Category Archives: Israel

Palestine Solidarity from the Streets to the Statehouse

From my Yom Kippur sermon this past October:

(There) are plenty of Jewish congregations out there: why does the world need another? What do we have that’s unique to offer? As I think about it, this is a critical question for any Jewish community. Do we exist just to exist or for a more transcendent purpose? Does our existence actively seek to repair the world or does it merely serve to use up Jewish community resources? Or worse still, does our communal existence contribute to harm in the world? 

I recalled those words last week when I learned that Anshe Emet, a prominent Conservative synagogue in Chicago planned to host a program with invited guest Yoav Gallant, the former Israeli Minister of Defense and one of the primary architects of Israel’s genocide against Gaza – who currently has a warrant out for his arrest issued by the International Criminal Court.

It should go without saying, but I’ll say it out loud: it is appalling and sickening that a prominent synagogue welcomed – and in fact celebrated – a genocidal war criminal in their house of worship. I’m proud to say that a massive protest was organized by a wide coalition of Palestine solidarity groups, including US Palestine Community Network, American Muslims for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and #IfNotNow to voice a message of outrage, solidarity and collective conscience.

Hundreds of us gathered last night across the street from the synagogue in the freezing cold to express our outrage and mutual solidarity. There were many speakers from our diverse coalition and it was my honor to be among them. Here are my remarks, below:

photo: Love and Struggle/Sarah Ji

My name is Brant Rosen; I’m a proud member of Jewish Voice for Peace, the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council, and I’m the founding rabbi of Tzedek Chicago – a proudly anti-Zionist synagogue here inI Chicago with members here and around the world.

In Jewish tradition there is a central concept we call Hillul Hashem. It literally means “desecration of God’s name.” This is at root a deeply moral concept that goes to the heart of what it means to be a human being. When we diminish the humanity of another, we diminish God’s presence in the world – and we commit the worst kind of Hillul Hashem when we commit the crime against genocide against another people.

In October 2023, Yoav Gallant, Israel’s then defense minister, said:

We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.

The Palestinian people know what it means to be robbed of their humanity. They have been deemed a collectively disposable people by Israel for over 100 years. Their very presence is a problem for Israel. We Jews should know all too well what happens when a state robs a people of its essential humanity.

The ICC has put a warrant out for Yoav Gallant’s arrest as a war criminal because he actively dehumanized the Palestinian people in word and in deed. Over 60,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza to date and over 100,000 injured, the majority of whom are women and children. According to one estimate, the ultimate death toll may eventually be nearly 200,000. Whole extended families, entire Palestinian bloodlines have been wiped out completely. Much of Gaza has been literally reduced to a human graveyard, with scores of bodies buried beneath the rubble of destroyed and bulldozed homes. Neighborhoods and regions have been literally wiped off the map. 

Gaza’s infrastructure and health care system has been decimated. According to the UN an “intentional and targeted starvation campaign” has led to widespread famine and disease throughout the Gaza strip. Health care workers, humanitarian workers and journalists are being killed, injured and imprisoned in massive numbers. Human rights agencies have documented widespread torture and abuse of prisoners, including sexual abuse, throughout a network of torture camps. 

This is dehumanization, this is Hillul Hashem of the worst kind. And to you Yoav Gallant, we say, “We Charge Genocide!” “You are not welcome in our city!”

But Yoav Gallant and the nation he served could not have succeeded if there where not those who normalized this genocide. And that is why we are here tonight. As a rabbi, as a Jew, as a person of conscience, I am morally outraged – I am sickened – that this war criminal is being hosted – and in fact celebrated – at a synagogue, a Jewish house of worship. This is what it has come to.

And here I want to address the members of Anshei Emet and the Jewish community of Chicago. Our community has a profound moral choice to make. What is the Judaism we will affirm? Will we uphold Zionism – and its ideology of Jewish supremacy – or will we stand for the sacred divine image of all people? Will we stand with war criminals or will we stand with those who are deemed to be disposable? Will we stand with the genocidal state of Israel or will we stand with the Palestinian people?

Now I’d like to address my friends and comrades in the Palestinian community:, please know that are so many of us in the Jewish community who stand in solidarity with you. There is nowhere else we can possibly be at this moment. And there are so many of us who are voicing the alarm, marching in the streets, taking arrest to demand justice for Palestinians

It is not an overstatement to say this: history will remember what we did or did not do in this moment. We are ready, together with you, to call out those who, in our name, are committing the worst kind of Hillul Hashem against you, whether it is in the streets of Rafah and Deir al Balah, the halls of Washington DC or a synagogue in Chicago. And we will not cease until all are free, from the river to the sea!

It’s been a busy week. This past Wednesday, I was in Springfield with friends and comrades to announce new IL state legislation, “The Illinois Human Rights Advocacy Protection Act,” which would repeal our state’s 2015 anti-boycott legislation that punishes advocacy for Palestinian human rights. This unconstitutional and immoral legislation, signed by then Gov. Bruce Rauner, directed the Illinois Investment Policy Board to restrict public funding to companies that use human rights filters that exclude doing business with Israel.

The new legislation, which is being introduced in the IL State House by Palestinian-American representative Abdulnasser Rashid, will “(remove) provisions requiring the Illinois Investment Policy Board to include companies that boycott Israel in its list of restricted companies.” An identical bill will be introduced in the IL Senate as well.

You can watch the entire press conference here. My remarks follow below:

Here in Illinois and around the world, we are at a critical and frightening moment. The US is governed by an administration that openly considers certain populations to be disposable. Whether it is undocumented immigrants, birthright citizens, trans youth or the Palestinian people.  Just yesterday, our president announced his intention to depopulate the entire Gaza strip of over 2 million Palestinians and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”  This after a previous administration helped to arm Israel in its crushing military assault – one that many reputable human rights organizations have termed a genocide against the Palestinian people.

In Jewish tradition, one of our most central theological tenets, which is repeated over and over, is that God responds to the cries of the oppressed. The Palestinian people have long been crying out to the international community. Over the past sixteen months, their cries have reached a fever pitch. The question before us, that has ever been before us, is how will we respond?

That is the essence of the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. It is a call from an oppressed people who are seeking support and solidarity from the international community. It originated in 2005, when a wide coalition of Palestinian civil society organizations made a crie de cour for solidarity and support. They issued a call to the world to use the time-honored nonviolent strategy of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

There are three essential demands of this call, which are all are based in international law: to end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, full and equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and to honor the UN mandated Palestinian right of return. Like all boycotts, it allows private citizens, companies and civil society organizations around the world to actively and meaningfully respond to the legitimate and collective cry of the Palestinian people.

It is also a form of free speech. Just like historic Montgomery Bus Boycott, the United Farm Workers Boycott, the boycott of apartheid South Africa before it. When the state of Illinois passed legislation restricting participation in this pro-peace, pro-human rights movement, it actively criminalized free speech. It was immoral and illegal to do so when it was enacted by Governor Rauner in 2015 – and it remains so today. In the current moment, when our country is ruled by a regime that is actively and unabashedly criminalizing free speech, we should see this legislation for what it is. The state of Illinois has no business aiding and abetting in this stripping of our right to free speech. It has no moral standing to stifle and stigmatize the legitimate cry of the oppressed.

In the Jewish community this week we are reading from our Torah, the Exodus story. And the Exodus story makes it very clear: that God responds to the cry of the oppressed and demands their liberation. We also read that this process began with brave people to defy and resist oppression. That is how liberation happens.

We are at just a moment right now. This is truly a which side are you on moment. Will we hearken to the cries of the oppressed, or will suppress their voices – and those who support their call for liberation?  We urge the state of Illinois to stand the right side of history.

A Jewish letter of support for the Illinois Human Rights Advocacy Act will soon be made public as well. I’ll make sure to post it when its available.

From Gaza to Chicago: the Resistance of Disposable Populations

(Photo: Ramadan Abed/Reuters)

It’s difficult to describe the feelings I experienced this past weekend, as I watched hundreds of thousands of Gazans in a long and seemingly endless line, heading on foot to their homes in the north. Crossing the Netzarim corridor – the border the Israeli military demarcated separating north from south – they headed back with whatever possessions they were able to carry. Family members who thought each other dead clutched each other in tearful embrace. It was truly a wonder to behold: this resilient people who had defied and withstood the most destructive miliary onslaught in modern times. As Gazan activist Jehad Abusalim put it:

Gaza today, for now, disrupts and defies the global agenda of rendering entire populations disposable and rightless. This was achieved through the resilience of an entire population that has endured months of displacement, starvation, disease and bombardment.

Though this is a fragile and temporary ceasefire, it’s striking to note the depth of Israel’s failure to achieve any of its stated objectives of its genocidal war. It failed to destroy Hamas and the Palestinian armed resistance in Gaza. It failed to rescue hostages taken on Oct. 7 through military means. It failed to implement its so-called “General’s Plan” – its blueprint for ethnically cleansing northern Gaza. And perhaps most importantly, it failed to break the will of the Gazan people to survive its genocidal war.

Jehad’s words “for now” are appropriate. The overwhelming number of Gazans are returning to homes that are rubble – and it is by no means certain how they will be able to rebuild their lives. The ceasefire is a tenuous one; there is still no agreement on the second or third phases of deal and there is every possibility that Netanyahu will use the deal as cover to eventually depopulate Gaza of Palestinians. Trump’s recent comments (“I’d like Egypt to take people, and I’d like Jordan to take people…we just clean out that whole thing”) have made his intentions clear, even if his plan has been rejected outright by Arab states.

As I read the reports and analyses in the wake of this ceasefire, one thing seemed consistent to me: as ever, there is little, if any, concern for the humanity of the Palestinian people. On the contrary, every pronouncement by Western governments and the mainstream media treats their mere existence as a problem to be dealt with. In this regard, Jehad’s reference to “the global agenda of rendering entire populations disposable and rightless” is spot on. Palestinians in general – and Gazans in particular – have always been the canaries in the coal mine when it comes to the use of state violence against “problematic populations” deemed “disposable” by authoritarian states seeking to consolidate their power.

“Entire populations rendered disposable and rightless” certainly applied to events in my hometown of Chicago this past Sunday, where the Trump launched “Operation Safeguard,” a shock and awe blitz spearheaded by ICE, the FBI, ATF, DEA, CBP and US Marshals Service. Led by Trump’s so-called “border czar” Tom Homan (and surreally videotaped live by “Dr” Phil), heavily armed and armored forces terrorized Chicago neighborhoods all day, mostly going door to door, staking out streets in search of undocumented people, taking them away in full-body chains. While there is no definitive information on the numbers of people taken, federal immigration authorities claim to have arrested more than 100 people in recent days.

On a positive note, however, we are seeing that the strategies employed by local immigrant justice coalitions are making a real difference.  My congregation, Tzedek Chicago is part of a local interfaith coalition called the Sanctuary Working Group, which has been mobilizing Know Your Rights trainings and Rapid Response teams. From our experience in Chicago over these past few days, we’ve seen that this kind of mobilization really does have an impact. Perhaps the strongest validation of these resistance strategies came from Homan himself, who said on an interview with CNN:

Sanctuary cities are making it very difficult to arrest the criminals. For instance, Chicago, very well educated, they’ve been educated how to defy ICE, how to hide from ICE. They call it “Know Your Rights.” I call it how to escape arrest.

in my previous post, I wrote that “the current political moment has left many of us breathless.” But over the course of the last several days, we’ve seen it is indeed possible “to disrupt and defy the global agenda of rendering entire populations disposable and rightless.” If we had any doubt at all, let us take our inspiration from the Gazan people, who have refused to submit after 15 months of merciless genocidal violence and are returning to their homes, vowing to rebuild and remain.

The most powerful shock and awe in the world could not break them. Let this be a lesson to us all.

The Gaza Ceasefire: Pharoah is Still Pharoah

Benyamin Netanyahu and Steve Witkoff, January 11, 2025

For Palestinians and those who stand in solidarity with them, the news of a ceasefire agreement between the Netanyahu administration and Hamas was welcome news. When the reports first broke, and I saw images of Gazans singing and dancing in the streets, I couldn’t help but feel a joyful solidarity with them. But like all brokered agreements between Israelis and Palestinians, this deal is also fragile and fraught – and filled with deeply disingenuous political maneuvering.

Some history: according to reports, this ceasefire deal is identical to the one brokered by the Biden administration last May, which was accepted by Hamas leaders in early July. At the last minute, however, Netanyahu later backed out, insisting on nothing less than the total destruction of Hamas. Israel then assassinated Hamas’ political leader and chief negotiator, Ismail Haniyeh and continued its relentless bombardment of Gaza.

Though this was all a direct affront to the Biden administration, the US government responded not by pressuring Netanyahu to accept the deal but by rewarding Israel with a $20 billion arms sale. Biden and Secretary of State Blinken also actively promoted the lie that it was Hamas and not Israel that had kiboshed the deal. In the meantime, the Israeli military continued with its genocidal onslaught. From the time that the talks fell apart until now, the death toll of Palestinians rose from at least 39,000 to 46,707, including more than 18,000 children.

So why is Israel accepting the very same deal a half a year later? We now know it was due to the efforts of Donald Trump, who has made it clear he didn’t want to deal with the distraction of Israel’s war on Gaza as he began his presidency. Last week, Trump asked his friend, Steve Witkoff, a billionaire real estate developer, to call Netanyahu and tell him in no uncertain terms that Israel’s military operations in Gaza must end before the inauguration.

In other words, a President-elect was able to do with a single visit from a private citizen what the Biden administration was either unable or unwilling to do for over a year.

Though the ceasefire deal was welcome news, it was not accomplished through the “tireless efforts of the Biden administration.” Neither was it due to the altruism (needless to say) of the President elect. Trump is nothing if not transactional – and there is already speculation over what he might give Netanyahu in return, whether it’s a brokered diplomatic deal with Saudi Arabia or the annexation of the West Bank (or both).

In the meantime, within 24 hours of the announcement of the deal, Israel escalated its bombing of Gaza, killing 80 Palestinians. According to analyst Yousef Munayyer, Israel has a habit of late-hour bombing to empty its stockpiles in anticipation of larger military aid packages from the US. In this case, since Israel has not realized its military objective of obliterating Hamas, “there may be an urge to do great damage while they can before ceasefire comes in, reacting to that disappointment.” As of this morning, the Netanyahu government, is indicating his government is prepared to accept the deal, which is set to go into effect on Sunday, but it is still yet to be signed.  

But even if it is finalized, we should have no illusions. Like past deals, there is so much that Israel can do to pursue its own designs going forward. Like past deals, this one is set to unfold in stages. The first phase will feature a ceasefire, a withdrawal of Israeli troops, an initial swap of hostages and prisoners and an influx of humanitarian aid into Gaza. However, the second and third phases are far less developed. There is no agreement on the rebuilding of Gaza, the future of the Israeli military presence, who will govern, or how.

When I read the details of this agreement, I couldn’t help but recall the Oslo Accords in 1993, which was also negotiated in phases. The first was an interim phase, in which Israel would gradually withdraw from Palestinian areas in the West Bank and transfer administrative power to a temporary “Palestinian Authority.” The second phase involved permanent status details such as Jerusalem, refugee rights, settlements and borders. In the end, Israel agreed to the first phase as a cover to extend its settlement regime across the West Bank – all the while enacting policies that further dispossessed Palestinians from their homes.

Oslo was a hard lesson on the ultimate designs of all Israeli administrations, from left to right. No matter who is in power, the Israel’s goals are the goals of Zionism itself: the maintenance of a Jewish majority in the land. This goal necessarily entails the ongoing ethnic cleansing – an ongoing Nakba – of the Palestinian people. After the genocide in Gaza, we can honestly add the words “by any means necessary” to this sentence. No matter the diplomatic rhetoric around this current deal, we must not lose sight of this crucial history. Put simply: Netanyahu is all too likely to assent to phase one of the deal, get back a requisite number of hostages, then continue with the genocide in Gaza in order to destroy Hamas completely, ensure a maximum number of Palestinians are either dead or unable to return to their homes, and re-entrench Israeli civilian settlement there.

In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Shemot, there arises a new Pharoah who “did not know Joseph.” Threatened by the demographic growth of the Israelite people in the land, he institutes murderous policies to stem their birthrate and reduce their number through harsh enslavement. But there are also those who resist Pharoah’s tyranny through acts of courageous civil disobedience: Hebrew midwives who refuse to kill Israelite baby boys, a mother and sister who save an Israelite child and a daughter of Pharoah who adopts him. All of these events set in motion a chain that will inexorably, inevitably lead toward the liberation of the Israelite people.

So in this moment, let us welcome the prospect of the cessation of hostilities. But let us have no illusions about the designs of all Pharoahs past and present. Like the Israelites in our Torah portion, the Palestinian people continue to cry out for liberation.

Let us continue to heed their call.

Yitzhak Rabin and the Violent Legacy of Shimon and Levi

The Lyyda Death March, July 1948

The centerpiece of this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Vayechi, is Jacob’s final soliloquy to his individual sons: a Biblical poem that is equal part blessing and curse, history and prediction. While his words are complex and wide ranging, Jacob saves his harshest words for his sons Shimon and Levi:

Shimon and Levi are a pair/Their weapons are tools of lawlessness. Let not my person be included in their council/Let not my being be counted in their assembly. (Genesis 49:5-6)

Jacob’s curse of Shimon and Levi seems to be a reference to their role in the calculated and deadly attack on Shechem that occurred in Genesis 34. Biblical scholars surmise that these verses likely reflect the tribal biases of the original author. But whatever the reason for Jacob’s words, his characterization of Shimon and Levi have come to represent the cursed impact of calculated and unrestrained violence.

As I read these words this year, I recalled something I hadn’t thought of in a long time: a speech delivered by the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on February 28, 1994. Four days earlier, a Jewish extremist settler, Baruch Goldstein, had murdered 29 Muslim worshippers in the Cave of the Patriarchs/Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron/Al Khalil in a calculated, vicious attack. In an address before the Knesset, Rabin actually quoted Jacob’s words to Shimon and Levi. He then continued, addressing the late Goldstein, who was already becoming viewed as a martyr in the eyes of his zealous followers:

To him and to those like him we say: You are not part of the community of Israel. You are not part of the national democratic camp to which we in this house all belong, and many of the people despise you. You are not partners in the Zionist enterprise. You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out. You placed yourself outside the wall of Jewish Law. You are a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism.

A year after delivering this speech, Rabin was dead, murdered by another Jewish extremist settler.

Since his death, Yitzhak Rabin has since achieved mythic status in Liberal Zionist circles as a heroic figure who was struck down for daring to make peace with the Palestinians. And for many years, I was among those who believed he was indeed a casualty of the curse of Shimon and Levi to which he referred just one year earlier. As I read Rabin’s speech 30 years later, however, I believe the reality is not nearly that simple.

I’m particularly taken by his characterization of Goldstein as an “errant weed” and “foreign implant” to the Zionist enterprise, as if we can draw a meaningful line between “good Zionism” and “bad Zionism.” It’s worth noting that Rabin himself was the general who oversaw the most massive expulsion of Palestinians during the Nakba: the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian villages of Lydda and Ramle in July 1948, which included the infamous Lydda massacres and the Lydda death march. Rabin personally signed the expulsion order which stated, “The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age….”

Years later during the First Intifada in 1988/9, Rabin was Israel’s Defense Minister when he issued the well known order to “break Palestinians bones” – a directive that was intended “to permanently disable Palestinian youth by inflicting lasting injuries that incapacitate them.” As generations of disabled Palestinians will attest, the legacy of this order has had a devastating impact on their lives to this day.

Although many promote the mythology of Rabin as a former military man who later became a man of peace, the truth is much more problematic. In fact, Rabin never supported Palestinian statehood throughout the Oslo “peace process.” It is more accurate to say he used the veneer of this process to enable an Israeli settlement regime that has since become permanently entrenched in the West Bank. Rabin’s role in Oslo can be directly linked in a straight line to the systemic violence against Palestinians that is now raging with impunity throughout the Occupied Territories. 

In other words, while Liberal Zionist mythology attributes the curse of Shimon and Levi to “bad apple” Zionists, this kind of systemic, unrestrained violence has been central to the Zionist project from its very beginning. Indeed, Israel’s still ongoing genocide in Gaza is not the result of “errant weeds” in the Israeli government like Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Givir. It is the logical end game of Zionism itself: an ideology and movement that has from its very origins dehumanized and dispossessed Palestinians to make way for Jewish settlement.

As the book of Genesis comes to a close, Jacob’s deathbed words ring out to us with renewed clarity. Zionism’s weapons are tools of lawlessness. Let us not be included in their council. Let our being not be counted in their assembly.  

Some Final Thoughts on Hanukkah (as the Candles Flicker Out…)

Some final thoughts on Hanukkah as we say farewell to this complex holiday:

I’m mindful that many of us struggle to find meaning in the historical events commemorated by Hanukkah. It’s a complicated story that I won’t recount in detail here other than to say that the “heroic” Maccabees were actually religious zealots who engaged in a civil war with the assimilated Hellenistic Jews of their day – and that when they succeeded in overthrowing the Seleucid empire, the independent Hasmonean commonwealth they established was corrupt and oppressive. This period of Jewish independence lasted a little more than 100 years before the Hasmoneans fell to the Roman empire.

The rabbis of classical Pharisaic Judaism were not, to put it mildly, fans of the militaristic, corrupt shenanigans of the Maccabees and the Hasmonean dynasty, which is why this story is nowhere to be found in rabbinic writings (and why the books of the Maccabees were not canonized as part of the Hebrew Bible). The Rabbis knew this all too well: empires, nations and states are artificially-created entities, manufactured through military might and inevitably destined to fall. It was not by coincidence that the famous line from Zechariah: Not by might and not by power but by My spirit says the Lord of Hosts was chosen to be the prophetic portion chanted on the Shabbat of Hanukkah. 

Their famous Talmudic story about rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem and the cruse of oil that miraculously lasted for eight days is much more than a quaint legend. At its heart it’s a spiritual-political allegory about the limits of human military power – and the enduring resilience embodied by faith and light. Although the short-lived victory of the Maccabees is valorized by political Zionism and the state of Israel, I’d argue that the enduring aspect of this holiday is a rejection of the ephemeral, temporary nature of empire and state power – and the recognition of a Power yet greater.  

This Faustian bargain with state power is also at the heart of this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Vayigash, in which Egypt becomes ravaged by famine. In response, Joseph (who is second in power only to Pharoah) offers to sell the Egyptians their own food back to them from Pharaoh’s storehouses that they had previously stocked. When they run out of money, they sell him their livestock. When they run out of livestock, he buys up their land. In the end, the only things they have left to sell are their own bodies and their labor, so they agree to become indentured servants (i.e., slaves) to Pharaoh. 

This part of the Joseph story, needless to say, is not an easy read. Over the years, my shocked Torah study students have compared Joseph’s draconian policies to the mandatory collectivization of agriculture in Maoist China and the US government’s foreclosure of mortgages/repossession of Dust Bowl farms during the Great Depression. Among other things, this episode offers a stark commentary on the wages of absolute political power, and how this power is invariably built upon shaky and precarious foundations. (We will learn about this all too soon when we get to the Exodus story and meet “the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph.”)

The Jewish liberation theologian Marc Ellis, of blessed memory, wrote and spoke a great deal about the complex interface between Jews and power in the post Holocaust era, viewing Jewish state power embodied by the state of Israel as fatally “Constantinian.” At the same time, however, he had no desire to return to the days of Jewish disempowerment at the hands of Christian Europe. “Jewish empowerment,” he once said in an interview, “is important and should be affirmed…I want Jews to be empowered and act justly. Of course, minority communities around the world need empowerment, too. My ideal, which includes Palestinians, is an interdependent empowerment.”

With Hanukkah now behind us, I’m more convinced than ever that this is the sacred core of that holiday: not the ignoble story of the Maccabees and the ill-fated Hasmonean Kingdom, but the light-filled spirit of interdependent empowerment. Let us hold onto this vision as Hanukkah recedes into the daunting challenges of the new year 2025. Let us put our trust in a Power yet greater than the power of the mightiest empire. Let us reject narratives that glorify nationalism and militarism – and instead embrace a vision of Judaism rooted in justice, peace, and collective liberation.

Remembering the Forgotten on Shabbat Hanukkah

Mahmoud Al-Fasih holds the body of his three-week-old daughter, Sela, before laying her to rest. (Photo: CNN)

I’m sure there are many people who read what I write regularly (or scroll through my social media feeds) and think to themselves, “What a ‘one-note’ rabbi, just going on and on about Gaza. Why doesn’t he write or talk about other things for a change?”

If I could answer, these hypothetical folks, I’d say, yes there are surely many things in the world I could be writing or talking about. But when you live in a time of genocide – particularly one that is being funded by your government and carried out in your name as a Jew – it seems to me that being “one note” is a moral imperative. 

All the more so as Israel’s genocide on Gaza is now in its fourteenth month and the rest of the world seems have moved on – treating Israel’s genocide in Gaza as mere background noise. In such a context, it seems to me, bearing witness – i.e., to remember when others have forgotten – is a profoundly sacred act.  

Though it is not being widely reported, Israel’s mass killing of Gazans has been increasing dramatically in recent weeks. Earlier this week, it was reported that Israel’s genocide claimed 77 lives in one day. Two days ago, Israel attacked five journalists in a clearly marked news van outside Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat. (One of the journalists, Ayman Al-Jidi, was waiting for his wife to give birth inside the hospital.) It is also being reported that Gazan babies are freezing to death inside their increasingly frigid tent encampments. Truly, in the face of such shameful and shameless genocidal violence, how can we not bear witness?

Remembering Gaza is at the heart of Tzedek Chicago’s new Hanukkah supplement, “Rededicating our Solidarity with Gaza” which highlights a different group of Gazans who have been subjected to grave and deadly harm during the course of the genocide (including journalists and children). Each group is represented here by individuals whose lives and deaths testify to the dignity and humanity of the Palestinian people. We encourage you to read them aloud each night after reciting the Hanukkah blessings bear witness to their stories and sanctify their memories. 

Remembrance is also an important theme in this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Miketz. At the very end of last week’s Torah portion, while Joseph was languishing in Egyptian prison, he interpreted the dreams of his cell mates, the chief baker and the royal cupbearer. He told the cupbearer, “Think of me when all is well with you again, and do me the kindness of mentioning me to Pharaoh, so as to free me from this place.” But after the cupbearer is released from prison, we are told, “Yet the chief cupbearer did not think of Joseph; he forgot him.”

At the start of this week’s portion, the cupbearer learns of Pharaoh’s nightmares and tells him, “I must make mention today of my misdeeds.” He then tells Pharaoh about Joseph, the young man in prison who has the gift of dream divination. On the surface, this might be the self-effacing rhetoric of a royal courtier addressing his king. But on a deeper level, his statement could be understood as a kind of confession: admission that he has sinned by allowing the incarcerated to remain forgotten. 

Of course, systems of incarceration themselves are inherently sinful inasmuch as they treat humanity as disposable – and too easily forgotten. Whether it is the massive for-profit prison systems, the cages on our border, or the people of Gaza, who have been incarcerated in an open-air prison for over a decade and are now being subjected to genocidal violence at the hands of their captors. 

This Hanukkah, let us shine our lights to remind the world of what it would just as soon forget. Let us commit the kind of hope that is rooted in action: toward a world free of prison walls, a world where no one is disposable and the divine image in all is cherished and nurtured and liberated into its full and unfettered potential.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Hanukkah Sameach.

What Makes Space Sacred? What Makes Land Holy?

photo credit: Zaha Hassan

Are some places in the world more inherently sacred than others? Or is the entire world itself a sacred place? These questions are at the heart of this week’s Torah portion, Parsahat Vayetze.

As the portion opens, Jacob has fled his home to escape from the wrath of his brother, Esau. Alone in the wilderness, he arrives at a place (in Hebrew, makom) to spend the night, using a stone as his pillow. That night, he dreams of steps reaching from earth to heaven, upon which angels ascend and descend. God appears to Jacob and reaffirms the promise made to Isaac and Abraham, promising to protect Jacob on his journey until he returns home.

When Jacob awakens, he exclaims, “Mah norah ha’makom hazeh” – “How awesome is this place! God was present in it and I did not know! This is none other than the house of God and that is the gateway to heaven.” Jacob then sets up the stone he used as his pillow as a sacred pillar and names the place Beit El (“house of God”).

Centuries of commentators have inquired about the specific nature of this makom/place. Was it just a random spot where Jacob happened to spend the night or was it a sacred place toward which he was somehow guided by God? Our interrogation of this question begs an even deeper question: is the whole world in a sense, sacred space or are there some places in the world that are “more sacred” than others?

The answers to these questions are not, of course, are not mutually exclusive. Most spiritual traditions consider certain locations or sites to be uniquely invested with divinity. It is undeniable that Jewish tradition has traditionally ascribed sacred meaning to a specific land known as Eretz Yisrael. Some commentators say this land is uniquely holy because certain commandments can only be observed there and nowhere else. According to Jewish mystical tradition Eretz Yisrael – and the Temple Mount in particular – marks the very center of the universe.

It does not follow, however, that these ideas ipso facto give the Jewish people entitlement to assert control or dominion over the land (or the people who dwell upon it). On the contrary, I would argue that this sense of entitlement actually betrays the sanctity of the land. Indeed, it is difficult to read this Torah portion in the age of Zionism and fail to note that Beit El is the name of a prominent West Bank settlement that was established in 1977 by the ultranationalist settler group Gush Emunim.  

This sacrilegious hyperliteralism also ignores what the Torah teaches us from the very first chapter of Genesis: namely, that the entire earth is God’s divine creation. This ideal became more critical in Judaism after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, when the Jewish people spread throughout the diaspora and created a spiritual system where God could be found anywhere in the world. Notably, the rabbis taught that the word makom is one of the names of God, referring specifically, the experience of the divine that is connected to place. (Or in the words of my favorite movie superhero, “wherever you go, there you are.”)

The Hebrew word for diaspora, galut, literally means exile, but as a famous rabbinic midrash teaches, “when the people of Israel went into exile, God went into exile with them.” Of course, the experience of exile is a universal one: as human beings, we understand that live in an imperfect world that has not yet experienced a complete and lasting justice. Nevertheless, as this midrash suggests, the imperfect exilic state in which we live is still infused with transcendent meaning and purpose wherever our steps may lead us.

As the great Yiddish writer S. Ansky powerfully wrote in his play “The Dybbuk,” “Every piece of ground on a person resides when they raise their eyes to heaven is a Holy of Holies.” That is to say, every place on earth has the potential to be a place of divine encounter. Every place has the potential to be a makom: holy space. Every home we create can be a Beit El – the sacred meeting place between heaven and earth.

I’m sure we all can think of these holy spaces in our own lives: places that are sacred because they were the sites of deep and significant meaning for us; places made holy because of the experiences we experience in them and the sacred memories we associate with them. At the same time, it is impossible to ignore that the entire earth abounds in sanctity – as we read in the book of Isaiah: “The whole world is filled with God’s glory.”

In other words, like Jacob, any place we lay down our heads has the potential to be a makom: a holy place with limitless potential for sacred, transformative experience.

Toward a Judaism of Love over Land, People over Profit

A photograph shows soldiers posing with an orange banner that reads: “Only settlement would be considered victory!” The color orange was used by the settler movement in 2004 and 2005 to protest Israel’s disengagement from Gaza.

It’s becoming ominously clear that the end game of Israel’s genocide in Gaza is the end of game of Zionism itself: namely, settlement. The writing has been on the wall for some time now. As I mentioned on Rosh Hashanah, we now know the existence of the so-called “General’s Plan,” in which:

Israel will control the northern Gaza Strip and drive out the 300,000 Palestinians still there. Major General Giora Eiland, the war’s ideologue, proposes starving them to death, or exiling them, as a lever with which to defeat Hamas. The Israeli right envisions a Jewish settlement of the area, with vast real estate potential of convenient topography, a sea view, and proximity to central Israel…

News accounts bear out that the General’s Plan is well underway. The vast majority of residents of Northern Gaza have now been ethnically cleansed from their homes and Israel has said it has no intentions to let them return. At a recent two-day conference, “Preparing to Resettle Gaza,” Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told the hundreds who gathered, “If we want it, we can renew settlements in Gaza.”

With Trump now poised to take power, there will very likely be new wind behind these plans. Last March, Jared Kushner was quoted as saying: “Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable … It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel’s perspective I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.”  With Kushner widely expected to be “pivotal” to Trump’s Middle East policy, his words now take on a terrifying new resonance of possibility.

Even more ominously, there is every reason to expect these plans will be aided and abetted by the American Jewish communal establishment. One week after Donald Trump’s reelection, Karen Paikin Barall, the Jewish Federation’s VP of government relations, remarked to a group of local Jewish community relations councils, “We should all look forward to the day we can hope to buy townhouses in the West Bank and Gaza.”

As a settler colonial movement, Zionism was always focused on the maintenance of a majority Jewish presence in historic Palestine. However, the seizing and control of resources has been no less integral to this project. The settler colonial reality of the 21st century is driven in no small part by the corporate interest of weapons manufacturers as well as the billionaire and oligarch class that seek to profit off the spoils of war and genocide. In the current moment, it should come as no surprise that there is also unabashed talk about the annexation of the West Bank and even parts of South Lebanon.

Such is the natural result of a movement and ideology that prizes real estate over the well-being of the actual people who happen to live on the land. I’m particularly mindful of this as I contemplate this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, which begins with the famous episode in which Abraham negotiates with the Hittites to purchase the Cave of Machpelah as a burial site for his recently deceased wife Sarah. This story is often wielded by many Zionists as a deed of sale to this sacred site – and contemporary land acquisition in Palestine as the “inalienable possession of the Jewish people.”

There is, of course, another way to understand the spiritual meaning of this story: it is not about land acquisition but love and loyalty. Abraham is not motivated to purchase this land in order to claim exclusive entitlement to it: he is driven by his desire to honor his beloved wife Sarah, and to ensure that she and his extended family will have a permanent resting place. To read this episode only about entitlement to land is limited at best – and to judge by the apartheid and violence by which Israel maintains its control of this site today – a moral sacrilege at worst.

At the end of the portion, following the death of Abraham, we read that his sons Ishmael and Isaac buried their father together in the Cave of Machpelah. I can think of no better image to underscore the critical importance of pursuing a Judaism that prizes love over land. This Shabbat Chayei Sarah, may we rededicate our commitment to this sacred vision.

Sukkah Descecration on College Campuses Reflect the Much Greater Desecration in Gaza

(Photo: JVP NU)

A few days before Sukkot, the world witnessed the unbearably tragic image of 19-year-old Sha’ban al-Dalou, a software engineering student burning to death after Israel bombed Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in Gaza. In the horrifying video footage, Sha’aban’s was lying on a hospital gurney, screaming as the flames engulfed him and onlookers screamed for help. His mother and younger brother also died in that fire. It was recently reported that his younger sister Farah has succumbed to her burns as well. May their memories be for a blessing.

Before his death, Sha’aban had recorded videos asking for help to move his family to safety in Egypt. In one video, he described his and his families life attempting to survive amidst the genocide: “I’m taking care of my family, as I’m the oldest,” adding that his parents, two sisters and two brothers were displaced five times before finding refuge on the hospital’s grounds. “The only thing between us and the freezing temperatures is this tent that we constructed by ourselves.”

Shaban al-Dalou with his parents and siblings [Photo courtesy of the al-Dalou family]

Like so many, I was shattered after learning of Sha’aban’s life and death. I was particularly devastated to learn that he burned to death while he was recovering from a previous attack and was receiving medical treatment in a shelter he had constructed to protect his family.

As it would turn out, all of this transpired as the Jewish community was preparing for the Sukkot holiday, in which we build fragile, makeshift shelters to dwell and eat in during our week-long festival. Like all of the Jewish festivals, Sukkot has now taken on an entirely new and immediate meaning after witnessing more than a year of Palestinians being driven from their homes, forced to life in flimsy makeshift tent shelters, which all too often have served as the place of their final, terrifying moments on earth.

As has been the case with other Jewish holidays this past year, many of us were unable to treat the Sukkot festival as “business as usual.” Rather, this holiday which sanctifies the literal creation of shelter, has provided us a ritual means to express our sacred solidarity with the Palestinian people during a time of genocide. And not unsurprisingly, college students across the country have once again led the way for us. According to Nate Cohn, the National Campus Organizer for Jewish Voice for Peace, almost 30 “solidarity sukkot” have been built – or are planning to be built – on campuses around the US. At least four that we know of have already been destroyed by police forces.

In the wake of the student Palestine solidarity encampment movement last spring, college administrations have spent the summer devising ways to crack down on its resurgence by developing draconian new rules designed to severely restrict freedom of assembly and speech. Of course, when it comes to Jewish students constructing sukkot on their campuses, it adds in the critical issue of freedom of religious expression. Moving, dismantling or destroying sukkot is, quite simply, act of religious desecration.

(Photo: JVP NU)

At Northwestern University, in my hometown of Evanston, the campus chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace attempted in vain to receive a permit to build a sukkah on their campus. On the eve of Sukkot last Wednesday evening, they put up a solidarity sukkah in Deering Meadow, a large open grassy area on campus (see above) – and within hours it was destroyed by campus police. With no other options, they decided to rebuild their sukkah last Friday at The Rock, a centrally located and historically protected space of expression which is the only area on campus where tents are techincally permitted.

Leaders of JVP NU reached out to my congregation, Tzedek Chicago, to support and protect their rebuilding, which took place on the eve of Shabbat. And so when the time came, Tzedek cantorial soloist Adam Gottllieb and I led a Shabbat service (see top pic) as students constructed the sukkah next to The Rock, on which they had painted the messages “TIkkun Olam Means Free Palestine” and “None of Us are Free Until All of Us are Free.” Dozens of people enthusiastically in the ceremony, which culminated in the final touches on the structure and the communal blessing for dwelling in the sukkah.

Two hours after the end of the service, we learned that campus police had come, thrown the student’s sukkah in a truck and drove it away.

(Photo: JVP NU)

There is little more to be said: this is what things have come to in American Jewish life. Jewish religious expression of solidarity with an oppressed people is deemed “antisemitic” while college campuses are desecrating sacred Jewish ritual with impunity. These facts tell you everything you need to know about the moment we are currently in.

In the end, however, the destruction of these symbolic fragile structures must not and should not be viewed primarly as an act of repression against Jewish college students. This would be an egregious misreading of the true meaning of Sukkot 2024. Rather, I fervently believe these acts must only serve to further sensitize us and deepen our outrage a desecration that is far more egregious and tragic: i.e., the genocidal violence that Israel has been inflicting on the Palestinians of Gaza, who have been seeking in vain for shelter for over a year.

And even more importantly, it must strengthen our resolve to do everything we can to create a real and lasting shelter – by finally bringing this heinous genocide to an end.