FEATURED JOBS
When a house of worship is firebombed, a cemetery is vandalized or protestors call for deportations, it’s vicious hatred. And it must be aggressively combated.
When it happens in the State of Israel – to Jews, Christians and Muslims within a few days – it represents incendiary agents tossed upon the region’s proverbial gunpowder of inter-religious, inter-ethnic conflicts.
So it was that last week – just before, during and after Yom Kippur – that Israeli society again found itself nursing a self-inflicted black eye. But this time, American Jews can do something by actively impressing on Israeli leaders how despite our many differences, instead of ripping each other apart we actually coalesce around loosely defined goals and at least strive to respect our differences – ones that in Israel can literally bring a government’s demise.
I speak of how last week an Israeli Arab mosque was torched, dozens of graves in Christian and Muslim cemeteries vandalized, and just after Yom Kippur, a Molotov cocktail was tossed into a synagogue.
Fortunately, and unlike elsewhere in the region, each act received unequivocal condemnation from the country’s top religious and political leaders.
Of particular note – and where we come in – is that after the mosque attack the New Israel Fund quickly garnered many signatures of Diaspora rabbis, cantors and others to condemn the act.
The document reads in part: “As religious leaders and representatives of Jewish houses of worship around the world, we wish to express our deep sadness and outrage at the desecration of a mosque in the Bedouin village of Tuba-Zangariya in the north of Israel. We condemn this act as an affront to G-d and to the values of our Torah… In this season of reflection and celebration, we pray that such acts like the attack on this mosque will not succeed in driving Israelis apart. Indeed, we pray that they will become the occasion of acts of fellowship and solidarity among Israelis from every walk of life.”
The good news is that 1,000 leaders signed. The bad news is that 10,000 did not. Local signatures included Rabbis Elizabeth Bolton, Susan Grossman and Jerry Seidler. We should urge their colleagues to follow suit. Immediately. (See http://www.nif.org/RabbisStatement .)
Why would any rabbi of any flavor not do so? There is no talk of “land for peace” or “religious coercion” or the like. Rather, it’s about enabling fellow humans to worship God as they see fit in the democratic State of Israel.
No doubt, some will be reluctant to sign a piece promoted by the New Israel Fund, which supports liberal organizations. Indeed, it is a failing that NIF – which I know had to act quickly – did not get a “right-wing” co-sponsor, such as Religious Zionists of America or the Zionist Organization of America.
It’s not too late.
When the politics are put aside, we want the same thing. Or at least we should—a healthy, independent, democratic Jewish state. Yes, there is inherent tension in the phrase “Jewish democracy,” but as one infers from the great modern Orthodox thinker Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, tension brings creativity, which enables one to live meaningfully with seeming paradoxes and alleged absolutes.
In fact, religious pluralism—or at least learning (struggling) to “live and let live”—is a hallmark of American Jewish life. Its principles enable us to set aside particular differences while embracing shared general ones. That is a gift we must help impress on the dangerously fractured Israeli society.
And if anyone has an argument with promoting it, I have an argument with them.
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