What "Pro-Israel" Must Mean Today

רִבִּי יוּדָן נְשִׂייָא שְׁלַח לְרִבִּי חִייָה וּלְרִבִּי אַסִּי וּלְרִבִּי אִמִּי לְמִיעֲבוֹר בַּקִּרֵייָתָא דְּאַרְעָא דְּיִשְׂרָאֵל לִמְתַקְנָא לוֹן סָֽפְרִין וּמַתְנִייָנִין. עֲלוֹן לְחַד אֲתַר וְלָא אַשְׁכְּחוֹן לָא סְפַר וְלָא מַתְנִייָן. אָֽמְרִין לוֹן. אַייתוֹן לָן נְטוּרֵי קַרְתָּא. אַייְתוֹן לוֹן סַנְטוּרֵי קַרְתָּא. אָֽמְרוּן לוֹן. אֵילֵּין אֵינּוּן נְטוּרֵי קַרְתָּא. לֵית אֵילֵּין אֶלָּא חָרוּבֵי קַרְתָּא. אָֽמְרוּן לוֹן. וּמָאן אִינּוּן נְטוּרֵי קַרְתָּא. אָֽמְרוּן לוֹן. סַפְרַייָא וּמַתְנִייָנַיָּא. הָדָא הִיא דִּכְתִיב אִם י֙י לֹא־יִבְנֶ֬ה בַ֗יִת וגו׳.

 Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Nasi sent Rabbi Chiyya, Rabbi Assi, and Rabbi Immi to tour the towns of the Land of Israel…
They came to a place where there were no Torah teachers. They said, “Bring us the guardians of the city!”
The locals brought them the political leaders.
The Rabbis responded, “These are not the guardians of the city. These are the destroyers of the city!”

–Talmud Yerushalmi, Chagigah 1:7

 This Talmudic text is resounding today, as the despicable Betzalel Smotrich—incredibly, unbelievably—arrives in the United States as an envoy of Israel and as a featured guest at a Washington, DC, gala for Israel Bonds.

“We will fight to protect her from enemies from without—and within. ”

This is disturbing beyond belief. Israel Bonds, historically, has been the most apolitical of organizations; a trustworthy, mainstream body that markets a fine and secure way to invest in the infrastructure and well-being of the State of Israel.

Smotrich, on the other hand, is a Hillul Hashem, a desecration of Torah and Jewish values. He is a Kahanist, a racist, an inciter to violence. His statement last week that the Palestinian town of Huwara should be “wiped out”—as hundreds of his constituent settler extremists rioted there—is only the latest outrage of someone who has no business representing the State of Israel.

The fact that he is Israel’s Finance Minister and a minister in the Defense Ministry only shows the desperation of Prime Minister Netanyahu to elevate beyond-the-pale extremists to support “judicial reforms” that seem primarily designed to keep Netanyahu himself from being indicted.

This is not about partisan politics, not really. The fact that 300,000 people demonstrated in Israel’s streets this weekend—for the 10th week in a row!—shows that a plurality of left-center-and center-right is saying yesh gvul/there is a limit to what we will accept in a civilized society. Not long ago, Meir Kahane (יימך שמו—may the name of the wicked be blotted out) and his supporters were considered unacceptable, and were barred from sitting in the Knesset. Today, Netanyahu builds his coalition around them.

So what does it mean to be a supporter of Israel in these uncharted waters?

That’s the question I’ve been thinking about for weeks. Consider how astonishing it is: American Jewish leaders, proud and lifelong supporters of Israel, are demonstrating in front of Israeli consulates and the Grand Hyatt Hotel in DC where Smotrich is holed up. We are making our voices heard to local Israeli envoys that this government’s actions are beyond the pale of the normal discourse of left-and-right. Some even considered lobbying the Biden Administration to not grant Smotrich a visa to enter the country.

This pushback is amazing, and completely unprecedented in the 75-year history of Israel. It  also raises some questions about what it means to be “pro-Israel” at this time.

Let’s be absolutely clear: this anguish is coming from a place of desperately caring about Israel’s security, well-being, and, frankly, its soul. This is not coming from the extremist fringe of the American Jewish left, like the Orwellian-named Jewish Voice of Peace, which has long established their de facto support for Israel’s real and intractable enemies.

Israel constantly faces the threat of delegitimization, especially on college campuses and in progressive forums. And antisemitism is still a very real concern in the U.S and around the world. We certainly don’t want to fan either of those flames. So what is a concerned supporter of Israel supposed to do?

Here are my suggestions:

1.     Make absolutely clear: to be a Zionist is to support the righteous demonstrators in Israel’s streets right now. Every Thursday and every Saturday, Israelis have been demonstrating. The press is covering it as a single issue: opposition to Netanyahu’s “judicial reform.” But it’s wider than that: it’s also about deep-rooted fear for what this Coalition of Hate means for Israel’s soul.

We must be using every means at our disposal, including all our social media, to say, “As lovers of Israel, we support the demonstrations and condemn what this government is trying to do in our name.”  

2.     Engage more than ever. This is not the time to disappear from the conversation. Our Israeli brothers and sisters are making it utterly clear (as three prominent centrists made clear in this crucial letter last month): We need you now, more than ever.

That also means putting our money where our mouth is. If engagement begins and ends with kvetching on Twitter—well, that’s the coward’s form of activism. It is imperative that we send our financial support to organizations that are standing up for justice and democracy—not to mention forms of Judaism that are an alternative to the theocrats’ vision.

Personally, I support Hiddush—Freedom of Religion for Israel; the Israel Religious Action Center; ARZA; the Shalom Hartman Institute; and flourishing Reform and Conservative communities on the ground in Israel. Not to mention organizations that are doing the hard work of Jewish-Arab bridgebuilding, such as Givat Haviva and Shorashim/Roots. There are many others—all of them need our support and encouragement in these fractious times.

3.     It’s about Mishpachah. And Love. The Prime Minister and his amen-crowd will call us traitors. That’s the tactic of cowards.

But American-Jewish criticism of Israel must come from a place of love. That is, when I consider the people whom I love (and who love me), I don’t support everything they do. When someone I love is actively hurting themselves or going down a devastating path, it is my responsibility to step in, to let them know what I see, and to urge them—sometimes forcefully—to change course. But I don’t disappear.

If people we love disappear when times are tough, well, we might appropriately question whether they ever truly loved us in the first place. This is true, too, over our relationship with Israel.

The short-term future won’t be easy. Many American Jews will simply want to disengage, exhausted. And others, more perniciously, will say, “See—this is the real face of Zionism all along.”

But it’s about time that liberal Zionists make their position absolutely clear: Israel is our family, an astonishing chapter in the history of Judaism that yields perpetual gifts to contemporary Jewish life.

And we will fight to protect her from enemies from without—and within.

Moreover, the pro-Israel position must be clear. To paraphrase the language of the Talmud: Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, and their enabler Netanyahu are not the “guardians of the city.” They are those who would destroy it.

Topol's Most Amazing Feat

A brief thought about Chaim Topol, the legendary Israeli actor who died at 87 on Wednesday, that the obituaries seem to have missed:  In his acting career, he pulled off a pretty amazing feat. He simultaneously became the iconic onscreen Ashkenazi Jew and the iconic Mizrachi Jew.

Of course American Jews know Topol from his role in the 1971 film version of Fiddler on the Roof.  As Tevye, he took over the role that heretofore had belonged to Zero Mostel on Broadway. Movies have more staying power—and a broader reach—than stage performances, and for two generations it’s been Topol who has been the quintessential Tevye the Dairyman, the onscreen incarnation of Sholom Aleichem’s shtetl everyman.

This has always been my favorite scene from Fiddler:

But years before Fiddler, he was already immortalized to Israelis in the classic film Sallah Shabati—where he played the quintessential Mizrachi Jew.

Sallah Shabati is a satire about the Aliyah of the Middle Eastern Jews in the 1950s. I’ve watched and taught the film many times—as far as I can tell, it’s not explicit which country these Jews have arrived from. (It may be Yemen or Iraq). And their arrival is one comic disaster after another.

Sallah’s family arrive “on eagle’s wings” in the new country full of idealism and excitement. But they’re quickly shunted to a ma’abara, an impoverished settlement town for these new arrivals, which has more than its fair share of squalor. The movie was poignant and fairly controversial in those early days of the state, because it skewered all sorts of sacred cows: the kibbutz (presented as a place of chaos and laziness), the immigration authority (an utterly inept bureaucracy), political parties (cynical manipulators who look for ‘ethnic types’ to garner votes) and so on.

It's a comic take on the vicious and ugly racism the Mizrachi Jews received at the hands of the Ashkenazi elite with their socialism, secularism, and European touchstones. By contrast, the Mizrachim were religious—kabbalistic, even; had less familiarity with modernity and its implications; and culturally had more in common with the Palestinian Arabs than the kibbutzniks.

The very name “Sallah Shabati” is a double entendre: a perfectly legitimate Judeo-Arabic name, but also a pun that could mean “excuse me for coming here.”

Here's my favorite scene from Sallah Shabati, the song “Hamashiach Hazakein” (and watch the two Ashkenazi politicos, who spot Sallah and are eager to recruit him to Labor Zionism):

The movie Sallah Shabati is notable in additional ways. It was written and directed by Ephraim Kishon, a Hungarian-born Jewish Holocaust survivor. (In the death camp, Kishon was lined up with other inmates against a wall; the Nazis shot every 10th person in line. Kishon survived, and ultimately escaped while the Nazis were transporting him to Sobibor.) The movie was the first Israeli film to be nominated for an Academy Award (in 1964; it lost) and it still holds up today. In fact, it’s an important document to remind people of the terrible racism the Mizrachi Jews experienced at the hands of their Israeli brothers and sisters.

Anyhow, what a remarkable feat to portray both Tevye and Sallah!

(Two slightly sour reflections here. First, I wonder if in today’s identity wars, some would object to his playing both of these ethnic roles: be one or the other, but certainly not both of them.

Second, I’m thinking of the protesters in the streets of Israel these days. A sharp satire like Sallah Shabati reminds us all that sometimes the absolutely most patriotic thing you can do is to raise your voice and point out the injustices, or worse, that your country is perpetrating.)

Hats off to Topol, for pulling off this great feat! יהי זכרו ברוך.

Purim after Huwara

This week, leading up to the holiday of Purim, has been an awful one for anyone who cares about Israel and the Jewish people and the Image of G-d, tarnished and violated as it is. Violence in Israel is spinning out of control.

On Sunday, two brothers, Hallel and Yagel Yaniv from the Israeli settlement of Har Bracha were murdered by Palestinian terrorists.

On Monday, another terrorist murdered Elan Ganeles, a 26 year-old Jewish man from Connecticut, in the Jordan Valley on his way to a wedding near Jerusalem.

“The measure of our integrity will be how forcefully, how clearly, we speak out against these forces. To make clear that the filthy ilk of Smotrich and Ben Gvir will not be the defining voices of Judaism and Zionism.”

We mourn them without equivocation. We are pained as part of the interconnected body of the Jewish people, and we insist that their killers be brought to justice.

And then there is Huwara.

After the murders of the Yanivs, scores of radical armed settlers stormed through the Palestinian town of Huwara, rampaging through its neighborhoods throughout the night, burning houses and stores and cars, and leaving at least one man dead.

Even some Israeli military leaders are calling the settler rampage a “pogrom.” And it’s not hyperbole. After all, “pogrom” is the term that was created to describe mob violence against the Jews of Europe with the backing of official institutions like the Church, the government, and the press. Huwara would seem to be the first Jewish-perpetrated pogrom in history, as far as I know. The most radical elements in the government coalition have been seeding settler vioence for a long time—and have spent the past few days since the riot nodding at the perpetrators.  That should make every one of us shudder with nausea and disgust.

After all, perhaps the biggest disgrace is how all this was so predictable. For weeks, it has seemed like Israel is coming apart at the seams, as the most extreme and vicious coalition in its 75-year history gives its blessing to hate. The hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have been pouring into the streets to demonstrate, week after week, show that this government is beyond the pale in it extremism for a huge swatch of this democratic society.

The despicable Bezalel Smotrich—a Kahanist, a racist, and also the Finance Minister who shares responsibility for civilian affairs in the West Bank—says, “Huwara needs to be wiped out.”

The vile Itamar Ben Gvir—another former leader of Kahane’s movement, the man whom Netanyahu saw fit to make National Security Minister with authority over the police in the West Bank—“likes” a tweet from a settler leader saying “Huwara should be erased today.” Ben Gvir is sponsoring a bill calling for the death penalty for Palestinian terrorists, while as of this writing no Israeli terrorists have been arrested for the Huwara violence.

And Prime Minister Netanyahu—who raised these men and others to positions of authority; a disgraced leader who has demonstrated beyond any shadow of doubt to have not a shred of decency or integrity—has the audacity to compare hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators in Israel’s streets to the pogromists in Huwara!

(By the way, as of this writing, Smotrich is still the invited guest of American supporters of Israel Bonds in Washington, DC next week. It is imperative that American Jews make clear: Smotrich is persona non grata; he is not welcome in our communities; he must be denied a U.S. visa. He is a disgrace to everything the Jewish community stands for; a true Hillul Hashem.)

It may feel like Israeli society is imploding. I happen to think Israeli democracy is resilient—but not automatically so. For far too long, Israelis and the American Jewish community have been complacent about the poisonous weed of hate that has sprouted in the Israeli far-right. Now that it has moved to the mainstream, given authority and power by a corrupt and desperate Prime Minister. Will we continue to make excuses for it?

Democracy is a muscle that needs to be exercised or it will atrophy. I, for one, see a battle before us for the soul of the Jewish state. It is of desperate importance that anyone who cares about the Jewish future realize their stake in this, and that we do everything we can to support those hundreds-of-thousands-strong protesters for democracy and decency.

What might we learn from this week’s horrors—and how can we celebrate Purim on Monday night in the shadow of Huwara?

Let’s talk about the Megillat Esther.

Esther, it must be recognized, is a comic Jewish revenge fantasy. It’s not historical; it’s a rich and quite marvelous satire, that takes in lots of targets.

We need to understand the comic dimension of Esther in order to grasp the violent denouement that takes place the end of the book:

For Mordecai was now powerful in the royal palace, and his fame was spreading through all the provinces; the man Mordecai was growing ever more powerful. So the Jews struck at their enemies with the sword, slaying and destroying; they wreaked their will upon their enemies. (Esther 9:4-5)

…

The rest of the Jews, those in the king’s provinces, likewise mustered and fought for their lives. They disposed of their enemies, killing seventy-five thousand of their foes; but they did not lay hands on the spoil That was on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar; and they rested on the fourteenth day and made it a day of feasting and merrymaking. (Esther 9:16-17)

In Esther, Jews who have been terrorized and threatened with mass destruction suddenly find themselves in a position to control their own destinies, with the precious ability to defend themselves against those who would destroy them. And then they massacre their enemies.

Did Esther anticipate Huwara?

We should note that violence—exaggerated, cartoonish violence—is an audience-pleaser. Consider, for example, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. It, too, is a revenge fantasy about a group of American-Jewish soldiers out to wreak revenge against every Nazi they can find in WW2-era Europe. The violence is grotesque, over-the-top, cathartic: at the end, Hitler and Goebbels and the entire Nazi senior staff are memorably executed by the “Basterds” en masse. Whether or not you find this entertaining (I must admit, I do) depends entirely on your sensibilities and your tolerance for fantasy violence.

To understand Esther, you have to understand the genre in which it is written. Esther is operating in this sort of mode. Did the Jews historically—in the name of self-defense and retribution against their genocidal enemies—slaughter 75,000 Persians? Of course not. It’s the projection of a community who heretofore has been oppressed.

And too many people don’t get what the Megillah is trying to teach with its outrageousness.

The theme that permeates Esther is inversion—events turn out to be 180 degrees from what they are expected or supposed to be. “…The very day on which the enemies of the Jews had expected to get them in their power, the opposite happened, and the Jews got their enemies in their power” (9:1).

But it’s not just the inversion of events that happens in Esther. There’s also an inversion of people:  And many of the people of the land professed to be Jews, for the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them (8:17). Can you imagine?! Those Persians were so scared of the Jews that they even pretended to be Jewish!

And perhaps that’s what’s behind the violent retribution of the Jews in Chapter 9 of the Megillah. When the Jewish defense squads of Shushan go wild and kill tens of thousands—is it so farfetched to say that this is the greatest inversion of all? Their enemies act like Jews, and the Jews act like their enemies!

And here’s where I’m going to stop laughing this year.

Because, as we know, humor is often a tool that reveals deeply hidden truths. “If you want to understand a society,” said Rebbe Nachman in one of his greatest stories, “you have to understand its humor.” Humor exposes things that a community strives to keep under wraps.

The Megillah predicted that Jews are just as capable as anyone of behaving monstrously. Huwara proves this to be so. In Huwara, we saw that Jews are just as capable as anyone of behaving monstrously, just as Esther predicted. Is there anyone left who believes that Jews, once in power, are immune from committing horrible acts? Everyone is capable of atrocities, and just because, on the historical balance sheet, Jews have usually been the victims, that is no reason to believe Jews can’t commit horrors. Huwara proves that, Q.E.D.

The measure of our integrity will be how forcefully, how clearly, we speak out against these forces. To make clear that the filthy ilk of Smotrich and Ben Gvir and the rioters crying for blood will not be the defining voices of Judaism and Zionism. Every one of us has to say yesh gvul (there is a limit to what we will allow in our names), and we must be the voice of democracy, decency, and justice—as envisioned by our Torah and by the founders of the State of Israel.

On Monday night, I’ll be with my community and we’ll read Esther again. We’ll boo and drown out the name of Haman; we’ll celebrate Esther’s bravery. We’ll drink a few L’chayims. But I’ll be reflecting on how Purim is ultimately about inversion and disguises—and how those Purim costumes have a powerful way of revealing deep truths about what lies behind the mask of seemingly civilized people.  

Against Zealots: The Meaning of Tisha B'Av in 2022

Last month, a young man from Las Vegas celebrated a Jewish rite of passage that countless others have performed over the years: After months of preparation, he traveled to Israel to become a Bar Mitzvah. Like so many other Jewish 13 year-olds, his family arranged a ceremony that culminated with chanting from the Torah at the Kotel Ha-Ma’aravi, the Western Wall.

Ultimately, Tisha B’Av is about hope. But it’s hope born from shared experience and loss, from realizing the danger of violent zealotry left unchecked. It’s hope that comes from a recognition that a society does have the ability to change its direction, and share responsibility for its destructive patterns.

The celebration took place at the space that was created by the Israeli government after years of tireless efforts by the non-Orthodox Jewish movements. Set alongside the traditional Western Wall plaza, the space beneath Robinson’s Arch was carved out for egalitarian Jewish worship.

But this seemingly innocuous event was a flashpoint for radical Jewish elements of the far right. Dozens of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) zealots converged on Seth Mann’s bar mitzvah ceremony, blaring airhorns and screaming vulgar epithets to disrupt the service. They howled that Sam and his guests were “animals,” “Christians,” and—wait for it—“Nazis.” They violently seized the siddurim from which Sam’s family were praying—the Jewish prayerbooks containing the sacred name of G-d—and ripped them to shreds.

And the ineffectual Israeli police stood by, silently and uselessly and refusing to intervene.

Tragically, this scene was predictable. It happened again last week. A teen from Seattle, Lucia da Silva, went to the women’s section of the Wall to celebrate becoming a bat mitzvah. She and her family and guests were met by 100 Haredi thugs who shrieked, blew whistles, and screamed obscenities. Again, the police, as well as the security hired by the Western Wall Heritage Foundation which controls the site, did nothing.

The mindset of the Zealots allows for no alternative expressions of Judaism. Women are forbidden from leading ritual; men and women praying together are heretics. And for those who are threatened by egalitarian expressions of Judaism (which the large majority of American Jews embrace), no expression of opposition, it seems, is beyond the pale. After all, their rabbis condone it.

The time and place of these disasters couldn’t be more painfully ironic: At the remains of the Beit HaMikdash, on the cusp of our most solemn season.

The 9th of Av is the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. The Rabbis maintained that that on this very date both Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed, six hundred years apart: the First by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the Second by the Romans in 70 CE. Each time the Temple was destroyed, it marked Exile from Jerusalem and a period of political powerlessness, when Jewish communities were forced to live under the authority of others.The Kotel and the contemporary excavations around it are all that remain.

The Rabbis sought to give these historical calamities a spiritual dimension. How could it be, they pondered, that a people who has a covenant with G-d could find themselves in a such a dire and shattered space?

Their answer was not a cosmic one, but an utterly human one. שִׂנְאַת חִנָּם / sinnat chinam they explained: senseless hatred for one another:

לְלַמֶּדְךָ שֶׁשְּׁקוּלָה שִׂנְאַת חִנָּם כְּנֶגֶד שָׁלֹשׁ עֲבֵירוֹת
עֲבוֹדָה זָרָה, גִּלּוּי עֲרָיוֹת, וּשְׁפִיכוּת דָּמִים

This should teach you that sinnat chinam is equal in weight to three other sins:
idol worship, illicit sexual acts, and shedding blood. (Talmud, Yoma 9b)

How burning the irony, how painful the awareness, that today, more than ever, the Western Wall has become the focal point of the hate that percolates within the Jewish world. The snarling faces of the opponents at Lucia’s bat mitzvah and Seth’s bar mitzvah—and the hands that shredded the words of the siddurim—couldn’t be more visceral examples of this.

All this in the days leading up to Tisha B’Av.

I have no doubt in my mind that if the authorities refuse to take a stand, there is a disaster in the making. It is clear to me that the hatred exposed by the most extremist elements of Israeli society is as vicious as it was in the days leading up to the destruction of the Second Temple, when the moral and communal leaders of the community also failed to take a stand against Zealots.

Have we not learned any of the lessons of any of the Tisha B’Avs of our lifetime? The essential message of Tisha B’Av is: Hate kills; unchecked, it inevitably wreaks destruction and forces the Shekhinah into exile.

Ultimately, Tisha B’Av is about hope. But it’s hope born from shared experience and loss, from realizing the danger of violent zealotry left unchecked. It’s hope that comes from a recognition that a society does have the ability to change its direction, and share responsibility for its destructive patterns.

How should we respond this Tisha B’Av? In four ways:

(1) Fast and pray with special intensity, for the religious imperative of the day is more important than ever.

(2) Support those who are in the trenches of the work for religious freedom in Israel, including Hiddush—For Religious Freedom and Equality, the Israel Religious Action Center, ARZA, Women of the Wall, and the local communities and congregations of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism and the Masorti movement.

(3) Demand that the Jewish Federations (CJP here in Massachusetts), AIPAC, and other organizations that purport to be big-tent Jewish or Zionist organizations take a firm stand on this issue, which threatens Jewish unity and Israeli security.

(4) Rav Kook taught that the only true antidote for sinnat chinam/senseless hatred is ahavat chinam/senseless love. Not really “senseless,” of course; but loving other people precisely because of every person’s inherent value, having been made in the Image of G-d. Be part of the solution; live the opposite of hate.

We’ll need to have Tisha B’Av again this year. Let’s pray that one of these years we can get it right.

The Tisha B’Av fast in 2022 is Sunday, August 7, delayed one day (to the 10th of Av) because the fast cannot fall on Shabbat.

A Tree with Roots will be hosting a special online Tisha B’Av study at 11:00 am on Sunday. All are welcome: Register here to receive the Zoom link.

Brain Freeze on Israel

The recent statement by Ben & Jerry’s that they will stop selling ice cream in the West Bank is giving a lot of people brain-freeze. Personally, every time I look at my newsfeed I feel the sensation of  swallowing a mouthful of Americone Dream way too quickly. Yet I’m surprised by the intensity of the pro-Israel community’s reactions.

“If only Ben & Jerry’s chose instead to say, “Our corporate policies promote peace, co-existence, and bridge-building - that’s what those frozen Peace Pops represent.” ”

Of course, the echo chamber of social media has whipped itself into a frenzy, including official statements and actions from the Israeli government itself. And surely, in the days ahead, every Jewish organization is going to feel compelled to do what they do: Issue A Statement. Some supermarkets in Orthodox areas are now counter-boycotting Ben & Jerry’s. So, apparently, is New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. And the Kashrut Authority of Australia and New Zealand has declared that Ben & Jerry’s is no longer kosher!

The unexpected statement from Ben & Jerry’s board of directors was issued on July 19. Under the incendiary headline, “Ben & Jerry’s Will End Sales of Our Ice Cream in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the brief statement says that selling in the “OPT” is “inconsistent with our values.” It acknowledges that “we hear and recognize concerns” from activists—implying that the BDS movement has caught their ear.

The final sentence says that Ben & Jerry’s will “stay in Israel through a different arrangement” yet to be determined.

This is fairly ridiculous on a number of levels—a manufactured controversy that the pro-Israel community is pumping far too much oxygen into. As others have pointed out, Ben & Jerry’s statement is all posturing and mildly incoherent. As always with these boycotts, they don’t indicate what specific results they would like to see from their action. They don’t distinguish that there is a difference between the natural urban sprawl of Jerusalem and radical isolated outposts. And furthermore, Palestinians, like the Jewish settlers, will be denied their Chunky Monkey - as well as jobs.

As ever, boycotts are blunt and dull-witted weapons. If only Ben & Jerry’s chose instead to say, “Our corporate policies promote peace, co-existence, and bridge-building - that’s what those frozen Peace Pops represent.” They could have used this moment to celebrate the exciting thawing of relationships (surely there’s an ice cream metaphor there) between Israel and certain Arab nations in the Abraham Accords. And if only they chose to reinvest their profits in the many good people and organizations that are really promoting a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike, in mutual co-existence!

As others have shown, there are also some sneaky corporate practices going on here. Ben & Jerry’s is owned by Unilever—a conglomerate that owns several ice cream brands, all of whose business will continue uninterrupted. Ben & Jerry’s maintains a distinct Board of Directors within Unilever, and this action seems to have spurted from there. So no one is losing any money: Unilever will continue to sell its umpteen products wherever it wishes and Ben & Jerry’s will get to nod to its progressive amen-corner.

Look, we’ve been here before. But there’s something different about the responses to this particular news cycle. And it needs to be discussed in our Jewish communities.

“Mark this as the official moment when rejecting the settlements became an anti-Israel, antisemitic act. ”

Because Ben & Jerry’s statement clearly said they’re only pulling out of the occupied territories. While in some hateful and ignorant quarters the occupation is “from the River to the Sea”—i.e., the entire State of Israel itself—I assume Ben & Jerry’s is referring to the West Bank. Their statement clearly affirms that they have no intention of pulling out of Israel inside the Green Line. (As I said, the move is insipid. But it’s not quite the “boycott Israel” statement that activists on either side seem to assert.)

Many institutional Jewish responses have linked Ben & Jerry’s with the international BDS movement. The rhetoric has been angry, including most disturbingly the local Israeli Consulate’s statement, which called Ben & Jerry’s action “economic terrorism” with “antisemitic undertones.”

Really?

Avoiding the West Bank is now the equivalent of BDS? That will be news to all the pro-Israel Jews—and they are legion—who look carefully at labels to avoid products made over the Green Line. That will be news to all the advocates of two-states-for-two-peoples who make up the majority of Jewish Americans and their elected officials.

Hell, for most of the past fifty years, most regional Jewish Federations (the “United Jewish Appeal” from the old days) made clear that their Israel fundraising did not support activities that were beyond the Green Line. That’s a very similar policy to Ben & Jerry’s new one. So almost every Federation in America is a retroactive secret conspirator with BDS and Israel’s enemies?

Mark this as the moment that it became official policy that being pro-Israel equals supporting the settlements. And that includes the illegal outposts, of which the previous and current governments choose to look the other way.

I fear that Israel has been inching in this direction for many years, and that mainstream American Zionist organizations have been deluded. These angry responses are part of a tactical move on the part of the right, nudging towards a reality where the only legitimate supporters of Israel are right-wingers.

The times are a-changing, and not necessarily for the better. In addition to the trend that asserts that the settlements are Israel, there are other disturbing changes to the status quo:

·      It was a longstanding consensus in Israel that Meir Kahane’s (yimach sh’mo) racist politics were beyond the pale of civilized society; his Kach party was labeled racist and forbidden from running in elections as far back as 1988. Yet Kahane’s students and admirers have established several uber-right-wing parties in recent years, and ex-PM Netanyahu actively courted them to be members of his coalition. Several Kahanists sit in the current opposition bloc in the Knesset.

·      It was a long-standing status quo arrangement that Jews would not gather to pray on the Temple Mount, the home of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque, and site of the two historical Jewish Temples. Historically, politicians recognized that the site was volcanically volatile; Orthodox rabbis decreed that it was halakhically forbidden for Jews to tread on that space. But increasingly Jewish extremists penetrate and pray on the Temple Mount, and knowingly violate the law while authorities look the other way. After decades of status quo, suddenly the “eternal Jewish right” to pray on the Temple Mount has become a mainstream Orthodox position—as well as the new Prime Minister’s.

·      Do you think the Temple Mount issue is about religious freedom? These people don’t care about religious freedom. On Tisha B’Av—the day that the rabbis mourned the destructive power of senseless hatred—a group of thugs associated with the Ateret Cohanim Third Temple-movement physically invaded and assaulted a prayer service at the egalitarian section of the Western Wall, ostensibly to “liberate” it from the horrors of women wearing tallitot.

I fear that these trends are becoming normalized in Israel—trends that even in the recent past were considered the domain of only the most hardcore and vile extremists.

Look, I cling proudly to my Zionist credentials. My love for Israel is like my love for family: it is unconditional, even when we inevitably disappoint each other. And I’ve been vigorous and public opponent of BDS again and again and again; it’s an antisemitic movement, born in hatred for the very existence of the Jewish state. I emphatically reject the vile and ignorant suggestion that Israel is an “apartheid state.”

But that doesn’t mean that it is impossible for Israel to ever become an apartheid state.

I fear for the country I love if the Kahanists and Third Temple radicals continue in their trajectories towards normalization and acceptance. The Jewish community simply must talk about what these movements represent - and how the status quo on so many topics is shifting.

This is a complicated moment. I don’t care much about Unilever’s foolish corporate policies, but I care very much about how the Jewish community chooses to respond to Ben & Jerry’s. The very definition of what it means to be “pro-Israel” is up for grabs. Liberal Zionists who are still standing must make clear that Evyatar is not Tel Aviv.

Have We Forgotten What Good News Looks Like?

Today there was good news in the world. After months of unremitting bad news, I fear we may have forgotten what good news looks like.

Watching the historic peace treaty signings today between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, I felt detached and dispassionate about the proceedings. I’m usually much more emotional when it comes to these things. I have strong memories of September 13, 1993, when the Oslo Accords were signed on the White House lawn. I was alone in my apartment in Jersey City, NJ, with tears streaming down my cheeks as Yitzhak Rabin z”l intoned, “Oseh shalom bim’romav…”

And I still have hanging over my desk a large photo of Rabin and King Hussein lighting each other’s cigarettes on the occasion of the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan in October 1994. It makes me melancholy and wistful when I look at the faces of these leaders from a different era. I take these things personally.

Today: no tears, and no goosebumps. Maybe that’s because Trump and Netanyahu are a different species of leader: unvarnished opportunists with grotesque records when it comes to promoting democracy. Or maybe because the UAE and Bahrain have abysmal human rights records, and it feels a bit like making friends with the nasty kid on the playground—he’s cool as long as he picks on others, not us.

But my own sentimentality doesn’t matter. To tell the truth, I am well aware that this is, in fact, a momentous occasion.

I’ve had conversations with lefty friends in recent days who scorned this turn of events. They’ve said that Trump is a self-serving narcissist, and doesn’t care about peace, and this is all about his reelection. They point to his unabashed statement this summer, when he admitted that the relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in 2018 was “for the evangelicals”—recalling Secretary of State James Baker’s “F—k the Jews, they didn’t vote for us.” They argue that Bibi, too, is an autocrat who is solely bent on self-preservation.

To all of which I say: Point taken, but so what?  It’s not exactly breaking news to say that politicians act in their own political interests.

But I fear there’s something dangerous in my friends’ opposition to these peace deals. I think that they would unequivocally support the exact same deals if they were marshaled together by an American president whom they respected. I think that some left-leaning, pro-Israel people oppose this deal because Trump himself is so noxious, and they imagine that anything that makes Trump look good—anything that he can put in his “win” column—makes his prospect for reelection go up, G-d forbid.

In other words, they say: if it’s good for Trump, we oppose it.

That’s a pretty disastrous way of thinking. It’s just like hoping that the economy will tank, because presidents tend not to be reelected in a bad economy. Or hoping that there won’t be a coronavirus vaccine until after the election. It’s a manner of thinking that says: Trump is so grotesque that I don’t care how many people suffer in the short term, as long as he is booted out decisively in November.

I, for one, hope that in the short term, bad things won’t happen: that the economy won’t completely implode; that there won’t be more slayings of innocent black people by police; that there won’t be any more school shootings; that the fires ravaging the American West will stop.  (Can you imagine someone saying, “I want the fires keep burning until after the election?” That’s just sick.)

And I can hope for all these good things while campaigning with vigor for Trump to lose. You know what they say about broken clocks… 

In that spirit, I can rejoice that finally Israel is normalizing relationships in its “neighborhood.” This is what we’ve been yearning for since at least the Six Day War, when people prematurely fantasized that, due to Israel’s victories, the Arab nations would accept the fact that Israel was a permanent part of the modern Middle East. To hold otherwise is to play right into the hands of those who believe that what is good for them is what’s good for the world—and vice-versa.

What about the Palestinians? Yes, they are going to be the losers here—because of precisely this same logic. People who say, “You shouldn’t be allowed to engage with Israel until there is progress with the Palestinians” miss the whole point. When the PA and its enablers give up the pipe dream of “from the River to the Sea”, and engage with Israel as a permanent neighbor, there will be progress. I’m not absolving Israel of its responsibilities toward the Palestinians—Israel’s policies of dissembling and humiliation have been disastrous. But, frankly, I think that the deals with the UAE and Bahrain (and others that have been whispered) show that this has nothing to do with the Palestinians. Or, if anything, that the Arab world is nearly as exhausted with Palestinian rejectionism as Israelis are.

And while these protagonists make it impossible to feel unmitigated happiness, we should be able to recognize good news when it comes our way. At the end of a year’s ceaseless flow of bad news, this is indeed good news. Kein Yirbu—may it grow and expand in the New Year ahead.

An Antidote to Cynicism

Book Review: Dreams Never Dreamed, by Kalman Samuels (Toby Press, 2020)

We live in strange and cynical times. It’s an era of discord and polarization, on the precipice of what will be the nastiest, most divisive political season in American history, exacerbated by the centrifuge that is social media. It’s difficult to escape, but we should do our best to protect ourselves: Cynicism, after all, is spiritual poison.

The antidote to cynicism arrived in my mailbox in the form of Dreams Never Dreamed, a memoir by Kalman Samuels, the founder of Shalva, the Israel Association for the Care and Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities. It looks like a generic feel-good memoir, and to be honest, I was unprepared for how deeply and profoundly I was moved by the story of the Samuels family.

The book works on a variety of levels. It is an Erin Brockovich-style saga of perseverance against entrenched and moneyed bureaucracies. It is also the story of a husband and wife, and a father and son. And it is the diary of one man’s spiritual journey and faith.

Kalman Samuels was born Kerry Samuels, raised in Vancouver in a normative suburban Jewish lifestyle. He was a jock, an inquisitive pupil, and a student leader. In young adulthood, he traveled to Israel, where his intellectual curiosity and openness brought him into the orbit of baal teshuvah-Jewish outreach. Incrementally he left the promise of university life behind for the life of a full-time Talmud student. No doubt that some members of his former circles were dismayed. But part of the sweetness of this book is that, unlike other memoirs of people who embrace haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Judaism, Kalman’s writing is open and affectionate about his youth. He doesn’t seem to have any regret or resentment about his upbringing; in fact, his teenage skills as a golfer, for instance, will help build important bridges much later in his life. Like I said, there is no cynicism to be found here.

Given the remarkable experiences that befall Kalman throughout the years, it’s hard not to be drawn into his faith, and to sense that something behind the scenes is pointing the way for him. Time and time again, as he becomes one of Israel’s leading advocates for disabled children and their families, an angel seems to lift him over yet another insurmountable obstacle. I kept thinking of the biblical Joseph, who constantly reminds others that his successes are not his own, but attributable to G-d whose hand is hidden behind the scenes.

It is also to Kalman’s great credit as a writer that he never sermonizes and these religious details are never heavy-handed. Nothing about the book is conversionary. He simply shares the elements of his deep faith that are germane to the astounding story he has to tell. That is refreshing, too.

Kalman and his wife Malki began to build their family in Israel in the mid-1970s. In autumn 1977, their one year-old son Yossi received a routine DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus) vaccination that all babies receive. And that is the moment the family’s life changed. Later they would discover that the pertussis element of that batch of vaccinations was corrupted. Soon their sweet and alert boy would begin having seizures, and he was becoming blind. By the time he was three years old, they realized he had become deaf as well.

Yossi Samuels eventually would become known as the “Helen Keller of Israel.”

For Kalman and Malki, Yossi’s disabilities  launched a years-long battle in the courts against those who negligently—and ruthlessly—permitted the faulty vaccines to be distributed to Israeli families. Entrenched corporate forces and the Kafkaesque Israeli health system denied culpability at every turn. Kalman tells the story of his family’s pursuit of accountability in direct and compelling terms. The setbacks are excruciating. The denouement, when it comes, is exhilarating. 

Yossi Samuels and Shoshana Weinstock, in an image from the book.

The emotional center of the book is Yossi’s emergence into the world. Just as Helen Keller had a teacher, Annie Sullivan, whose painstaking efforts finally broke into her world, Yossi had a teacher named Shoshana Weinstock. Shoshana does the work of teaching Yossi by fingerspelling letters into the palm of his hand. Here is the moment of breakthrough:

In the course of one such lesson, Shoshana suddenly appeared at our house with Yossi, knocking loudly at our door, breathless with excitement. “He got it! He got it!” she cried. “His life has changed forever!”

Malki and I had no idea what she was talking about. We looked at his hands to see what he had “got.” “No! No!” Shoshana shouted. “He got it! He understands that I’m signing letters in his palm. His entire world has just opened.”
…
“We were sitting at the table in my house and I was fingerspelling the five symbols that spell the word ‘table’ [shulchan in Hebrew] into the palm of his hand, while his other hand rested on the table.” She continued excitedly, “I have done this for the past few lessons but Yossi didn’t respond. Today,” she said, “a smile suddenly lit up his face and he began to touch the table deliberately, and we both knew that he’d understood I was spelling shulchan. We did it over and over and he smiled again and again, touching the table every time. He has a new life. I can teach him all twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet and give him language.”

We were all sobbing as Shoshana began to demonstrate on the palms of Yossi’s sister and brothers how to spell shulchan and how to sign the other letters. She told them: “You, too, are going to learn the letters, and you’ll at last be able to speak to your brother.” (p.94-95)

Excuse me for a moment, I have something in my eye.

Yossi’s widening horizons and development into a passionate, active young man is thrilling, to say the least. Just as inspiring, however, is Malki Samuels’s relentless vision. She is the catalyst behind Shalva. She knows firsthand how caring for a disabled child can be physically and spiritually exhausting for an entire family. The original vision was to create a center for children with disabilities that would provide love, care, and growth—and which would give parents a much needed respite, to focus attention on the rest of their families, or to reenergize themselves. These are lessons that could only come from parents who have experienced the challenges of raising disabled children themselves.

Shalva opens in the apartment building next door to the Samuels’ home. But this book is really about Shalva’s exponential growth, thanks to two factors: (1) Malki’s crystal-clear vision for what disabled children and their families need—which is not always in sync with what “the experts” believe; and (2) Kalman’s indefatigable, serendipitous, and often comic ability to make things happen or to raise the necessary funds. You root for them, even as you are certain that their efforts will be successful. (As Joseph would remind us, “Not me! But G-d…”)

The final battle is to find Shalva’s permanent home in central Jerusalem, on a vast campus with an amphitheater, public café, and an enormous array of amenities for the development or simple of joy of the children and their families. Shalva is even more than that: It’s a portal that welcomes visitors to Jerusalem as they enter the city from the west. For Jerusalem is not meant to (merely) be a place of politics and business. It is also supposed to be a gateway to more supernal dimensions, and that gateway is channeled through chesed / compassion and love. Do go visit the Shalva campus, it’s an essential part of understanding what Jerusalem is about.

And if you’re still not convinced, spend a little time with the astonishing Shalva Band. You’ll come around.

I got to know Kalman back in the 1990s, during my summers in Israel with Danny Siegel. Indeed, a chapter about Yossi and Shoshana is included in Radiance, the new anthology of Danny’s writing that I edited. Kalman’s book fills in lots of the gaps that I didn’t know and brings his story to a remarkable and heady fulfillment.

If you’re looking for a little inspiration—never maudlin nor cliched, but honest, touching and often very funny—read Kalman’s joyful, uplifting book. 

Quite simply, it’s the antidote to cynicism.

Tu BiShvat: How Israel Planted New Seeds in the Jewish Soul

When the Zionist movement was newly blossoming in the early 20th century, a prominent group of cultural-spiritual Zionists insisted that it was not only Jews who would be saved by a return to the Land of Israel; Judaism itself  had to be renewed as well. A return to the Land would inevitably impact the ways in which Judaism was expressed – not just in the Palestine, but in Jewish communities everywhere.

Therefore, one task of the pioneering olim was to infuse the Jewish calendar with new meaning.

The tens of thousands of pioneers who immigrated to the Land in the Second Aliyah (1904-1914) and onward were largely secular people, moved by a mixture of socialism and Jewish nationalism to develop a new Jewish identity in their historical homeland. Yet the boundary between what’s “religious” and what’s not becomes fuzzy when we consider these revolutionaries.

Even though most of them weren’t particularly interested in rite and ritual, many truly were convinced that with their lives they were writing a new chapter of the Bible and the history of the Jewish people.

The Jewish holidays, in particular, they infused with new meanings. Hanukkah, for instance – a relatively minor winter holiday back in the Old Country – became a national festival, emphasizing the Maccabees’ rejection of foreign tyranny in their homeland and expressing Jewish strength and vigor. In the words of a famous early Zionist Hanukkah song:

No miracle ever happened for us
No vessel of oil did we find.
Rather, we descended to the valley
And we climbed the mountain.
We discovered wellsprings
Of hidden light!

Other festivals, too, were given a new national spirit. Passover Haggadahs from the early kibbutzim emphasized springtime planting and renewal as flowers bloomed in the Galilee. Lag BaOmer became a time of bonfires and archery, celebrating ancient rebellions against Roman (and all) oppression. Shavuot festivities on the kibbutz deemphasized the rabbinic theme of the giving of the Torah and reasserted the day’s biblical meaning of harvesting the first fruits of the season (bikkurim).

Most of all, the minor day of Tu BiShvat became a new celebration of national rebirth. Tu Bishvat historically was slight date in the Jewish calendar; it was mostly commemorated in the Diaspora with minor liturgical changes in the daily prayers. In late medieval times, Kabbalists gave Tu BiShvat new mystical meaning and created accompanying rituals, such as a mystical Tu Bishvat seder – but these celebrations were largely confined to an elite minority of mystically inclined communities.

The Zionist pioneers changed all that.

Tu BiShvat became a celebration of the land and their connections to it. They composed new songs and festivities. On those early agricultural settlements, Tu BiShvat became a day to celebrate the renewed intimacy of a people and its land.

And they planted trees.

Trees became a crucial part of the building-up of those early settlements. Trees would help drain the malaria-infested swamps, and protect crops from the wind, and provide relief to the Middle Eastern heat. Planting itself is a religious act, an emulation of God:

“The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east” (Genesis 2:8). — So, too, when you enter the land of Israel, you should first occupy yourselves with planting. — Vayikra Rabbah 25:3

And this new definition of Tu BiShvat spilled over into Diaspora communities.

One ubiquitous item in the Jewish home of the 20th century was the Jewish National Fund pushka: a Tzedakah box devoted to collecting money that would go toward planting trees in Israel.

Tu BiShvat became a season when schools and synagogues participated in planting whole forests in newly blooming land, giving the season an entirely new ritual dimension. One could be forgiven for thinking, “Tu BiShvat? Oh, that’s the holiday the JNF invented.” After all, given the astounding numbers of trees planted over the past century, they virtually did!

Today, three themes come together for our renewed Tu Bishvat: our connections to the Land of Israel; the mystical-spiritual metaphor of a tree; and our responsibility to protect and preserve the environment. A meaningful 21st-century Tu Bishvat creates a thoughtful meditation on the interplay between these ideas.

Our ancestors of just a few generations back may not have recognized our celebration; it is a case-in-point of how Jewish life and observance has been transformed in our day – in no small part thanks to the successes of the State of Israel. Even for those of us who live in our various Diasporas, Tu BiShvat is a time for reasserting the countless ways in which Israel nurtures our own Jewish spirits, and the ways in which we can be part of making literal and spiritual deserts bloom with new life.

One immediate expression of this renewal is to vote for ARZA in the World Zionist Congress elections today. It’s simply one more dimension of how we can express our connection to the land in 5780 – and how a verdant and blossoming culture in Israel is an essential component of sprouting Jewish souls everywhere.

This essay originally appeared on reformjudaism.org on February 5, 2020.
Tu BiShvat begins on Sunday evening, February 9.

On the 24th Yartzeit of Yitzhak Rabin ז״ל

Today is the 24th anniversary of the murder of Yitzhak Rabin ז״ל - a sobering anniversary. Rabin was murdered in a maelstrom of hate at a time when political conversations amidst family, friends, and communities broke down to such a complete degree that communication across lines no longer seemed possible. It was a time when the tinderbox of violent radicals was fertilized by politicians and rabbis with the most extreme rhetoric - who then walked away saying, "It wasn't our fault."

I'm revisiting this piece I wrote in 2016 - and I can't help but remain haunted by those first words I wrote then: "A horrible question arises: was the murder a complete and unmitigated success?"

A sobering anniversary indeed.

Od Kahane Chai?: A Poison Weed in Israel

In the months after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin ז״ל was assassinated, there was a well-publicized soul-searching among the Israeli right wing. There seemed to be a serious heshbon ha-nefesh, an accounting of the soul, about group responsibility for nurturing hate. To what extent did extremist rhetoric (i.e., posters of Rabin wearing a keffiyeh, calling your opponents Nazis, etc.) foster violence? What did a murdered prime minister say about Israeli democracy, and how could pressure-cooker politics be conducted in a civil way?

If it wasn’t already obvious, any self-reflection from that time is ancient history. If there was any doubt that Benjamin Netanyahu is the coarsest sort of politician—one who has no lines he’s unwilling to cross if it serves his political interests—than surely that doubt has evaporated. All decent lovers of Israel should be united this week in expressing our revulsion of the most recent news out of Jerusalem.

On Wednesday, it emerged that the right-wing Bayit Yehudi (“Jewish Home”) political party would join forces and merge with the uber-right Otzma Yehudit party. By all accounts, Rafi Peretz, the leader of the right-wing Bayit Yehudi, was opposed to merging with these most extremist and violent elements—until Netanyahu mounted a desperate and cynical campaign to bring about the union. Bibi even cancelled a meeting with Vladimir Putin in order to make sure this deal among fanatics went through.

Otzma Yehudit is the successor to Kach and Kahane Chai (“Kahane lives!”), the banned political parties of the racist demagogue Meir Kahane (yimach sh’mo, may his memory be blotted out). Its leaders are devoted followers of Kahane, who embraced violent and terrorist tactics until his existence on this earth was cut short by an assassin’s bullet in New York in 1990.

If Likud retains its power in the April elections, Bibi has promised Bayit Yehudi two seats in his next cabinet. If this union is allowed to proceed to its conclusion, the most fanatical and racist fringe of Israel will be empowered and granted legitimacy. Its leadership—potential cabinet members—would include:

·      Baruch Marzel, one of Kahane’s top aides, and a public celebrant of Baruch Goldstein (yimach sh’mo), who murdered 29 Muslims at prayer in the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994.

·      Itamar Ben Gvir, who, just prior to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s murder in 1995, displayed the stolen Cadillac hood ornament from Rabin’s car on national TV and spewed, “Just as we got to this symbol, we can get to Rabin.”

·      Benzi Gopstein, leader of the violence-inciting, fanatical Lehava movement that attacks Jews and Arabs on the streets of Israel in order to prevent the mingling of races and cultures.

The United States considers the Kahanist organizations to be linked with terror. The overwhelming majority of Israelis consider this radical fringe to be abhorrent, perverted, and frankly dangerous to the Zionist endeavor. Their predecessors were banned from legitimate political discourse—and they should be as well.

Together, Kahane and Goldstein are surely the two biggest purveyors of hillul hashem, the desecration of G-d’s name, than any other Jews since Shabbatai Tzvi.

Now, if Bibi has his way, their loyal disciples are one step closer to being just another voice around the table of Jewish opinion—a voice with potential legislative power at that.

We expect other organizations and political parties to condemn and expunge incitement and bigotry from within their ranks. (See: Democrats who condone Farrakhan; Republicans who wink and nod at white supremacy; Women’s March leaders who demonize Israel; the British Labour Party.)  We should demand the same from the Knesset.

 American Jews simply must speak out. Jewish organizations, if they have any integrity, must declare that this is beyond the pale. I’d suggest:

·       A moratorium on any members of Netanyahu’s Likud, and of course the Bayit Yehudi party, from being invited guests or speakers at American Jewish events (AIPAC?) until a retraction is made;

·       A full-throated condemnation of this from every American Jewish organization;

·       Individual Jews should contact their local Israeli consulates and their Federation presidents, demanding that they convey our revulsion to Jerusalem.

This is not the Israel we love, defend, and teach about. We celebrate Israel as the culmination of the dreams of millennia, an open and diverse culture reared by the great leaders in the Zionist pantheon. No, this is a שֹׁ֛רֶשׁ פֹּרֶ֥ה רֹ֖אשׁ וְלַעֲנָֽה (Deut. 29:17); a poison weed, one that previous administrations had striven to uproot. To see its toxic shoots again—this time with the legitimation of the Prime Minister—is dismaying, and we must commit this day to calling it out.