The ceasefire that ended Israel's Operation Guardian of the Walls seems to be holding, thankfully, and it begins to recede from view. Yet, it's still necessary to review some of the commentary we saw on this defensive operation.
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As a Conservative Jew for my entire adult life, I was glad to see the Rabbinical Assembly's statement two weeks ago, expressing solidarity with "our siblings in Israel" and pain at "the violence, fear, and loss of innocent life in the region." The statement was endorsed by the major bodies of the Conservative movement, including the Jewish Theological Seminary.
At the same time, I was dismayed to see that 10 of Jewish Theological Seminary's rabbinical students had signed on to a very different statement. This statement read, in part, "As American Jews, our institutions tell stories of Israel rooted in hope for what could be, but oblivious to what is. Our tzedakah money funds a story we wish were true, but perpetuates a reality that is untenable and dangerous. Our political advocacy too often puts forth a narrative of victimization, but supports violent suppression of human rights and enables apartheid in the Palestinian territories, and the threat of annexation. ...
"What will it take for us to see that our Israel has the military and controls the borders? How many Palestinians must lose their homes, their schools, their lives, for us to understand that today, in 2021, Israel's choices come from a place of power and that Israel's actions constitute an intentional removal of Palestinians?" (Emphasis in original).
"When we vote, we can vote for leaders who won't continue paying lip service to peace while funding violence. We can use our position as citizens of Israel's biggest benefactor to push to regulate and redirect funds in equitable ways that promote a peaceful and just future. "
Sympathy for the Palestinian people's plight is well-deserved. They surely find themselves in an impossible situation given successive Palestinian Authority leaders who rejected multiple opportunities for independence, as well as the murderous ideology of Hamas. Our rabbis and rabbinical students are well-situated to ensure that this dimension of the conflict doesn't get overlooked. But the letter goes far beyond sympathy, or a plea for peace. This letter spreads antisemitic libel and calls to hinder fellow Jews in their ability to defend themselves.
The letter calls on American Jews to, "vote for leaders who won't continue paying lip service to peace while funding violence." I wish I could say they meant leaders who won't funnel money into the Palestinian pay-for-slay program. But from the context, it is obvious they are referring to Israel's self-defense. In other words, these individuals want American Jews to advocate that our Israeli brothers and sisters are left without American assistance in defending themselves, exposed to the very Hamas rocket fire that rained down for nearly two weeks on almost every part of Israel, and vote for politicians who also support the goal of leaving Israel defenseless. This is a position that is beyond the pale.
If that were not sufficient, the letter goes on to further an antisemitic libel – that Israel practices apartheid. CAMERA has explained at great length the mendacity and depravity of this allegation. In the Wall Street Journal, Warren Goldstein, the Chief Rabbi of South Africa, wrote recently: "No one who truly understands the systematic racism and denial of basic human rights that made apartheid infamous could, with any integrity, apply the term to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – a complex political, religious and cultural dispute concerning national identities."
"So why the lie? Because Human Rights Watch seeks to delegitimize Israel, to portray it falsely as a state founded on the cardinal sin of racism, thereby denying it the moral right to exist."
The JTS students (as well as the others) who signed this letter have advanced a slander that is used to undermine the only guaranteed Jewish sanctuary in the world. CAMERA's student leaders have worked hard around the country debunking this myth, and it is especially disturbing to see it promoted from within this storied Jewish institution.
That 10 students at the JTS rabbinical school – who proudly proclaim, "We are future leaders of the Jewish community" – are so poorly equipped to distinguish fact from fictions promoted by agenda-driven, EU-funded NGOs, that they understand so little about Israel's purpose and history and its enemies that they would willingly see it disarmed, raises many troubling questions about what is being taught at the Conservative movement's flagship institution.
How, exactly, is JTS screening and preparing these "future leaders," who are easily hoodwinked into believing falsehoods put forth by a group whose own founder decried that it had "lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah"? What are they learning about morality, if they are not learning that Jews, too, have a right to self-defense? What are they being taught about Israel, if they are unaware of the great lengths to which the IDF goes to avoid civilian casualties?
Finally, one must ask, whether JTS indeed believes that individuals with such gaps in their learning and understanding are, indeed, fit to be the "future leaders" of the Conservative movement.
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