promised that Israel’s military offensive on Gaza will “reverberate for generations.” One prominent Israeli general has promised to “open the gates of hell.” And perhaps most chillingly, a member of Israeli Parliament has called for a “second Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948.”

As I write these words, the Israeli military is mercilessly bombarding the Gaza Strip with a ferocity that is truly terrifying to behold. For the past few days, I’ve been combing social media for their postings from friends in Gaza, as I helplessly watch footage of whole neighborhoods and communities completely destroyed along with their inhabitants. One of the last messages I read came from a friend and former colleague at American Friends Service Committee: “Nothing left to say. More than 80 hours without electricity, water, or internet connection. Communication is very limited with everyone inside or outside Gaza. Carnage everywhere, hard to recognize streets, we are all waiting for the time to die.”

It is not an understatement to suggest that the Jewish community is now faced with a profound moral challenge. Even as we mourn our dead in Israel, we must acknowledge and protest the genocide Israel is currently perpetrating in their memory in no uncertain terms. I cannot say this forcefully enough: those of us who ignore this reality – who mourn the Jewish dead exclusively without even a mention of the massive crimes Israel is actively committing against the Palestinian people – will be quite frankly, complicit in this horrific bloodshed.

Over the past several days, I’ve found myself returning to a famous narrative from this week’s Torah portion: the story of Cain and Abel. In the wake of the first act of violence in human history, God says to Cain, “What have you done? The blood of your brother is crying out to me from the ground! Cursed by the ground that opened its mouth to receive the blood of your brother.”  From this we learn, among other things, that bloodshed actually has the power to pollute the earth. Later on in the Torah, we will learn that nothing can ever be the same – or considered normal again – when blood is spilled. it must be expiated, or atoned for through a set of very complex and explicit sacrificial rituals. In our day, we can understand these to be acts of reparation, restoration and repatriation. We will only truly make atonement for this bloodshed with very real measures that will restore justice and balance for those who dwell in the land. 

As I read this story, I can’t help but think of the blood originally shed in the terrible days of the Nakba, and how it continues to cry out to us all from the ground. I can’t help but think of the immense amount of blood that has been shed since, whose collective cry must certainly be a searing roar, if only we would allow ourselves to hear it. But we will never heed the cry as along as we remain hardened into sides, into “us and them.” In fact, in this week’s Torah portion, there are no “sides” to speak of. There are no nations, no Israelites, no Canaanites, no Amalekites, no Moabites. There is only one common humanity, struggling how to live together in a too often harsh and unyielding world.

Those it may seem more painfully difficult than ever, let us hearken to this voices that have so long been crying out from the ground. Let us respond with understanding, compassion and action. Even amidst the terrible grief, let us shine an unflinching light on the true roots of this violence – and on the vision of a future based on justice and equality for all who live in the land.

With this in mind, I will conclude now with the prayerful words of my dear friend and colleague Rabbi Alissa Wise:

May the One Who Remembers allow us to hold in one hand 75 years of occupation,
dispossession and violence and in the other a future of peace, justice and freedom;

May the One Who is Slow to Anger soften our hearts and our fists helping us to put down the sword even at the height of the arc of our rage;

May the One of Possibility remind us that a future of peace with justice is possible;

May the One Who Awakens Us to Life hold us in our pain and vindictiveness until we set those down for the sake of life;

May the One Who Endures allow us to act for the sake of the coming generations;

May the One Who is Without Limit expand our senses of what is possible as we reach for justice, freedom and peace for us all.

Amen.

Naming Israeli Apartheid on Capitol Hill

While the US Congress is undoubtedly a horrid dysfunctional mess of an institution, there have been occasional examples of genuine hope and even inspiration. This past week provided us with one of those examples.

Many of you, I’m sure, have been following the upheaval that occurred when Washington Rep. Pramila Jaypal called Israel “a racist state” at the Netroots Nation conference. After the wrath of the Israel lobby and her Israel-supporting congressional colleagues inevitably rained down upon her, Jaypal walked back her statement. Shortly after, a Republican congressperson cynically introduced a non-binding House resolution that expressed unconditional support for Israel and condemned antisemitism. Of course, it passed overwhelmingly.

While all this was boilerplate Israel politics on Capitol Hill, nine Democratic representatives had the courage to vote no on the resolution: Alexandria Ocasio-Coretz and Jamaal Bowman of New York, Cori Bush of Missouri, Andre Carson of Indiana, Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Delia Ramirez of Illinois and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

And speaking of courage, Tlaib went on to say this on the House floor: 

Israel is an apartheid state. To assert otherwise, Mr. Speaker, in the face of this body of evidence, is an attempt to deny the reality and an attempt to normalize violence of apartheid. Don’t forget: This body, this Congress, supported the South African apartheid regime, and it was bipartisan as well.

And if this wasn’t enough, all of this occurred before a US visit from Israeli Prime Minister Isaac Herzog. When Herzog address a joint session of Congress, his speech was openly boycotted by Ocasio-Cortez, Bowman, Omar, Bush and Tlaib. 

While some will undoubtedly say that we are only talking about a small number of congresspeople here, it is still utterly unprecedented. Some might well recall that back in 2015, 58 members of Congress similarly skipped a speech by Prime Minister Netanyahu. That protest, however, was largely an issue of political protocol – it was a Democratic response to the refusal of Congressional Republicans to alert the Obama White House of their invitation to Netanyahu to address Congress. By contrast, this boycott was an unabashed protest against Israeli racism and apartheid.

Of course, Jaypal was absolutely correct in referring to Israel as a racist state – a fact that was pointed out in several mainstream media op-eds following her comment. It was also noted that many Israelis and Israeli organizations have regularly referred to Israel in this manner as well. Apropos of Tlaib’s comment, I can’t help but recall when it was considered politically beyond the pale to criticize South African apartheid on the Hill. To be sure, naming this term out loud was an important part of what eventually resulted in the passage of the Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 (vetoed by President Reagan, but overridden largely due to the leadership of the Black Congressional Caucus).

Fast forward to 2023: did any of us ever expect we would live to see the day that a Palestinian American congressperson would call Israel an apartheid state on the House floor? Or that another congressperson (Ilhan Omar) would publicly state:

There is no way in hell I am attending the joint session address from a President…during the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank in history, immediately following Israel’s largest incursion into the occupied West Bank in two decades, one that flattened city blocks, and killed at least a dozen people.

Yes, we did indeed witness genuine political courage in Washington DC this week. Please join me in thanking these congresspeople for their fearless stand against Israeli apartheid. 

On the Battle of Jenin and “The Battle of Algiers”

For many, Gillo Pontecorvo’s “The Battle of Algiers” (1966) remains one of the truly great movies of modern times – and arguably the greatest anti-colonial film ever made. So much has been written about its audacious pseudo-documentary style and its radical ideological pedagogy – and well as the ways it has provided a kind of real life template for colonial powers and liberation movements throughout history. For me, this latter point has particular resonance and relevance in the wake of Israel’s latest military “counter-terrorism” operation in Jenin.

I use the word “latest,” because this recent assault was precisely that – the latest of a continuum of Israeli military incursions into the Jenin refugee camp on the pretense of rooting out Palestinian “terrorists” and “militants.” Jenin – a camp composed of refugees who were ethnically cleansed from their homes in 1948 – has long been a center of Palestinian resistance by groups such as the PLO, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), among others. Despite a long litany of Israeli operations to crush them, however, Palestinian resistance groups have inevitably continued to regroup and thrive throughout the years.

This dynamic was incisively described in a recent New York Times op-ed by Tareq Baconi, “The Tale of Two Invasions,” in which he compared Israel’s recent assault on Jenin to its 2002 Jenin assault led by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Baconi powerfully concludes:

Residents of the Jenin camp, some of whom had fled from their homes in what is now Israel in 1948, are refugees once again. And some of the toddlers who were in the camp in 2002 are now the young men of the Palestinian resistance. As the history of other struggles against apartheid and colonial violence have taught us, today’s children will no doubt take up arms to resist such domination in the future, until these structures of control are dismantled.

After reading Baconi’s article, I immediately flashed on a memory from Israel’s 2002 invasion of Jenin (in which, according to Human Rights Watch, 52 Palestinians were killed, at least 22 of whom were civilians, including children, physically disabled, and elderly people). I well recall reading at the time that Israeli commander, Col. Moshe “Chico” Tamir, believed that “The Battle of Algiers” was “a valuable source of information” for his soldiers who were fighting against PIJ in the Jenin casbah. It was also noted that PIJ leader Iyad Sawalhe was hunted down and killed much in the same manner as in the conclusion of the film, when the Algerian rebel leader Ali La Pointe is killed by the French military.

Much of the power of “The Battle of Algiers” derives from its complex portrayal of the military mentality and tactics of the French in Algeria. In one of its most famous scenes, the French commander Col.  Mathieu offers a long monologue at at press conference in which he calmly and rationally presents the colonial case for what amounts to the torture and oppression of the Algerian people. When he concludes, he offers this final rhetorical argument: “Do you think France should stay in Algeria? If you do, you have to accept the necessary consequences.”

This colonial rationale, of course, is often made in a myriad of ways by the state of Israel and its defenders – and it goes a long way in explaining why Israel continues to stage brutal assaults upon Jenin, Gaza and other sites of Palestinian resistance. In essence: “Do you believe a Jewish state must continue to exist? If so, you have to accept the necessary consequences.”

Every time I watch “The Battle of Algiers,” I’m always moved by the dramatic finale, which portrays the killing of Ali La Pointe then abruptly jump cuts five years later to the liberation of the resistance and end of French colonial rule in Algeria. The message is all too clear: colonial powers may win the battles, but they will inevitably be defeated in the end.

So too in Jenin: Israel’s regular assaults may succeed in quashing the latest leaders of the Palestinian resistance, but it will never destroy the Palestinian people’s will to resist. As Baconi so aptly put it: “today’s children will no doubt take up arms to resist such domination in the future, until these structures of control are dismantled.”

Resistance to Pharaoh in Jenin

Jenin, 1/26/2023 photo: Zain Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images

As I write these words, it’s been reported that Israeli troops have killed nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman, in the Jenin refugee camp. Another twenty have been wounded, at least four of whom are in critical condition. 

This tragedy should not come as a surprise to us. Observers have noted that the Israeli military has been killing Palestinians with alarming regularity in recent months. According the UN, 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians since 2006. 30 Palestinians have been killed in January alone – and the month isn’t even over yet.

Though it has not been widely reported, Israel has been dramatically escalating these deadly raids against Palestinians in the West Bank. While the election of its radical right-wing government is garnering the lion’s share of attention these days, it’s important to note that these raids were initiated well before Netanyahu’s regime took power. As  journalists Mariam Barghouti and Yumna Patel reported last October (before the election):

The past few weeks have witnessed a noticeable intensification of Israel’s crackdown on Palestinians in the West Bank, targeting both ordinary civilians in their homes and villages, and armed resistance fighters and groups…

The current repression, and the resistance to it, are part of a larger, months-long campaign to quell growing Palestinian resistance, particularly armed resistance, which has seen a resurgence in areas of the West Bank. 

While the Israeli government justifies this violence as “security measures to fight terrorists” and the mainstream media describes these events as “clashes,” I’d argue for a different power analysis: “this is state violence, full stop. The state of Israel was founded upon the dispossession of Palestinians and Palestinians have been resisting that dispossession ever since. Yes, some of that resistance is violent in nature. Such has been the nature of resistance struggles from time immemorial. 

As I watch this current violence unfold, I’m mindful that we’re currently reading the Exodus story in our weekly cycle of Torah portions. At its core, this narrative has a very clear power analysis: it’s a story about resistance to violent state power. How else are we to regard Pharaoh, who responds to the demographic growth of the Israelites by subjecting them to avodah kashah (“brutal servitude”)? How else are we to understand a God who “hearkens to the cry of the oppressed?”

If we are to be true to this sacred narrative, I do not think we can dither on this point. Yes, as a Jew, I’ve obviously been conditioned to identify with the Israelites – but as I’ve learned about the history of liberation movements (including those inspired by this very story), I’ve come to understand that any people who suffer under oppressive state violence are, in a sense, Israelites. And any state — even a Jewish state — that builds its statehood on the backs of another people can become a Pharaoh.

As Shabbat approaches, may this be our prayer:

To the One who demands justice…
give us the strength to resist power
wielded with fear and dread;
fill us with the vision and purpose
to build a power yet greater,
a power rooted in solidarity,
liberation and love.

Grant us the courage to dismantle
systems of oppression –
and when they are no more,
let us dedicate our wealth and resources
toward the well-being of all.

May we abolish all forms of state violence
that we might make way for a world
free of racism and militarization,
a world where no one profits
off the misery of others,
a world where the bills owed those who have been
colonized, enslaved and dispossessed
are finally paid in full.

On Tisha B’Av 2022, Israel’s Baseless Hatred Unleashed on Gaza

Alaa Abdullah Riyad Qaddoum, age 5, killed by the Israeli military in Gaza City on August 5, 2022.

In August 2014, the Jewish festival of Tisha B’Av arrived as Israel was waging a military onslaught on Gaza that would eventually kill 2,251 Palestinians, 1,462 of whom were civilians, including over 500 children. Tisha B’Av is traditionally observed a day of mourning over the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and by extension, the tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people throughout its history. To mark the occasion of the festival in 2014, I wrote a new version of the first chapter of Lamentations (the Biblical book traditionally chanted on Tisha B’Av). At the time, I suggested this new version be added to the ceremony to acknowledge the massive tragedy the state of Israel was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza in the name of the Jewish people.

Now eight years later, the eve of Tisha B’Av 2022 arrives this evening amidst yet another grievous military assault on Gaza. As of this writing, 24 people have been killed and over 120 more have been wounded. The Israeli military reports it is preparing for a week long operation “that could take longer, if needed.” It is not currently engaging in any ceasefire negotiations.

As in 2014, Israel, its supporters and the mainstream media at large are selling this latest military onslaught by claiming “Israel has a right to defend itself” from Gazan rocket fire. But as I wrote about Israel’s actions in 2014, this is a cynical and empty posture. As was the case eight years ago, this new war on Gaza was openly and unabashedly provoked by Israel. The timeline leading up to this latest assault is a matter of public record that is available to anyone interested in reading past Israel’s hollow propaganda:

• This past May, it was reported that the Israeli military was expanding what it described as a “bank of targets” in the Gaza Strip it had identified since its most recent military offensive in 2021.

• On Monday, August 1, the Israeli military arrested Bassam al-Saadi, a senior member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), during a raid on the Jenin refugee camp. The PIJ issued threats in response but took no action.

• Concerned that the PIJ would attack in retaliation, the Israeli military directed authorities to close roads near the Gaza border.

• Yesterday, claiming that it was responding to an “imminent threat,” Israel unleashed a wave of airstrikes in Gaza, killing PIJ military commander Tayseer Jabari along with seven other people, including a 5 year old girl, Alaa Abdullah-Riyad Qaddoum.

• The PIJ retaliated by sending more than 100 missiles into Israel. The Israeli military reported that it had intercepted about 95 percent of the rockets. There were no reports of significant property damage.

• The US Ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, stated that “the United States firmly believes that Israel has a right to protect itself.” 

This is, in short, purposeful wanton aggression. That it is repeatedly committed against a blockaded, besieged population of 2,000,000 who literally have nowhere to run raises it to the level of atrocity. It is no less abominable to rationalize it away by with the bromide that “Israel has the right to defend itself” or to blame Palestinians themselves for their own destruction by invoking the allegation of “human shields” –  a false claim that has been repeatedly disproved by human rights observers.

These rationalizations are particularly profane in the way they rob Palestinians of their basic humanity. I remember thinking of precisely this on Tisha B’Av 2014 – and how incongruous it felt to engage in a ceremony of grief over Jewish loss while a nation state purporting to act in the name of the Jewish people inflicted such unspeakable losses on another people.

According to Jewish tradition, the fall of the Temple was caused by internal sinat chinam – baseless hatred – that wracked the disempowered, besieged Jewish community of ancient Jerusalem. In the age of Zionism, it seems to me, we must be ready to acknowledge a different kind of sinat chinam – one that is wielded by a Jewish state power against a people it continues to disempower and besiege.

As in 2014, I will not be mourning the destruction of the Temple this Tisha B’Av. I will be mourning the losses of yet another merciless war waged by Israel against the Palestinian people. And as in 2014, this will be my lament:

For these things I weep:
for the toxic fear we have unleashed
from the dark place of our hearts
for the endless grief
we are inflicting
on the people of Gaza.

ADL CEO Misrepresents Report on Antisemitism to Attack Palestinian Groups

photo: John Cherry/Getty Images

Cross-posted with Truthout

Keen observers have long noted that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is essentially a xenophobic Israel-advocacy organization masquerading as a Jewish civil rights organization. If there was ever any doubt, this became abundantly clear at the ADL’s National Leadership Summit on May 1, when CEO Jonathan Greenblatt delivered a prerecorded speech, ostensibly to discuss the mission of the organization in light of its just-released 2021 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents. Instead, Greenblatt spent the majority of his time denouncing anti-Zionism (i.e., legitimate opposition to an ideology that promotes an exclusively Jewish state in historic Palestine) as antisemitism. In his speech, he specifically vilified three Palestine solidarity groups — Students for Justice in Palestine, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Jewish Voice for Peace — terming them “hateful” and “extremist.”

Greenblatt’s doubling down was particularly notable because his message represented a change from the ADL’s official statement that “anti-Zionism isn’t always antisemitic.” Indeed, it was difficult to not be struck by the sheer amount of time he spent on the subject — and the vehemence with which he pressed his talking points:

To those who still cling to the idea that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism — let me clarify this for you as clearly as I can — anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

Anti-Zionism as an ideology is rooted in rage. It is predicated on one concept: the negation of another people, a concept as alien to the modern discourse as white supremacy. It requires a willful denial of even a superficial history of Judaism and the vast history of the Jewish people. And, when an idea is born out of such shocking intolerance, it leads to, well, shocking acts.

Greenblatt’s claims were particularly cynical because they actually flew directly in the face of the ADL’s own 2021 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, which found that of the 2,717 incidents it recorded last year, 345 (just over 12 percent) involved “references to Israel or Zionism” (and of these, “68 took the form of propaganda efforts by white supremacist groups.”) Though he actually opened his speech by invoking his report, Greenblatt actively misrepresented its findings, choosing instead to vilify three organizations that legitimately protest Israel’s human rights abuse of Palestinians. Most outrageously, he actually equated anti-Zionists with “white supremacists and alt-right ilk who murder Jews,” as if the rhetoric of Palestine solidarity activists could in any way be comparable to the mass murder of Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue.

By singling out these Palestine solidarity groups, Greenblatt was clearly employing a familiar strategy utilized by the Israeli government and its supporters: blaming the current rise in antisemitism on Muslims, Palestinians, and those who dare to stand in solidarity with them. The “anti-Zionism is antisemitism” trope has also been the favored political tactic of liberal and conservative politicians alike. It is most typically invoked to attack supporters of the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. Pro-Palestinian activists well know there is no better way to silence and vilify their activism than to raise the specter of antisemitism.

As journalist Peter Beinart has put it, “It is a bewildering and alarming time to be a Jew, both because antisemitism is rising and because so many politicians are responding to it not by protecting Jews but by victimizing Palestinians.” Of course, the rise in antisemitism is alarming, but as ever, the greatest threat to Jews comes from far-right nationalists and white supremacists — not Palestinians and those who stand with them. It is particularly sobering to contemplate that this definition essentially defines all Palestinians as antisemitic if they dare to oppose Zionism. But what else can Palestinians be expected to do, given that Zionism resulted in their collective dispossession, forcing them from their homes and lands and subjecting them to a crushing military occupation?

The growing crackdown on anti-Zionism can also be understood as a conscious effort to stem the growing number of Jews in the U.S. — particularly young Jews — who do not identify with the state of Israel and openly identify as anti-Zionist. The backlash against this phenomenon has been fierce — at times perversely so. In a widely discussed 2021 essay, Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy lamented the growth of anti-Zionist Jews, by labeling them as “un-Jews.” Last May, immediately following Israel’s military onslaught on Gaza, a Chicago-area Reform rabbi gave a sermon in which she called anti-Zionist Jews “Jews in name only” who must be “kept out of the Jewish tent.”

Beyond these extreme protestations, it bears noting that there has always been principled Jewish opposition to Zionism. While there are certainly individual anti-Zionists who are anti-Semites, it is disingenuous to claim that opposition to Zionism is fundamentally antisemitic. Judaism (a centuries-old religious peoplehood) is not synonymous with Zionism (a modern nationalist ideology that is not exclusively Jewish).

My congregation, Tzedek Chicago, recently amended our core values statement to say that we are “anti-Zionist, openly acknowledging that the creation of an ethnic Jewish nation state in historic Palestine resulted in an injustice against the Palestinian people — an injustice that continues to this day.” Our decision to articulate anti-Zionism as a value came after months of congregational deliberation, followed by a membership vote. As the Tzedek Chicago board explained our decision:

Zionism, the movement to establish a sovereign Jewish nation state in historic Palestine, is dependent upon the maintenance of a demographic Jewish majority in the land. Since its establishment, Israel has sought to maintain this majority by systematically dispossessing Palestinians from their homes through a variety of means, including military expulsion, home demolition, land expropriation and revocation of residency rights, among others.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to deny the fundamental injustice at the core of Zionism. In a 2021 report, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem concluded that Israel is an “apartheid state,” describing it as “a regime of Jewish supremacy from the river to the sea.” In the same year, Human Rights Watch released a similar report, stating Israel’s “deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”

Given the reality of this historic and ongoing injustice, we have concluded that it is not enough to describe ourselves as “non-Zionist.” We believe this neutral term fails to honor the central anti-racist premise that structures of oppression cannot be simply ignored — on the contrary, they must be transformed. As political activist Angela Davis has famously written, “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.”

While we are the first progressive synagogue to openly embrace anti-Zionism, there is every reason to believe we will not be the only one. At the very least, we hope our decision will widen the boundaries of what is considered acceptable discourse on the subject in the Jewish community. As Shaul Magid recently — and astutely — wrote:

[Israel is] a country stuck with an ideology that impedes equality, justice, and fairness. Maybe the true messianic move is not to defend Zionism, but to let it go. Maybe the anti-Zionists are on to something, if we only allow ourselves to listen.

Whether or not organizations such as the ADL succeed in their efforts to falsely conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism depends largely on the response of the liberal and centrist quarters of the Jewish community. Indeed, Greenblatt’s doubling down on anti-Zionism may well reflect a political strategy seeking to drive a wedge in the Jewish community between liberal Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews. Jewish establishment organizations, such as the ADL and American Jewish Committee view this moment as an opportunity to broaden their political influence, with the support of right-wing Democrats and Christian Zionists. The end game of this growing political coalition: an impenetrable firewall of unceasing political/financial/diplomatic support for Israel in Washington, D.C.

In the end, of course, the success or failure of this destructive tactic will ultimately depend on the readiness of Jews and non-Jews alike to publicly stand down Israeli apartheid and ethnonationalism — and to advocate a vision of justice for all who live between the river and the sea.

Mir Zaynen Do – Sermon for Rosh Hashanah 5782

When I tried to think of the most appropriate saying I could offer you this Rosh Hashanah, I kept coming back to those famous Yiddish words from The Partisans Song: mir zaynen do – “we are here.” It somehow feels right to invoke words of resistance at this particular moment, doesn’t it? It’s been a hard and painful battle for us all this past year, but we are here. Tragically, too many of our comrades are no longer with us, but, nevertheless, mir zaynen do. We are here. 

In an age of pandemic, just surviving itself can feel like a victory. So here we are: to date, COVID has claimed 640,000 lives in the US and over 4.5 million worldwide. And though it felt as if we’d finally turned a corner last spring, the arrival of the Delta variant was a brutal reminder that the pandemic is not at all behind us. The number of deaths is climbing again. Hospitals around the country are filling up, in some states to over-capacity. And though Trump is no longer our President, the Republican party continues to politicize the pandemic with ever-astonishing cynicism.

Despite a slight rebound last spring, things are still economically dire in our country. The percentages of those who are unemployed and uninsured are still shamefully high. Just this last August, the Supreme Court struck down eviction protections for most of the US, putting as many as 3.5 million households at risk of losing their homes, including hundreds of thousands of tenants this year alone. 

Last Rosh Hashanah, I suggested that, in a very real way, we’re all in a state of grief over the world we’ve lost. If we were to continue with this metaphor – and I still believe it’s an apt one – we’ve now gone through one full year of mourning. In Jewish tradition, the year following a loss is a spiritually intense time for mourners, traditionally marked by the regular recitation of Kaddish. When the first year is up, the intensive part of our observance is lifted and we begin our reemergence back into the world. We know, however, that we won’t be reentering the world as it was. That world has been forever changed. 

And so, even though the year of formal mourning is over, we’ll continue to say Kaddish regularly for the rest of our lives. We will never stop grieving what we’ve lost. The pain may come and go, but it never goes away entirely. Indeed, sometimes it will grip us when we least expect it. At the same time, however, we know that things can get better. If we work at it. If we affirm the truth of our healing and actively participate in the healing process. 

So all of this to say yes, it is one year later and yes, we are still experiencing the pain of the loss of the world we once knew. But while the reality of what was lost is still brutally painful for us, it is also true that there has been healing. We are not, in fact, in the same place that we were last year. 

Most obviously – and most importantly – last Rosh Hashanah, I don’t think any of us would dare to imagine that we would see a COVID vaccine any time soon. Then just a few months later, the first fully-tested immunization was approved. Let’s pause now and just try to grasp the enormity of this. It is actually unprecedented in scientific history to go from the onset of a deadly new virus to the creation of a tested vaccine in less than a year. There is really no other word for it: the vaccine is a blessing. It is saving scores of lives as we speak and it remains our greatest hope to finally reach the end of this pandemic. 

It has often occurred to me, when we gather for the High Holidays and pray to be written in the Book of Life for the coming year, we’re essentially coming to grips with the terrifying truth of our mortality. Every Rosh Hashanah we say the unsayable out loud: this time next year, some of us will still be alive and some of us will not. The Book of Life is a stark liturgical metaphor of this immensely painful truth. 

But it also occurs to me that maybe it’s not quite that simple. Maybe the book is a work in progress. Maybe, just maybe, there are a myriad of ways that we take the radical, audacious step to write ourselves into the Book of Life. If we ever needed a reminder of this, just think: last year, after the holidays were over and the gates were supposedly closed, so many people from around the world: doctors and scientists and researchers and immunologists and donors and vaccine developers and caregivers heroically took it upon themselves to write scores of human souls into the Book of Life.

So before I continue any further, I’d like us to pause and honor the blessing of this moment – to offer a blessing of gratitude for having been kept alive long enough to reach this New Year. Please join together with me: 

Blessed are you, spirit of the universe, you have given us life, you kept us alive and you have brought us all to arrive at this season together.

Now of course, while the arrival of a vaccine has been a game changer, it has decidedly not brought about the end of the pandemic. And in some ways I think this kind of magical thinking has contributed to the pain and confusion of our current moment. Last spring, when the shelter orders ended and the re-openings began, we all experienced a collective euphoria and elation that the world was finally getting back to normal. That’s why the mutations of the virus and the arrival of variants has been so brutal. That’s why we’re asking the questions now: will this ever end? Will it ever get any better? 

Again, these are the very same questions we ask when we go through the experience of grief: will things ever get back to normal? Will it ever get any better? Yes, the questions are the same – and the answers are the same as well. No, things will not get back to “normal.” But yes, it can get better. If we work at it. 

We know that this coronavirus will never be eradicated completely. The key is to suppress it to the point that it no longer poses a significant threat to us. When enough people have gained some immunity through either vaccination or infection – preferably vaccination – the coronavirus will transition from pandemic to “endemic.” It won’t be eliminated, but it won’t upend our lives anymore. It won’t cause our ICUs to overflow, force us to shelter at home and wreak havoc with our economy. We can learn to live with it. 

So therein lies both the blessing and the challenge for us this Rosh Hashanah. The arrival of the vaccine last year was an undeniable blessing. And this year, it seems to me, our challenge is to not squander that blessing. Our challenge is to advocate in no uncertain terms for the blessing of this vaccine to be spread as widely as is humanly possible in this country and throughout the world. 

I would go as far as to say that vaccine advocacy is, in fact, nothing short of a sacred obligation. In Jewish tradition, the mitzvah of pikuach nefesh – saving a life – is our most sacred religious value, the one that supersedes all others. That means fighting misinformation is pikuach nefesh. Advocating for vaccine mandates is pikuach nefesh. Making vaccines available to underserved populations that lack access to health care is pikuach nefesh. 

And there is every reason to believe we can succeed in these efforts. Strategically speaking, I don’t think it makes much sense to try to convince people who utterly refuse to get vaccinated to change their minds. I think the more effective strategy is to make the vaccine as widely available as possible to anyone and everyone. According to a recent poll, nearly four out of five adults in this country say they are ready and willing to get vaccinated. As well, the number of parents who report they are planning to vaccinate their children are increasing – more than at any other time during the pandemic. This is particularly critical, given that vaccines for children five years old and up will likely be authorized soon – and clinical trials are currently underway for children as young as six months old. 

I also want to stress that this sacred obligation is not merely local but global. Truly, one of the most shameful aspects of 2020 – and this was a year that had no shortage of shameful moments – is the phenomenon known as “vaccine apartheid.” The development of vaccines was indeed the result of the unprecedented cooperation between researchers, governments, and businesses throughout the world. But when it came time to roll them out, wealthy countries hoarded enough to vaccinate their citizens several times over. Now these countries are already administering booster shots – while fewer than 1% of people in low-income countries have received any vaccinations at all. 

But ironically enough, it is actually in our self-interest to ensure global vaccine distribution. Because the longer the world goes unvaccinated, the greater the risk for new variants to emerge that are even more dangerous than Delta – and the longer it will take for those of us in wealthy countries to achieve endemic status. This is one of the many tragic realities of the current moment: in this age of rising nativism and hyper-nationalism, we’re discovering that viruses don’t respect national borders. Economically powerful countries might find safety for their citizens in the short term, but as ever, our well-being is ultimately tied to the well-being of all who dwell on earth. 

Here are some links that will give you more information about how you can participate in advocacy for global vaccine distribution. I encourage you to get involved in this sacred effort, whether in your own home country or abroad, to ensure that this life-saving blessing is made as widely available as possible. 

On Rosh Hashanah, we undertake a cheshbon nefesh – a soul accounting – of ourselves and of the greater community. We examine deeply and unsparingly the ways we as individuals are accountable to the collective. In our 21st century world, I believe it’s imperative that we define the collective as nothing less than the global community. I can’t think of a better kavanah – spiritual intention – for the New Year than that: to affirm that our well-being is irrevocably tied to the well-being of all who dwell on earth. 

So this Rosh Hashanah, let us joyously say to one another, Mir Zaynen Do – We are here. Let us grieve those we’ve lost and celebrate the lives we’ve saved. Let’s continue to show up for one another.  Let us fight every moment of this New Year to write ourselves and our neighbors into the Book of Life. 

May it be a Shanah Tovah – a good year, a Shanah Bri’ah – a year of health, a Shanah Shel Hayyim – a year of life – for us all.

Punishing Gaza: When Narratives Collide

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I delivered this sermon yesterday at Second Unitarian Universalist Church of Chicago:

When Reverend Jason invited me to give the sermon to you today, I had some idea of what I wanted to talk to you about. My original thought was to address the idea of collective narrative. To explore the stories communities tell about themselves – and the often unintended impact those stories have on our lives and on our world.

I think it’s important to understand the way collective narratives can blind us to the narratives of others. It’s particularly critical for communities of power and privilege to understand how the stories tell about themselves affect their actions toward disenfranchised communities. Or more to the point, the communities they disenfranchise.

I think it’s safe to say that white America is starting to challenge the dominant narratives that are told about the birth of this country – and the harm they continue to cause to this very day. In a very similar way, increasing numbers of us in the Jewish community are now starting to confront the Zionist narrative that has been instilled in us for the past 73 years. Much like the American narrative, it is also rooted in colonialism and racism – i.e., the story of about a nation created on the backs of a dispossessed and disenfranchised people. 

However, given the terrible, tragic events that are still ongoing now in Palestine/Israel, I’ve decided to address this issue in a more immediate way – and a more personal way. In particular, I want to talk to you about Gaza. I’ve chosen this subject because that’s where the greatest and most tragic violence is occurring right now. I also believe Gaza epitomizes the ways Israel’s national narrative has inflicted harm on Palestinians – and how it continues to inflict such unthinkable harm even as we speak.

The subject of Gaza also has a special place in my own heart. In 2008, Israel launched a military operation on Gaza known as “Operation Cast Lead” not unlike the one we are witnessing at this very moment. This event became a pivotal turning point in my own relationship to Israel/Palestine – and to Zionism in general.

By the end of this “operation,” the Israeli military killed over 1,300 Palestinians, including 300 children. Beyond my anguish over these horrific casualties, it was the response of many in my Jewish community that shook me to my core. The rationalizations. The moral equivocation. The inability to face with the wider context in which these actions were occurring. The vilification of those – including many reputable human rights organizations – who suggested that Israel’s actions constituted war crimes and even crimes against humanity. 

Then it happened again in 2014: the Israeli military killed over 2,000 Palestinians were killed, 495 of whom were children. And now today: Israel is once again unleashing overwhelming military firepower against a population of 2,000,000 whom they’ve blockaded in a tiny strip of land and who literally have nowhere to run. This is not a difficult moral calculus for me anymore – as a rabbi, as a Jew, and as human being of conscience. 

Like many American Jews, my identity growing up was profoundly informed by the classic Zionist narrative: the story of a small underdog nation forging a national and cultural rebirth out of the ashes of its near-destruction. The redemptive nature of this narrative assumed a quasi-sacred status for me, as it did for many American Jews of my generation and older.

Politically speaking, I identified with what tends to be referred to today as “liberal Zionism.” I connected in particular with Israel’s Labor Zionist origins and generally aligned myself with positions advocated by the Israeli left and the Israeli peace movement. When it came to the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, I’d invariably intone a familiar refrain of liberal Zionists: “It’s complicated.”

2008, however, was a tipping point for me. I read about the bombing of schools, whole families wiped out, children literally burned to the bone with white phosphorous. Somehow, it didn’t seem so complicated to me anymore. At long last, it felt as if I was viewing the conflict with something approaching clarity.

My relationship to Gaza deepened yet further in 2017, when I visited Gaza as a staff person for the American Friends Service Committee to meet with our programmatic staff there. I don’t know any other way to say it other than that I now take Gaza very, very personally. I have been indelibly transformed by my experience of there and by the friendships that I cherish to this day. As a result, it has given me an even deeper sensitivity into a narrative about a place that has become hideously twisted, even by the most well-meaning of people.

Too often, I believe, we tend to fetishize Gaza and Gazans, describing them alternatively as murderous terrorists, helpless pawns of Hamas or poor, passive victims. And since most people only tend to think of Gaza when the bombs are falling, this is generally about as far as its public image tends to go. Gaza becomes an objectified symbol of people’s fears, their political agendas and their own internalized prejudices.

So for some time now, it’s been something of a personal mission of mine to try and expand the one-dimensional narratives that are routinely told about Gaza. To contextualize Gaza’s history with information that is generally unknown to most of the world but is absolutely critical if we want a deeper understanding of the events currently unfolding there. I also see it as a mission to shine a light on the moral and religious challenge that Gaza presents to the Jewish community – and to all people of conscience. 

First, a brief geography tutorial: what we call the “Gaza strip” constitutes a 140 square mile piece of land on the southeastern Mediterranean coast. While we generally think of “Gaza” as this one little crowded land mass, this term historically refers to a much larger territory that has been continuously inhabited for over 3,000 years. In ancient times it enjoyed extensive commerce and trade with the outside world and was a major port and an important stop along the spice and incense route. As such, it was located at a significant cultural crossroad, connecting a wide variety of different civilizations over the centuries.

Of course if folks associate Gaza with anything today, it’s with violence, refugees and refugee camps. But it’s important to bear in mind that this is a relatively recent phenomenon in its history. The so-called “Gaza strip” was created in 1949, when it became a repository for a flood of Palestinian refugees from cities and villages who had been expelled from their homes by Zionist militias. Before the outset of war, the population of this small strip of land numbered 60 to 80,000. By the end of the hostilities, at least 200,000 refugees were crowded into what we call today the Gaza Strip. The borders of this area were drawn arbitrarily, determined by the position of Egyptian and Israeli forces when the ceasefire was announced. It ended up being smaller by at least a third than the entire area of the Gaza District during the British mandate.

At the time, most of the refugees fully expected to return home – some could even see their own towns and villages through the barbed wire fences. Those who crossed the border to gather their possessions or harvest their crops were considered “infiltrators” by Israel and shot on sight. Eventually, it became all too clear there would be no return. Over the years the tents turned into concrete buildings that grew ever higher in that narrow corridor. The population of that once sparse territory has now grown to almost 2,000,000 people.

Given this context, it was natural that Gaza would become a center for the Palestinian resistance movement. We know from history that when a people are oppressed, they will inevitably resist their oppression. And yes, sometimes that resistance will be violent in nature.

As early as the 1950s, groups of Palestinians known as “fedayeen” crossed over the border to stage violent attacks in the surrounding settlements. One of these attacks offers an important insight into the course of Gaza’s history in ways that reverberate for us even today. In 1956, a group of fedayeen entered a field in Kibbutz Nahal Oz and killed a kibbutznik named Roi Rotenberg. The famed Israeli general Moshe Dayan spoke at his funeral – and he expressed himself himself in his eulogy with remarkable candor:

Do not today besmirch the murderers with accusations. Who are we that we should bewail their mighty hatred of us?  For eight years they sit in refugee camps in Gaza, and opposite their gaze we appropriate for ourselves as our own portion the land and the villages in which they and their fathers dwelled…

This we know: that in order that the hope to destroy us should die we have to be armed and ready, morning and night. We are a generation of settlement, and without a steel helmet and the barrel of a cannon we cannot plant a tree and build a house. Our children will not live if we do not build shelters, and without a barbed wire fence and a machine gun we cannot pave a road and channel water. The millions of Jews that were destroyed because they did not have a land look at us from the ashes of Israelite history and command us to take possession of and establish a land for our nation.

It’s now 73 later and Israel continues to rule with a barbed wire fence and the barrel of a gun. Just as importantly, the descendants of the original Gazan refugees have lost none of their ancestors’ desire for return. Most of them know full well where their ancestral homes and fields are located – in some cases just a few short kilometers from where currently live. 

As in other parts of Palestine, the memory of home and the desire for return are a palpable part of Gazan culture. I experienced this in a simple yet powerful way during my visit there. One afternoon, while we were traveling north along the coast from Rafah to Gaza City, I noticed a series of colorful concrete benches along the beachfront. My colleague Ali explained that each one bore the name of a Palestinian city or town where Gazans lived prior to 1948. 

It’s not difficult to grasp the sacred significance of these simple seaside benches to the refugees of Gaza. Unlike most memorials, which commemorate what was lost and is never to be found, I’d wager that those who come to these beaches don’t believe their home cities and villages to be lost at all. On the contrary, I believe these benches testify that these places are still very real to them. And to their faith that they will one day return home.

When we consider the narrative of Gaza, I believe we must keep this critical piece of context in mind: long before there was a Hamas, Palestinians in Gaza have been resisting their oppression – and Israel has been retaliating brutally against their resistance. Of course, when we do the moral calculus, we can argue about the strategic sense and morality of the rockets Hamas fires into Israel – as many Palestinians do.  But if we truly seek to understand Gaza’s narrative, we must honestly ask ourselves – what would we ourselves do in their situation?

As I noted earlier, many white Americans are starting to reckon seriously with the colonial narratives instilled about the birth of this country. The narratives of the powerful and the privileged have great power. But when they collide with the narratives of those they’ve disenfranchised, the impact can sometimes create a spark of transformation – it can indeed, lead to the construction of a new and more just narrative. The Black Lives Matter protests that were born last summer are a powerful example of this phenomenon. I think we’ve all been astonished and inspired by a new narrative struggling to be born in this country.

I fervently believe there is a potential for a similar transformation in Israel/Palestine. It will not happen easily, or painlessly, but I do believe it can happen. In a very real sense, it has to happen. 

May we commit ourselves to this transformation – and may it happen soon in our day.