In the cycle of weekly Torah readings, we’ve recently begun the book of Exodus, the central sacred narrative of the Israelites’ journey from oppression to liberation. In the story, Egypt, the place of the Israelites’ servitude, is less historical than mythical, referred to in Hebrew by the word Mitzrayim, meaning “narrowness.” Mitzrayim is the Exodus story’s embodiment of systemic state oppression, signified by the constricting, crushing experience of ongoing persecution in which life becomes increasingly unlivable for the oppressed. In the opening reading of the book of Exodus, we read that Pharaoh oppressed the Israelites “be’farech,” which literally means “pulverized.” Last week we read that their “spirits were crushed” so thoroughly that they were unable to hear or respond to Moses’ message of liberation.
As we read the Exodus story this year, I can’t help but note that this narrative is playing out before us every day in real time. It is becoming brutally, tragically clear that the people of Gaza are experiencing Mitzrayim, forced to live in an increasingly narrow – and intolerable –place of genocidal oppression.
Last October, as part of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, Gaza was divided into two north-south zones divided by a “yellow line.” The eastern side of the line, which comprises roughly 58% of the Gaza strip, is under the control of the Israeli military. (It also includes most of the agricultural land used by Palestinians in Gaza before the war.) Meanwhile, over 2,000,000 Gazans have been forcibly displaced into the narrow western part of the strip, though many of them have (or had) homes on the other side of the line. As a result, this narrow strip of land – which was already one of the most densely populated places on earth, has been narrowed yet further.
Hundreds of Palestinians have already been killed since the ceasefire began – and at least 77 have been killed by Israeli gunfire near or over the line, which is not consistently delineated. Teenagers and young children have been among the slain, according to the AP. In October, an Israeli tank fired on a civilian car, killing 11 members of the Abu Shaaban family in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. In December, two Palestinian boys were killed by an Israeli drone when they went out to gather some firewood for their father Tamer, who is paralyzed. The Israeli military announced it had killed “two suspects who crossed the yellow line, conducted suspicious activities on the ground, and approached IDF troops operating in the southern Gaza Strip, posing an immediate threat to them.”
If all of this sounds familiar, it should. The narrow space known as the “Gaza Strip” never existed until it was artificially created in 1948 following the Nakba, when it became a repository for a flood of Palestinian refugees ethnically cleansed from cities and villages in the coastal plain and lower Galilee. In the end, at least 200,000 refugees were crowded into tents in the 140 square mile strip of land. Its borders were determined by the position of Egyptian and Israeli forces when the ceasefire was announced. 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.
In December 1948, the UN passed Resolution 194, which decreed that Palestinian refugees seeking to return home “should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.” Of course, Israel proceeded to create facts on that ground to render their return impossible. Over 400 villages were completely destroyed, many of which had new Jewish settlements built upon them. In towns and cities, new Jewish immigrants moved into empty Palestinian houses that had been appropriated by Israel. To this day, “the earliest practical date” for the return of Palestinians to their homes remains unrealized.
Now, almost eighty years later, Gazans have once again been dispossessed from their homes, forced into a “temporary” repository. Once again, Palestinians in Gaza are living in tents while other military powers make plans to permanently entrench their presence and power there. In the words of Palestinian scholar Rashid Khalidi, “1948 is immediately brought to mind when you see those images (of tents).”
And once again, the “temporary” lines drawn by colonial powers are inexorably becoming permanent. Last month, Israel’s military chief of staff Eyal Zamir unabashedly announced that the yellow line was now “a new border.” Even more ominously, it was reported that the Israeli military is expanding the yellow line yet further in eastern Gaza, squeezing Palestinians into an even narrower section of the narrow strip. According to Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, “The expansion of the yellow line (is) meant to eat up more of the territory across the eastern part, really shrinking the total area where people are sheltering…Everyone is cramped here. The population here not just doubled but tripled in many of the neighborhoods, given the fact that none of these people is able to go back to their neighborhoods.”
It is reasonable to assume that this intolerable status quo will go continue indefinitely, i.e., a de facto partition of Gaza east of the yellow line controlled by Israel, where it cultivates and empowers anti-Hamas Palestinian groups, and a smaller western area controlled by Hamas which will be left to languish in ruins. As Sam Rose, acting director of Gaza affairs at UNRWA has pointed out, “It’s right from the kind of typical Israeli playbook of ‘we’ll take as much as we can while there’s a process ongoing that isn’t delivering much.’ Then when it comes down to negotiations, there’s less to negotiate over.”
Given the bewildering political maneuvering of the current moment – the immediate future looks grim for the people of Gaza. Though almost none of the ceasefire’s Phase One goals have been accomplished, the US and Israel and their geopolitical partners are already proceeding with Phase Two of the plan. Trump has announced plans to hold a signing ceremony at Davos this Thursday for his “Board of Peace” – the consortium of nations and hand-picked Palestinian “technocrats” that will supposedly manage Gaza going forward. There is already controversy over Washington’s apparent effort to use the Board of Peace to usurp the United Nations from the planning process. It seems clear that the project is being largely steered by Trump cronies such as Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – i.e., real estate moguls who have a financial interest in how Gaza will eventually be carved up.
Like most of Trump’s foreign policy plans, this entire process has turned into a surreal circus. On Monday, when Trump was told that France was unlikely to join the Board of Peace, Trump replied, “Well, nobody wants (President Macron) because he’s going to be out of office very soon. I’ll put a 200 percent tariff on his wines and champagnes and he’ll join.” Meanwhile, Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister in the Western-backed Palestinian Authority who was chosen to lead the Palestinian technocrat committee recently said that providing relief and housing for Gaza will his committee’s first priority, adding, bizarrely, “If I bring bulldozers and push the rubble into the sea, and make new islands, new land, I can win new land for Gaza and at the same time clear the rubble. This won’t take more than three years.” (In fact, the UN has estimated it will take until 2040 and many billions of dollars to reconstruct Gaza.)
Beyond these surreal machinations, however, the pattern of this process is ultimately much the same as it ever was, dating back to post-1948 – or even the 1917 issuance of the Balfour Declaration: Western colonial powers are meeting to determine the fate and divide the spoils of historic Palestine absent any consultation with the Palestinian people themselves. In the meantime, the people of Gaza continue to languish in a contemporary Mitzrayim – an increasingly narrow place, subjected to ongoing military attack, forced to live in tents during a cold, wet winter, besieged by hypothermia and starvation.
In this week’s portion, the Israelites finally go through the waters and emerge into the wide-open spaces of liberation. Our sacred Exodus narrative makes this reality clear: the experience of Mitzrayim may be increasingly intolerable, but it cannot last forever. Pharaohs may rise, but they will inevitably fall. Though such a future may feel unbearably remote at the moment, we must hold tight to this vision. Even as the genocide continues, even as the rest of the world moves on, it will be up to us all to make this latest version of the liberation story a reality.
Last Shabbat the Jewish community received the devastating news that Beth Israel, the oldest synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, was attacked by an arsonist. The fire caused extensive damage to the library and sanctuary, destroying two Torah scrolls and damaging five more. Thankfully, though the synagogue building was extensively burned, no one, other than the arsonist himself, was harmed.
The accused perpetrator, Stephen Pittman, a 19 year-old local man, was turned into the police by his father, who reported that his son texted him in real time while he was committing the crime. He later returned home with burns on his body and told his father “I finally got them.” According to reports, Pittman described Beth Israel as a “synagogue of Satan” to police investigators. When a judge read him his rights, he responded, “Jesus Christ is Lord.”
I can’t begin to imagine how I would feel if my synagogue was targeted on Shabbat with violence and religious desecration. The trauma is compounded by the reality of the current moment – a moment in which violent attacks on Jews, such the shooting attack at a Hanukkah party in Australia just last month, are one the rise. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels as if our community is experiencing a state of permanent hypervigilance, dreading the inevitable next report of terrible, tragic news.
Even as we experience this trauma, however, I believe it’s critical to contextualize these incidents within a larger perspective. It’s important to understand that violent attacks on Jews are not exceptional or unique, but occurring within a larger rise in xenophobic violence around the world targeting vulnerable groups: Muslims, immigrants, people of color, LGBT people, among others. We know that in times of political and economic instability, this kind of scapegoating violence will inevitably rise. In other words, even as the Jewish community might feel isolated within our trauma, we must understand the ways that this is a collective, shared trauma. And that the antidote to isolation is a deeper solidarity with one another.
I would also suggest that beyond the trauma – or perhaps because of it – we must find the wherewithal to respond with clarity and understanding. In particular, we must firmly reject the weaponization of antisemitic incidents for political purposes. To put a finer point on it, for far too long Jewish communal leaders and organizations have been cynically exploiting these tragedies in order to dehumanize Palestinians. When Jewish trauma is weaponized in this way, it only serves to magnify the overwhelming trauma already being inflicted daily on one of the most vulnerable and targeted people in the world.
The cynicism of this tactic has become perversely transparent. Following this latest incident, for instance, scholar Deborah Lipstadt (and former White House “antisemitism czar”) wrote on X: “This is a major tragedy. But it’s more than that. It’s an arson attack and another step in the globalization of the intifada.” Lipstadt is not the only public Jewish figure to exploit this antisemitic incident to foment anti-Palestinian hatred and Islamophobia, even though the arsonist was clearly motivated by Christian antisemitic ideology.
Similarly, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu responded to the tragedy of the Bondi Beach massacre by incongruously blaming the incident on Australia’s recognition of a Palestinian state. In fact, the shooters were not Palestinian and had nothing to do with Palestinians. They were reportedly followers of ISIS – an extremist Muslim group that is rejected by the overwhelming majority of and Muslims worldwide, viewing it as a violent, heretical perversion of Islam that targets Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
In addition to seeking clarity, I’ve also found it useful to seek historical perspective. As I’ve read the reports about the arson in Jackson, Mississippi, I learned that this was not, in fact, the first time that Beth Israel was targeted with antisemitic hate. In September 1967, the synagogue was bombed by local Ku Klux Klan members because its then rabbi, Perry Nussbaum, was an outspoken civil rights activist. Two months later, Rabbi Nussbaum’s own house was firebombed by the KKK.
Following that attack, a leading Southern Baptist minister came to Rabbi Nussbaum’s home to express his sympathy. Nussbaum told him to spare his regrets. “If you really want to show your sympathies,” he said to the minister, “then tear up whatever you’re preparing for your sermon next Sunday morning and speak to the people in the front pews about their culpability in everything that’s happened not just to me . . . but to the blacks and their churches over the years.”
How do we respond when our community is increasingly under attack? Let’s take our cue from Rabbi Nussbaum. Let us respond with courage, moral clarity and solidarity.
On November 2 I had the pleasure to engage in a public conversation with journalist/author Peter Beinart in a program co-sponsored by Jewish Currents and my congregation Tzedek Chicago, We explored a wide range of issues arising from the current moral-political moment in Israel Palestine.
I was particularly grateful to interrogate the issues raised by Peter in his recent book “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning:”
• Is the Jewish community currently facing an unbridgeable ethical divide?
• Is it possible to make community with Jews whom we believe support – or remain silent over – the genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza?
• Does Peter identify as a Zionist now? What is his opinion of the growing movement for antizionist Judaism?
I appreciated Peter’s honesty and willingness to engage over these issues – and many others. The entire program is available on the video recording above.
As if there wasn’t enough drama over the candidacy of Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s mayoral race, last week saw the release of “A Rabbinic Call to Action: Defending the Jewish Future,” a statement from an ad hoc group calling itself “The Jewish Majority,” condemning Mamdani for voicing political convictions that “delegitimize the Jewish community and encourage and exacerbate hostility toward Judaism and Jews.” By the end of the week, the call had garnered over 1,000 signatures from rabbis, cantors and rabbinical students from NYC and around the US.
Notably, the statement only mentions Mamdani once. The rest of the six-paragraph letter is devoted to defending the state of “Israel’s right to exist in peace and security” and promoting Zionism as central to Judaism and Jewish identity. It’s centerpiece is a long and pointed quote from a recent sermon by Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue, in which he warned that Mamdani “poses a danger to the New York Jewish community”:
Zionism, Israel, Jewish self-determination—these are not political preferences or partisan talking points. They are constituent building blocks and inseparable strands of my Jewish identity. To accept me as a Jew but to ask me to check my concern for the people and state of Israel at the door is a nonsensical proposition and an offensive one, no different than asking me to reject God, Torah, mitzvot, or any other pillar of my faith.
Given the timing of the letter, “The Jewish Majority” statement is clearly an effort to stem Mamdani’s surging lead – and his popularity with young leftist Jews in NYC. But on a deeper level, the fundamental goal of the letter is made all-too plain: it seeks to combat the growing “political normalization of anti-Zionism.”
From what I can tell, Mamdani has never explicitly referred to himself as an “anti-Zionist.” What he has said, over and over again in response to the incessant gotcha question “does Israel have the right to exist as a Jewish state?” is that he “believes Israel has the right to exist as a state with equal rights.” Of course, the words “a state with equal rights” is enough to make him an anti-Zionist – because the only way Israel can exist as a Jewish state is by denying equal rights to Palestinians.
For me, this is the real significance of this statement – it shines a hard light on the deep moral hypocrisy of a Jewish communal establishment that is threatened by anti-Zionism: a political position that is rooted in human rights and equal rights for all. Indeed, if you listen to Mamdani’s words carefully, he takes pains to point this out: he refers to Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide because he agrees with the opinions of international bodies such as ICJ as well as scores of otherhuman rightsobservers. He openly says he would not welcome Netanyahu in NYC because the ICC has put a warrant out for his arrest as a war criminal.
These are not hateful or inciteful positions. What is remarkable – and galling to the Jewish communal establishment – is that Mamdani is not paying a political price for expressing them. Quite the contrary: he is the one who comes off as eminently principled and reasonable, while apoplectic Jewish leaders are having an increasingly difficult time explaining why a genocidal, apartheid nation-state is a “building block” of their Jewish identity. True to form, this clergy group is simply trotting out familiar talking points, fully expecting their morality and veracity to be self-evident.
Contrary to the claims of the statement’s signers, the increasing normalization of anti-Zionism does not “delegitimize Jewish identity and community.” As the rabbi of an openly anti-Zionist Jewish congregation, I can attest that increasing numbers of Jews are identifying as such out of genuine Jewish conscience: from a deep attachment to Jewish ethical values that mandate the pursuit of justice and hold that all human beings are equally created in the divine image.
Recent surveys certainly bear this out: according to an October 2025 Washington Post poll, of American Jews, 61% believe Israel has committed war crimes and 4 out of 10 say the country is guilty of genocide against the Palestinians, views that would certainly track with an anti-Zionist identity. As Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel has observed, “the catastrophic failure of Zionist Judaism” has marked “an opening for anti-Zionist Jews to step into greater influence, (to) make our case for something new.” By all accounts, the time has come for a Judaism that rejects the fusion of toxic ethno-nationalism with Judaism.
I’m also struck by another note of desperation from this ad-hoc group of Jewish clergy: they purport to speak for the Jewish majority as if that alone confers legitimacy. They of all people should know dissent is a sacred, cherished aspect of Jewish tradition. They of all people should know that in Talmudic debate, both majority and minority views are given equal weight and consideration. They of all people should know of the Torah’s sacred injunction “Do not go after the majority to do evil” (Exodus 23:2). And any student of history, Jewish or not, should know that the majority is not always right, whether it be the majority of Southern Whites who supported slavery and Jim Crow in the US, apartheid in South Africa or the injustices of Zionism today.
The real moral question here, it seems to me, is not “who is in the majority?” but rather “who is on the right side of history?”
It is the morning after. While the ink has dried on Trump’s 20 point “peace plan,” it has become brutally clear that the nightmare for Gazans is far from over.
Yes, the return of Palestinian and Israeli captives has been an occasion for genuine joy and celebration. Yes, Israel has ended its relentless genocidal bombing of Gaza. Yes, Palestinians are returning en masse to their homes. But this nightmare is far from over.
Israel is by no means finished. Despite the plan’s requirement that “Israeli forces will withdraw to (an) agreed-upon line,” the military has restricted Palestinians’ access to 70% of Gaza, either by declaring large areas as no-go zones or by issuing forced displacement orders, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The Gazan health ministry reported that since Saturday – the first full day of the ceasefire – Israel has already killed 23 Palestinians and wounded 122.
Israel is also ramping up its support of rival Gazan militias to increase the violence on the ground. On October 12, one such group tortured and murdered the beloved Palestinian journalist Saleh Al-Jaafrawi. As Al-Jazeera reporter Eman Murtaja recently wrote: “The message of Saleh’s assassination is clear: Anyone who continues to critically report on what is going on in Gaza, on Israel’s continuing destructive presence and the betrayal of its allies on the ground will be captured, tortured and killed.”
Meanwhile as Gazans continue to stream back to their homes, it has become tragically apparent that the overwhelming majority of them have no homes to return to. Scores of buildings have been reduced to rubble. Palestinians are arriving home to unlivable, broken shards of concrete, many of which still entomb dead loved ones. At the same time Israel’s forced starvation of Gazans continues to claim lives. As of October 12, at least 463 people, including 157 children, have died from starvation as Israel continues to block aid from entering the Gaza Strip. Nearly one in four children suffers from severe acute malnutrition.
It is difficult to overstate the depths of the annihilation that Israel has inflicted on Gaza over the past two years. As journalist Branko Marcetic has rightly termed it, “Israel’s Gaza war is one of history’s worst crimes”:
What we have watched, what we are continuing to watch, is the obliteration of a society of two million people. Every facet of modern civilization, as well as the most elementary things needed for even a state of basic subsistence for a human community, has been deliberately and almost completely destroyed by the Israeli military in Gaza. And now we are watching the gradual but accelerating mass die-off of the people who once lived there, through a combination of starvation, disease, and murder.
Though the political elites are rapturously describing a neo-liberal, neo-colonial post-war Gaza coastal resort, the hard truth is that the Gaza Strip is now a toxic moonscape and mass graveyard. According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Israel’s relentless bombardment of populated areas has contaminated soil and groundwater for the long term, both through the bombardment of munitions and hazardous materials (such as asbestos, industrial chemicals and fuel) that have been released into the surrounding air, soil and groundwater from collapsed buildings. As of July 2024, UNEP estimated that Israel’s bombing had left 40 million tons of debris and hazardous material in Gaza, with much of the rubble containing human remains. It has been estimated that clearing this war rubble will take 15 years and could cost up to 40 to 50 billion dollars.
In addition to the toxicity of the environment, there also remains enormous amounts of unexploded ordnance throughout the Gaza Strip. An estimated 70,000 tons of explosives have been dropped on Gaza since October 2023 – the equivalent of roughly six Hiroshima bombings on an area less than half the size of Hiroshima but with six times its population. This past January, the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) estimated that between 5% and 10% of the munitions fired on Gaza have not yet exploded. According to the UNMAS, it could take 14 years to clear Gaza of all unexploded ordnance.
As I noted above, Israel is still restricting food aid from entering Gaza. According to the World Health Programme, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are still facing catastrophic conditions characterized by starvation, destitution and death. Over 1 million more are facing emergency levels of food insecurity. Acute malnutrition is projected to continue worsening rapidly, with at least 132,000 children aged under 5 at risk of death through to June 2026.
But even if food supplies were let in by Israel tomorrow, food alone will not save the starving population of Gaza. Starving people cannot simply become healthier by feeding themselves. A condition known as “refeeding syndrome” occurs when starving people who are desperate for food are simply given food supplies. Rapid eating can be catastrophic to the heart, lungs, nerves, and blood, resulting in arrhythmias, respiratory failure, and death. In order to nurse the malnourished back to health, a skilled, multidisciplinary team and routine laboratory testing are required. It has been estimated that without medical specialists and infrastructure accompanying aid, thousands will possibly die from refeeding syndrome.
In addition to starvation, deadly infectious diseases continue to spiral out of control in Gaza. The WHO has warned that the challenge of life-saving medicines reaching Palestinians in Gaza is currently dire:
Whether meningitis… diarrhea, respiratory illnesses, we’re talking about a mammoth amount of work,” Hanan Balkhy, regional director for the United Nations’ health body, told AFP in Cairo. A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas has raised hopes of life-saving aid and healthcare finally reaching Palestinians in Gaza after two years of war, but Balkhy warned the challenges are “unimaginable.”
In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Bereshit, we read that after Cain kills Abel, God exclaims, “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!” This is not the first time we will read that bloodshed literally pollutes the earth – and that this pollution must be expiated and atoned for.
Israel – and those who have aided and abetted its genocidal onslaught – has polluted the ground of Gaza in a myriad of ways, and the blood of its people continues to cry out to us even now. We cannot delude ourselves into thinking a ceasefire brokered by craven politicians and real estate oligarchs has ended the genocide. Now more than ever, we must respond to the voice that cries out to us from the ground of Gaza.
On Yom Kippur, we say the hard truths out loud. On Yom Kippur, we proclaim together as a community: chatanu, we have sinned. We have failed. We have not lived up to our promises of the past year.
I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced these words more brutally than I do this year. In last year’s Rosh Hashanah sermon, I ended with these words: “A year from now, when we are back here, we will have to have an answer. We can’t find ourselves just asking the same question. We must be ready to answer: what did we do in the last year to bring this genocide to an end?”
We have failed. It is now one year later and Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza is continuing toward its second year mark. As I speak these words, the Israeli military is literally leveling the entire northern region of Gaza to the ground. Earlier today, Israel issued its final warning for Palestinians in Gaza City to evacuate, saying everyone who remains will be considered a “terrorist.” Many are refusing to leave, many are unable to leave.
It is horrifying to even say these words out loud: on this Yom Kippur, the day when we plead to be written into the Book of Life, Israel is systematically erasing Gaza from the map – and the people of Gaza along with it.
I’ll be honest with you: I’ve struggled mightily over what I could possibly say tonight that would be worthy of Yom Kippur. I could discuss the geo-political causes that have been prolonging this genocide. I could discuss craven US politicians and corporate gangsters who are planning to carve up Gaza for their own profit. I could spend my time excoriating the Jewish establishment for supporting this genocide – and too many Jewish communal leaders for their silence. But frankly, none of it would be particularly new. None of it feels worthy of the grief pervadingthis sacred moment of Yom Kippur.
I also don’t want to spend this sermon describing the specific litany of the atrocities being inflicted on the people of Gaza – to reduce them to trapped, powerless victims. We’re all too familiar with the horrors of the past two years. Like so many of you, I’ve been scrolling daily through unbearable pictures and videos live streaming Gazan’s agony, their erasure. There’s something obscene about the casual way we’ve been viewing these horrors on our mobile devices, right alongside memes and texts and emails as we go about our daily business.
And yet at the same time, I know we must bear witness. We owe it in particular to the courageous young Gazans reporting on their own erasure from the ground even as Israel maintains a total media blackout. We cannot and must not look away. This has been our sacred responsibility to the people of Gaza. It is precisely through this bearing witness that we affirm their essential humanity.
As I thought about what I could possibly say to you tonight, I kept returning the same basic truth: if these days are to have any meaning for us at all, it is Yom Kippur’s sacred challenge to publicly affirm our accountability to the Palestinian people – as Jews and as human beings of conscience. We cannot let ourselves become complicit in their erasure. If we are truly serious about Yom Kippur, we must vow that solidarity is our sacred obligation.
When I think about Jewish accountability to the Palestinian people, I must mention our profound debt to Prof. Marc Ellis, of blessed memory, the great Jewish scholar, writer and theologian, who was an important teacher to me and a friend to our congregation from our earliest days. I quoted Marc in my very first sermon at Tzedek Chicago and many more times over the years. He was a prolific writer, but more importantly he was a courageous writer. Among other things, he wrote a great deal about what he called “revolutionary forgiveness” and the imperative for a collective Jewish confession to the Palestinian people. As he put it:
Revolutionary forgiveness in Israel-Palestine begins with a confession by the Jewish people. The confession is simple. What we as Jews have done to the Palestinian people is wrong. What we are doing to the Palestinian people today is wrong. With that confession, we agree to begin to walk the path with Palestinians towards justice and equality. As that path begins to be walked, the memories of each people, broken by history, remain. But as that path is walked, new memories begin to be created. As those memories of justice and equality are created, they begin to dominate the history of both peoples until in the end an injury against one is an injury against all. Revolutionary forgiveness; confession, justice at the center.
Marc died last year, far too young, as Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people was raging in full force. I yearn to talk to him now about this confession. I so want to ask him if he would still, in this terrible moment, be writing about mutual, revolutionary forgiveness? I want to ask: is forgiveness even possible any more? Or is what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people truly unforgivable? And if that is the case, is there really any future at all? Can there ever be any hope for real justice in Palestine/Israel?
For the past two years I’ve been in touch with my friend Rachel Betarie, an antizionist Israeli Jew and activist and former director of the organization Zochrot. Over the months, her words to me have become progressively more despairing as she’s described how it feels to live in Israel at this terrifying moment, in a country where the majority of its citizens support the genocide.
Recently, Rachel told that she was part of a new working group organized by Zochrot, as she put it, “of activists in Palestine, colonized and Anti-Zionist colonizers, who have been meeting since April to think, re-imagine, and suggest concrete processes through which the right of return for Palestinian refugees from Gaza could be realized after the genocide.” She went on to write:
It is not easy to imagine a better, more just future at a time when the ground is crumbling under our feet. Some of us have families in Gaza and most of us have deep ties there. All of us see our future here in Palestine, between the river and the sea. The question arose again and again in our meetings: Is it even relevant to talk about the future right now? Isn’t this just escapism? Still, we chose to trust each other – a work in progress – and our deeply held values, and extract some ideas from our process of learning and discussing. With every meeting it became clearer to what extent the Nakba, and the ongoing system of settler colonialism – not October 7, 2023 – was and still remains the root of the problems we face today, and that return is the core of every future solution that has a chance to bring any stability, justice and peace to our communities, and that entails dismantling of the Zionist colonial regime.
Through this work, we came to the conclusion that return from Gaza must begin – not at some distant point in the future. Our discussions did not only focus on the design of return but also raised questions of community, of collective and individual healing, and of how social processes of repair can accompany physical return. With our hearts shattered daily by the horrors of the genocide, and with fear and hopelessness engulfing us, envisioning this still possible future is in itself a remedy.
I’m so inspired by their effort, their determination to come together, Israelis and Palestinians – or as Rachel put it, colonized and colonizers – even in this unbearably tragic moment, to vision a future of reparation and return. They know full well that they are a tiny minority in Israeli society, a small island of hope amidst an ocean of trauma and fury. And yet they are determined to keep this vision alive despite it all.
As I think further about how we might envision the future this Yom Kippur, particularly here in the diaspora, I keep returning to one basic truth: Palestinian voices must be centered in our observance. Quite frankly, I don’t know how we can do the work of teshuvah, of repentance and return if we don’t hear their stories directly, open up fully to their voices and honor their experience.
As I said earlier, as we gather tonight for Yom Kippur, Israel is erasing the entire northern region of Gaza City, the most populous, built-up region of the Gaza Strip. According to reports, the scale of these demolitions are unprecedented. Over the past few weeks, the Israeli military has been systematically destroying every high-rise building in Gaza City. Satellite pictures show that the most populous region of Gaza has been reduced to a lunar landscape. Israel has already done this to large swathes of the Gaza Strip, including the city of Rafah in the south and the town of Beit Hanoun in the north.
These words, however, are mere reportage. I believe it’s critical that we hear the story of this erasure from those who are most directly impacted. And so I’d like to share with you two extended testimonies for this Yom Kippur, our day of reckoning. The first is the voice of Taher Herzallah, who comes from Gaza City and works as the Director of Organizing for American Muslims for Palestine. These are the words that Taher recently posted his Facebook page:
Gaza has fallen.
I’m not a sensationalist, nor am I someone who likes to shatter people’s hopes. But what we are witnessing today is the complete and utter annihilation of a people. It really feels like the end of Gaza City, and I don’t say this lightly, especially since I have family members and friends in Gaza who follow me on this page. This is the city where my father was born and where my family has lived for centuries.
Many of my relatives held out for two years under the worst conditions human beings can live under. But for more than 700 days, they’ve endured and found ways to survive in Gaza City.
No longer.
They’ve decided to leave Gaza City for the first time since this all started. It is just no longer possible to live there. With Israel’s systematic destruction of many of the major residential high rises in the city this week, the message is unequivocal: all of Gaza City will be leveled to the ground, the way Rafah and Jabalya and Khan Younis and Beit Hanoun were.
The images of displacement today broke something inside of me. People, looking back at Gaza with tears in their eyes, are moving south into another uncertain reality. Death and suffering are still a high likelihood as “safe zones” don’t truly exist. They know a return to Gaza is unlikely and they will be stuck in a cycle of displacement and suffering for years to come. But what choice do people have?
Some people refuse to leave Gaza. Not only out of stubbornness but also because they don’t have the means to leave. With the lack of aid organizations or large-scale efforts to facilitate the transfer of the population to another area, everyone in Gaza is left alone to figure out how to move their families to safer zones.
I have family members in Gaza who have gone back and forth from Gaza City to Deir El Balah 3 or 4 times to find a small plot of land to set up their tents. Finding an apartment or a built structure to live in is an absolutely hopeless endeavor. The best-case scenario now is to find a small plot of land large enough to erect a tent. With 2 million people squeezed into a small area on the Gaza coast, even that has become nearly impossible…
The stories we are hearing out of Gaza are heartbreaking and soul-crushing. A 10-year-old child in Gaza City was asked what his hopes are for ending this war. His response: “I only hope for one thing–to find my dad’s body and to bury him.” This is the extent of the boy’s hopes and dreams. To find consolation in burying the body of his father, who was killed at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution site.
Other people have similar stories. They refuse to leave Gaza City, not because they don’t think it’s dangerous, but because they have loved ones buried under the rubble that they have not retrieved and can’t fathom moving on in life without burying them. The psychological and physical trauma of this genocide is so severe that people know that carrying that trauma will be the end of them anyway, and would rather die in Gaza City than endure years of more suffering…
To my family reading this: I am sorry. I have failed you. I don’t know what else to say. I hope you forgive me.
For the rest of us: whatever happens next will be very difficult. So prepare accordingly.
The next Palestinian voice I’d like to share with you is that of Asem Alnabih, an engineer and PhD student and spokesman for the Gaza municipality, who recently evacuated from the Shujayea region of Gaza City. Shujayea is one of the largest neighborhoods in Gaza and once had up to 100,000 residents. It is also a historically significant neighborhood, located in the southern quarter of Gaza’s Old City. Shujayea dates back to the 13th century and is named after Shuja’ al-Din Uthman al-Kurdi, a Muslim commander who died fighting the Crusaders. In the Ottoman period, it was the only mixed quarter in the Old City, where Muslims, Christians and Jews once lived together.
I remember Shujayea well when I visited Gaza in 2017 as a staff member for the American Friends Service Committee. It’s residents were clearly proud of their home, of its history, its deep sense of community and especially of its resilience. Although Shujayea was heavily bombed by Israel in its 2009 and 2014 assaults, residents rebuilt their homes each time.
Here is Asem Alnabih’s testimony, which he wrote in an article for Al-Jazeera:
My neighbourhood in east Gaza, Shujayea, is gone! The streets that once echoed with the laughter of children, the calls of vendors, and the familiar rhythms of daily life now lie in silence, smothered by dust and destruction. What was once a vibrant community, full of stories and memories, has been erased in a matter of moments.
A few days ago, my brother Mohammed went back to Shujayea to check on our family home. When he came back he told my father that nothing remained except for a few broken walls and scattered columns. A few hours later, we were shocked to learn that my father himself had braved extreme danger to see it with his own eyes. In a place where every step can mean death, he chose to walk through the ruins of our past.
This was the house my grandfather and father had built with years of effort, the house that carried my dad’s dreams and bore the marks of his sweat and sacrifice. It was where he raised his children, where we celebrated weddings and birthdays, where countless family memories were made. And now, it is nothing but rubble.
But our family’s loss is not just this one house. My father’s destroyed home is now added to my own burned apartment, my sister Nour’s bombed apartment, my sister Heba’s demolished home, and my sister Somaia’s two apartments – one reduced to rubble and the other burned. To this list are added my uncle Hassan’s destroyed building, my uncle Ziad’s building, my uncle Zahir’s home, my aunt Umm Musab’s apartment, my aunt Faten’s apartment, and the completely destroyed homes of my aunts Sabah, Amal, and Mona. And these are only the losses within our immediate family. All around us, countless relatives, friends, and neighbours have seen their homes obliterated, their memories buried under the debris.
This is not simply about the staggering material value of what we have lost. Yes, the homes were filled with furniture, personal belongings, and cherished possessions, but the destruction goes far deeper than material things. What has been taken from us is irreplaceable. A house can be rebuilt, but the sense of belonging that comes from walking familiar streets, from living in the same neighbourhood where generations of your family have grown up – that cannot be reconstructed with bricks and cement.
Shujayea was more than just buildings. It was a community stitched together by relationships, shared histories, and the memories of ordinary lives. It held the neighbourhood bakery where we bought fresh bread at dawn, the small corner shop where neighbours gathered to chat, the ancient Ibn Othman mosque that echoed with prayers during Ramadan. These were the spaces where children played, where families celebrated, and where neighbours supported each other through good times and bad.
When a neighbourhood like Shujayea is erased, it is not only walls that fall; it is a whole way of life. The destruction severs ties between neighbours, scatters families across shelters and refugee camps, and leaves a deep wound that no reconstruction project can truly heal. A rebuilt house may have four walls and a roof, but it will not be the same home that once carried generations of stories.
The pain of this loss is not unique to my family. Across Gaza, entire neighbourhoods have been flattened. Each pile of rubble hides the history of a family, the laughter of children, the wisdom of elders, and the love of a community that once thrived there. Each destroyed home is a silent witness to the human cost of this war, costs that cannot be measured in money or damage assessment.
What we have lost is not just property, but identity. A home is where a person’s life unfolds, where milestones are celebrated, where griefs are shared, where bonds are formed. To see so many homes destroyed is to see an entire people uprooted from the places that defined them. It is a calculated erasure, not only of lives, but of memory, heritage, and belonging.
Rebuilding will not bring back what was taken. The new buildings, if they ever come, will stand on top of the graves of our memories. They will not bring back my father’s years of hard work, nor the sense of comfort and security that once came with having a home. They will not resurrect the neighbourhood we knew, the one full of warmth, familiarity, and life.
The destruction of Shujayea is a wound that will remain open for generations. It is not simply a matter of humanitarian aid or reconstruction funds. This is about the deliberate dismantling of a community’s heart and soul. No amount of concrete can rebuild trust, restore memories, or bring back the neighbours who have been killed.
Shujayea is gone. And with it, a part of us has been buried. Yet even as we grieve, we hold on to the stories, to the love that once filled our homes, to the hope that someday justice will prevail. Because while they can destroy our houses, they cannot destroy the bonds we carry in our hearts, nor the memories that no bulldozer or bomb can erase.
On Yom Kippur, we say the hard truths out loud. And this Yom Kippur we must vow to hear them directly from the voices of those who would otherwise be silenced. Those whose lives would otherwise be erased. We cannot even imagine atonement if these voices are not with us during this most sacred observance.
On this evening of Kol Nidre, we admit publicly that we will fail to live up to the vows we make in the coming year. Does that mean we should adjust our vows to be more realistic, more achievable? Does it mean we should not make them at all? I personally find that prospect unbearable. On Yom Kippur, we are obliged to strive for our highest selves, even as we know we will not fully succeed.
So tonight, let us hold tight to these vows. Let us vow that our movement will end this genocide in the coming year. Let us vow that the armies will withdraw, that Gaza will be rebuilt, that the dead will be given dignified burials, that the dispossessed will find home and shelter.
And further, let us vow that Israel will be held accountable for its crimes, that the refugees will return, that reparations will be paid. Let us vow that Palestine will be free, that all will be liberated from the river to the sea.
Yom Kippur demands that we make such vows, as unreal as they may seem to us now. Because as Asem reminds us, “even as we grieve, we hold on to the stories, to the love that once filled our homes, to the hope that someday justice will prevail. Because while they can destroy our houses, they cannot destroy the bonds we carry in our hearts, nor the memories that no bulldozer or bomb can erase.”
On Yom Kippur we vow these vows because we know that as long as we hold on to these stories, to these memories, to this love, then nothing and no one can ever truly be erased. And the hope for justice will never die.
Ken Yehi Ratzon – May it be God’s will. V’chen Yehi Retzoneinu – And may it be our’s.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve witnessed a significant surge in Jewish protest over Israel’s starvation/genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. On July 28, two Israeli human rights organizations, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, released a comprehensive report that reached the “unequivocal conclusion” that “Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” A week earlier Omer Bartov, a noted Israeli professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, wrote a widely distributed op-ed for the New York Times entitled “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know it When I See It.” Even Jeremy Ben – Ami, the president of the liberal Israel advocacy organization J Street, waded ever-so-gently into the fray with this delicately worded statement: “(While) I am unlikely to use the term (genocide) myself…I cannot and will not argue against those using the term.”
There has also been an increase in rabbis (many of whom consider themselves to be “liberal Zionists”) publicly stepping up and speaking out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. On July 28, eleven mainstream rabbis protested by blocking traffic in front of the Israeli consulate in midtown Manhattan, with eight taking arrest. One Jewish communal figure noted, “The protests we’ve typically seen at the Israeli Consulate in places like that are from the further left of the community.”
A day later, in Washington DC a group of 27 rabbis affiliated with the advocacy group Jews for Food Aid for People in Gaza entered Senate Majority leader John Thune’s office, displaying banners reading “Rabbis say: Protect Life!” and “Rabbis say: Stop the Blockade.” Then this past Monday, hundreds gathered (and more than 40 protesters took arrest) in front of the Trump International Hotel in New York City at a protest organized by IfNotNow under the banner “Stop Starving Gaza.” Among the speakers were Rabbi Jill Jacobs of T’ruah, Ruth Messinger, former head of American Jewish World Service and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. Needless to say, none of them were previously known for taking a stand against Israel in such a dramatic and public manner.
I must admit I have a great deal of cognitive dissonance over these developments. First and foremost, I will say that it is a welcome development that ranks of Jewish leaders in the movement to end the genocide against Palestinians is broadening. In the end, when otherwise mainstream American Jewish leaders are willing to call out this genocidal behavior for what it is, it only further isolates Israel. When lives are literally being taken by Israel in massive numbers on the daily, this is truly an “all hands on deck” moment. Those of us who have been on the front lines of the movement since 2023 can ill afford to cynically dismiss their participation.
At the same time however, I can’t help but feel cynical over the kudos given to these leaders (many of whom have been silent or equivocal on the genocide until now) for their “bravery” while scores of Palestinians have been organizing, leading protests and crying out in a myriad of different ways for years. Palestinian witness has been insidiously discounted during this genocide just as the Palestinian people have been denied the “permission to narrate” their oppression for over 70 years. I can’t help but grieve the sad irony that any strategic success resulting from this new resurgence will come from the further decentering – and dehumanizing – of Palestinian voices.
Moreover in this moment, when the images of starving Palestinian children are spurring so many Jewish leaders into action, it’s worth asking whether this protest movement can be sustained and transformed into one that brings true justice and lasting for Palestinians.
I’m not convinced. I couldn’t help but note that in their speeches, many of these liberal Zionist rabbis and Jewish leaders lay the blame for this genocide firmly on the policies of Netanyahu and the current government. A recent op-ed in the Forward by Rabbi Jill Jacobs summed up this attitude perfectly:
(Our) own fear must not distract us from the reality that the biggest threat to Israel, and indeed to Judaism itself, is coming from Israel’s governing coalition. Israel is increasingly becoming an autocratic and theocratic state. This is the moment for American Jews — including both leaders and ordinary Jewish community members — to raise their voice.
It has become a common trope in the “liberal Zionist” world to personalize this genocide as “Netanyahu’s war.” In fact, the biggest threat to Israel and Judaism is not Israel’s current governing coalition – it comes from a Jewish ethno-national nation state that was established and is maintained through the dispossession of Palestinians for the sole reason that they are not Jewish. Indeed, Israel is not “becoming” an autocratic and theocratic state – it has long been one.
I was also struck by Jacob’s misleading claim that “the vast majority of Israelis want the war to end.” While this is true, it is overwhelmingly due to Jewish Israelis desire for the return of the hostages – not their concern for Palestinian human rights. A more telling poll, which was released this past Tuesday, found that a vast majority of Israeli Jews – 79 percent – say they are “not so troubled” or “not troubled at all” by the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population. And according to a poll from last May, 82 percent of Jewish Israeli respondents supported the expulsion of Gaza’s residents, while 56 percent favored expelling Palestinian citizens of Israel.
These polls indicate that this is not a problem of the current government. It is not Netanyahu. It is not an issue of bad policy. It is, in fact, Zionism itself. The real problem is that the entire enterprise of Zionist Judaism has infected Jewish life, as Jewish Currents editor Arielle Angel recently and powerfully wrote, “with a voracious rot.”
So yes, it is welcome that increasing numbers of liberal Jewish leaders are finally speaking out against Israel’s carnage in Gaza – but I feel compelled to ask: what will it take to get them to finally break with the Zionist enterprise? When the ethnic cleansing of Gaza is complete? When Israel annexes the West Bank (which the Knesset approved 71-13 in a recent symbolic vote)? When an even more extremist government is elected into power by an increasingly extremist Israeli populace?
If ever there was a moment for Jewish anti-Zionists to proudly show up and be counted, this is it. There could be no more terrifying demonstration of the end game of Zionism than the genocidal violence Israel has been unleashing on Gaza.
It grieves me to my soul that these words are still relevant in August 2025. May the Jewish people and their leaders find the courage of their convictions to call out a genocidal ideology that has caused – and continues to cause – such untold suffering to the Palestinian people in the name of Jewish supremacy. And may this day come soon.
5 month old Gazan baby Sinwar Ashour, starving to death (photo: BBC)
This is what it has come to: Israel is forcibly starving Palestinians. And when Palestinians go to the places Israel has designated as food distribution sites, they shoot them to death.
I will repeat that: Israel is forcibly starving Palestinians. And when Palestinians go to the places Israel has designated as food distribution sites, they shoot them to death.
Health authorities in Gaza said that 19 people died of starvation yesterday, including at least one infant.
Also yesterday, Israel killed 115 Palestinians – 92 of whom were shot while seeking food from the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Aid Foundation” in Zikim, in Northern Gaza. Israeli troops opened fire and massacred at least 79 Palestinians as they gathered to wait for 25 aid trucks from the UN World Food Program.
One of those killed was Raed Sindy, who was killed while attempting to access aid for his family. His brother Ahmed said, “They go out just trying to stave off their hunger and the hunger of their children, but they come back wrapped in shrouds.”
And this was just Sunday. Identical massacres and reports of death by starvation have been occurring regularly for months. We know this.
We know this because it has been happening in plain view of the world. Although this news has been all but pushed aside in the mainstream media, it is readily available on Al-Jazeera and alternative news sites and through social media.
Most importantly, we know this because Palestinians themselves have been telling us: reporting on their own genocide every day, in real time. Every day, I scroll through my mobile device and see videos of decapitated babies, corpses pulled from the rubble of bombed houses, bodies burned beyond recognition.
We also know that Israel is building a concentration camp for Palestinians in Rafah, a major southern center which has been completely reduced to rubble. The Israeli Defense Minister is calling it a “humanitarian city,” which will accommodate an initial group of some 600,000 displaced Palestinians. It would then be expanded to accommodate Gaza’s pre-war population of some 2.2 million people. They would not be allowed to move to other areas in Gaza but would instead be encouraged to “voluntarily emigrate” to unspecified countries.
So many of us who have been protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza for the past year and a half have warned that this what it would come to: the total ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Now it is happening in front of us, for all too see: by bombs, by bullets, by starvation and by forced emigration.
In the decades after the Holocaust, a number of books were written that took the American government and the Allies to task for its inaction during the genocide against European Jewry. But even in that case, it could be argued that while we knew much of what was going on, we didn’t know the full extent of the heinous reality that was the Final Solution. In this case, we have no such excuse. This plans of this genocide are being announced openly and without shame by its perpetrators.
They are doing so because they know they no one will stop them. Not the US government, which is funding and supporting this genocide, not the international community, which is either aiding and abetting or simply wringing its hands. Not the UN, nor the ICC nor the ICJ, which can make pronouncements but have no power of enforcement.
The destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza is the moral outrage of our time. Shame on every government and institution that has the power to stop it and has refused. Shame on every individual who had the power to lift their voices against this outrage and has remained silent.
Five-year-old Ward Jalal al-Sheikh Khalil, trying to escape a burning classroom at the Fahmi Al-Jargawi School in Gaza City, May 26, 2025
Warning: this post contains descriptions of extreme violence.
After the Holocaust, no statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that is not credible in the presence of the burning children.
This famous phrase comes from a 1974 essay, “Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire,” by theologian Rabbi Irving Greenberg, in which he attempted to lay out a new Jewish theology that could respond to the monumental cataclysm of the Holocaust. For Greenberg, the image of burning Jewish children was the ultimate moral obscenity – as well as a critical theological challenge. As he put it, “The cruelty and the killing raises the question whether even those who believe after such an event dare talk about God who love and cares without making a mockery of those who suffered.”
I thought of Greenberg’s words last week when, on Monday, May 26, the Israeli military conducted a series of airstrikes in northern Gaza, killing 54 Palestinians – most of them in a school building sheltering displaced families. The Fahmi Al-Jargawi School in Gaza City housed hundreds of peoplefrom Beit Lahia, which had been under intense Israeli military assault. At least 35 were reported to have been killed when the school was hit, half of them children. The Israeli military claimed, without offering proof, that it had been targeting “a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control center” there.
Videos shared online showed large fires engulfing the school, with graphic images of severely burned victims, including children, and survivors suffering critical injuries. Faris Afana, Northern Gaza ambulance service manager, arrived at the scene with crews to find three classrooms in flames. “There were sleeping children and women in those classrooms,” he said. “Some of them were screaming but we couldn’t rescue them due to the fires. I cannot describe what we saw due to how horrific it was.”
In one widely shared video, five-year-old Ward Jalal al-Sheikh Khalil can be seen silhouetted against the flames, trying to escape a burning classroom. Ward had witnessed the deaths of her mother and five siblings: Abd al-Rahman, 17; Muhammed, 14; Maria, 13; and Silwan, 11. Her father remains in intensive care. Her uncle Iyad, who found her at Baptist hospital, said, “She told me that she saw them burn to death and she couldn’t do anything. She tried to escape the fire before some men arrived and pulled her out.”
Tragically, this horrifying incident wasn’t the first time that Israel engaged in military operations that burned Palestinian children alive. On October 14, 2024, Shaban al-Dalou, his mother and younger siblings Abdul and Farah were engulfed in flames in their tents during an Israeli attack on Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital. Last April, five children, four women, and a man from the same family died from severe burns after an Israeli airstrike hit the tent where they were staying in Khan Younis. On the same day, UNICEF announced that 15 children, including a child with disabilities, were burned to death in their tents over a period of 24 hours.
It should be added that the Israeli military has burned Palestinian children to death well before the current moment. During its military assault in 2008-2009, “Operation Cast Lead,” human rights organizations extensively documented Israel’s indiscriminate use of white phosphorous – a chemical substance that causes grievous burns, often to the bone. In its report, Amnesty International quoted Sabah Abu Halima, a mother of 10, who was gravely injured and lost her husband, four of her children and her daughter-in-law from a devastating white phosphorus artillery attack on her family home. In her testimony to Amnesty, Sabah said:
Everything caught fire. My husband and four of my children burned alive in front of my eyes; my baby girl, Shahed, my only girl, melted in my arms. How can a mother have to see her children burn alive? I couldn’t save them, I couldn’t help them. I was on fire. Now I am still burning all over, I am in pain day and night; I am suffering terribly.
In truth, the Palestinian children have endured burning at the hands of the Israeli military going back in the establishment of the state of Israel. During the infamous massacre at Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948, Jewish militias killed 110 Palestinians and committed well-documented atrocities against civilians, including women, the elderly and children. There are numerous testimonies to these events from Jewish soldiers and eyewitnesses. One photographer, Shraga Peled reported, “When I got to Deir Yassin, the first thing I saw was a big tree to which a young Arab fellow was tied. And this tree was burnt in a fire. They had tied him to it and burned him.”
Almost ten years ago, the late Jewish scholar and writer Marc Ellis noted the tragic irony of Greenberg’s theological statement in a post for the blog Mondoweiss. During “Operation Protective Edge,” a military assault on Gaza in the summer of 2014, in which the Israeli military killed over 2,000 Palestinians – including over 500 children – Ellis wrote:
As the news reports show and Palestinians know by experience, burning children has become a way of life for Israel. It makes sense to Israel’s government and Jews around the world who support the invasion of Gaza and even Op-Ed writers in the Wall Street Journal. The burning children of Gaza are collateral damage to a larger more important story.
For Greenberg, who viewed the the establishment of the state of Israel in theologically redemptive terms, the only response to the Holocaust that makes any sense is the continued survival of the Jewish people following their near annihilation. This is what comes of attaching sacred meaning to ethno-nationalism. And this is what it has come to: we are watching the result play out every day in a live streamed genocide where we are actually able, obscenely, to watch children burn to death on our mobile devices.
For the record, here is what Rabbi Greenberg had to say about Israel’s current actions in Gaza:
(How) can Israel deal with the fact that it is killing thousands of civilians including many children? Jewish tradition teaches that every human being is created in the image of God and is of infinite value. It is heartbreaking to kill so many individuals and devastating to realize that the price of saving Israel is the death of so many people (including, not to forget, hundreds of Israeli soldiers). One thinks of Golda Meir’s comment that we can never forgive the Arabs for forcing us to kill their children. Still, it is important for the world to know that Israel continues doing what it can to reduce civilian casualties.
I’m not sure that theology is really of much use in this terrifying moment, but I will say this: any statement, theological or otherwise, made in the presence of some burning children and not others is nothing short of chillul hashem: a desecration of God’s name.
The shooting death of the two Israeli embassy workers in Washington DC this past Wednesday evening was tragic and horrific. All human life is precious – there can be no conceivable justification for this immoral act. Moreover, the man who perpetrated these murders is no hero; in addition to the lives he took and the grief he caused their families, his action has only served to harm – not help the Palestinian people. This is not what solidarity looks like.
As of this writing, there is much we don’t know about the shooting – and it would be irresponsible of me to speculate on whether the shooter was motivated by antisemitism. We do know that it was an act of political violence – and that the victims were embassy representatives of a nation that itself is engaged in an act of political violence that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians – and is currently taking the lives of hundreds of people in Gaza every day.
Of course, there is no shortage of disingenuous politicians and media figures who are all too eager to use this act of violence for their own political advantage. But we cannot and should not equate the actions of one isolated incident with the entire movement for Palestinian liberation. Indeed, over the past nineteen months, millions of people across the US and around the world have protested peacefully for a ceasefire and an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It is inaccurate – and in fact racist – to use this tragic event to make assumptions about Palestinians or collectively punish people of conscience who have been advocating for Palestinian safety and freedom. Our movement has always been about freedom, dignity and safety for all. The murderous action of one vigilante does not define us – nor should it lessen our resolve to continue advocating for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
According to one of the most sacrosanct teachings in Jewish tradition, all human beings are created in the divine image – and that all lives are equally, infinitely precious. I can’t help but think of this sacred value as I read the many poignant news stories about the young embassy workers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim: stories that honor the people they were as well as their hopes and dreams for the future.
At the same time, I couldn’t help but think: where are these stories in the mainstream media about the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed through political violence in Gaza over the past nineteen months? Where are the tributes to their lives, their hopes, their dreams? If they were afforded the same kinds of tributes, the media would be overwhelmed an endless cascade of stories about precious lives lost forever.
In her book, “Frames of War,” the scholar Judith Butler examines why some lives are “grievable” while others are not. Butler suggests that this selective mourning is due to a process of dehumanization, in which state powers determine which lives have the status of personhood – and thus more worthy of our grief. In short, if a person is deemed less human, they become less grievable.
When we engage in this kind of selective mourning, we become complicit in this process of anti-Palestinian dehumanization and racism. Here in the US, of course, people of color are all too familiar with this process. As Bernice Johnson Reagon powerfully wrote in her classic, “Ella’s Song:” Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons/Is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers’ sons/…We who believe in freedom will not rest.
How do we respond to the killings of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim? The same way we must respond to the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed – and continue to be killed – by the Israeli military in Gaza: by continuing to protest openly and as openly as possible for an end to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people. By advocating for a free Palestine for all who live between the river and the sea.
And further: to insist on a world in which all may live in safety and dignity – and all people are mourned equally when they die.
Shalom Rav 