Opinion: Needed Now! Ometz Lev!

“Actions speak louder than words.”

Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa (40 to 80 C.E.), Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 3:12

Needed Now! Ometz Lev!

The moral courage and strength to speak truth to power
to Israel… to our American government… to our Jewish establishment

In Area C of the West Bank, there is no nuance …no complexity…no complicated dynamics at play. What we see is straight forward…clear-cut… and frightfully self-evident.

Daily attacks against the Palestinians…incessant… violent…brazen…deadly…armed Israelis enter homes… attack … beat …murder Palestinians… set fires to homes with people inside…destroy their infrastructure…drive out entire Palestinian villages…steal their livestock…destroy their orchards, crops, and irrigation systems… attack and murder observers and volunteers. Israeli soldiers join the attacks…or protect the attackers.. The Israeli government provides funds and arms… protects them and sanctions their violence by  legalizing their settlements that then allows them to receive state funds.  It is systematic…It is ruthless. It is pogrom-like…It is ethnic cleansing. It is state-supported.

The present Israeli government is not going to stop them. The Trump administration won’t. Rabbinical groups such T’ruah (Rabbinical Call for Human Rights)  and the Reform and Conservative movements have only made pronouncements that are ineffective and impotent. The Boulder Jewish establishment is emblematic of most in America. Programming, whether it be speakers or films avoid providing information deemed critical of Israel. They need to “hold the middle” and have “an open tent” with silence and inaction as a result. In many communities the local Jewish Federation owns the Jewish newspaper. Guess what happens. Censorship is present in many forms. And, of course, money and funding come into play.

Words and pronouncements do not bring changes: for example, “A protest letter to PM Netanyahu from world Jewry” with over 1,600 signatures from influential Jews in the U.S. and U.K. who are long-standing Israel supporters was a one-day news event. Israel does what she wants and the world be damned. Jewish law…ethics…morality…international law… be damned.

Publicly, we have failed to challenge and condemn Israel’s legal premise underlying her ”right” to settle the West Bank and her use of century-old Ottoman law to take the homes and lands of Palestinians for Jewish settlement. We go berserk when the apartheid word is used instead of looking at how Israel uses the law, allocation of resources, and construction permits to create discriminately to favor Jewish settlements.  We fail to see how the rise in antisemitism is connected, in part, to Israel’s actions and to our silence and support of them. Israel and our leadership (either complicitly or by inaction) have effectively stifled discussion and dissent for decades. “Holding the middle” creates silence and inaction that always embolden amoral and toxic actors.

We can learn from Elie Weisel: “I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” 

Judaism is supposed to be a “light unto the world.” Israeli actions coupled with our inaction have severely tarnished, and for some, blackened our light. All of Israel’s contributions to the world as a “startup nation” and the gifts to the world from the Jewish collective do not balance off the atrocities she has committed.

We must act! We may have passed the tipping point. Too many facts have been created on the ground that may be irreversible. The future of a democratic Israel and of an Israel anchored by Jewish ethics and morality is under a relentless on-going attack by forces in Israel with financial and political backing from a segment of American Jewry. The highly controversial judicial “reforms” was a product of the influence of Tikvah and the Kohelet Foundation in the United States.

Action Steps

Liberal American Jews have some hard choices to make. We have seen that words have not brought action. So, here goes:

Pro-settlement groups

 We need a Jewish American legal advocacy group to engage in the following:

• Publicize the activities of the non-profit groups sending money to organizations on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.
• Initiate legal action to deny these groups non-profit status.
• Initiate action that would bring American citizens in Israel who commit a terrorist act to the attention of the State Department to be sanctioned and have their passport revoked.
• Use the U.S. legal system and our own Beit Din system to bring to justice individuals whose actions support violence, lead to violence, or incite hatred that could lead to violence. As an example: The One Israel Fund donates monies to hilltop settlements for security purposes including drones. According to a Haaretz article of March 18, 2024, a Zvi Bar Yosef, was filmed thanking the One Israel Fund after receiving a donated drone. Bar Yosef was one of three men sanctioned by former President Biden for their roles in anti-Palestinian violence. A drone nearly struck Palestinian and volunteer olive pickers in an attack in the past year.
• Use the legal system to bar entrance to those Israelis involved in activities that support the hilltop settlers and incite hatred and violence and those who have participated in an attack against Palestinians.

The influence of Israelis in the organized Jewish community

Israelis come to serve and work in the Jewish community in a variety of settings: in camps, schools, and the Jewish Federation (the sh’lichim). What are their positions? Their influence in shaping young minds and in the discourse about Israel throughout the local community? How can other positions be presented along with theirs? We need a group to address these concerns.

Teaching about Israel

How is Israel taught in our synagogues? Day schools? At camps? In adult ed programming? How can other positions be presented? What books and publications are in libraries?

Stop buying Israeli products and investing in Israel

We have witnessed the successful impact of boycotts by civil rights, feminist, and conservation groups in our history; the boycott of South Africa, the Nestle boycott, and most recently, the 2024 Sabra humus boycott over labor conditions.

Donations

Stop all donations to the Jewish Agency, the Israel Appeal/ Karen Kayamet and Jewish National Fund. These groups are directly involved in the settlement enterprise and operate as quasi-governmental entities in performing state functions. Like a good shell game, once they stop their work in the settlements, the government steps in and they shift money and focus to other areas. The Jewish National Fund, who just recently “discovered” that its money had been funding these hilltop settlements besides sending students to their yeshivot, reportedly has ceased funding them. As soon as the JNF announced their decision, the Israeli government began initiatives to increase financial support for these settlements. (The JNF remains instrumental in the eviction and displacement of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.) 

Even groups like the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel operate in the West Bank. Israel prolifically uses nature (especially through the JNF) and archeology to rid areas of Palestinians and establish Jewish settlement.

When we give money to Israel, in whatever form it takes, then Israel has the luxury and breathing space to continue its activities on the West Bank and in Gaza. Israelis are cushioned from experiencing the financial consequences of the cost of building and maintaining West Bank settlements.  Israel has received donations totaling hundreds of millions of dollars from Jews and Christians that were funneled to support settlement activity.  We have to do our due diligence to see if our donations are going to groups that help support the settlement enterprise.

Organized travel and study in Israel

Rabbinical groups and lay groups have been wringing their hands over the on-going terrorism, the rhetoric from Netanyahu and his ministers, and the role of the IDF. As a collective, they now have the opportunity to tell Israel:  “We will not send students to study. We will not attend meetings in Israel nor send or encourage our congregants to go on trips until the violence ends and a tikkun is in place to rectify the damage done to the Palestinians.”

We cannot condemn the violence…the terrorism…the obscenity of a Jewish state doing unto others what has been done to us…and continue business as usual. It doesn’t work like that. We need to go beyond words. We have to save Israel from herself. We have to redeem a Jewish collective that has fallen silent either through fear, apathy or ignorance.

I want my Judaism to say proudly and for all to hear: ”Not in my name!”  “Judaism is not occupation and violence!” I know this task is daunting. To paraphrase a saying from Reb Nachman, “Our Jewish world is just like a narrow bridge. And above all, we need to walk through our fear.”

We are in Elul. Rosh Hashanah is coming. An intense prayer time. In Hebrew, “to pray” is “l’hitpallel” from the root word “palel” that has a fascinating continuum of meanings: assess…judge…intervene. In other words: “take action.”  Rabbi Joshua Heschel z’’l said he “prayed with his feet” after he marched at Selma in 1965.

What will be your prayer for Israel this Rosh Hashanah?

Shanah Tovah, Ed

By the way, the JNF is having an event on October 14^th. Also its office is on Evans in Denver. Anyone up for prayer? Ed at 734 644 7305 or Ekass18@gmail.com.