Dear Friends,
As an Israeli citizen and a lifelong Zionist, I have defended Israel in many different forums, in college lecture halls in Europe and Canada, in the press as a journalist, and within the American Jewish world as a Rabbi, and I have never been so worried for the State of Israel.
The new government’s plans, especially its judicial overhaul that would alter the balance of power and allow the Knesset to overrule a Supreme court ruling with a bare majority, is leading many of us to believe that Israel today is in danger of losing its direction and its moral compass. The democratic nature of the State itself is at stake.
There have been unprecedented demonstrations in Israel and warnings from authorities, from economic experts in Israel to every single Attorney General of the past 20 years, as well as organizations in the Diaspora that usually do not comment on internal political matters in Israel, such as the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA). Last week, the JFNA wrote that, as an organization with a “deep and abiding love for the State of Israel,” they are concerned that the proposed changes will have a “dramatic change to the Israeli system of government… with far reaching consequences in North America.” (" An Open Letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid. ")
Prominent journalists who have defended Israel their whole careers, including Yossi Klein Halevi, who has addressed us at Temple Har Zion on several occasions, penned an open letter urging Jews in North America to lobby their leaders to pressure the Israeli government.
In the Israeli media, there have been references to the “curse of the eighth decade”—that over the course of our 3500-year-old history, sovereign Jewish states have declined and failed in their eighth decade as a result of a loss of values, corruption, and internal divisions. King David united the tribes but in the eighth decade, his grandsons tore the nation apart into the Northern and Southern kingdoms. The descent continued until the destruction of the 1st Temple several hundred years later. The same phenomena happened once again to the kingdom of the Maccabees.
Last night, there were violent riots by settlers in the West Bank against the Palestinian town of Huwara, resulting in the destruction of dozens of Palestinian homes and vehicles. Over 300 were reported injured and one killed.
The riots were called in response to the tragic killing of two innocent Israeli young men, brothers, in a terrorist attack earlier in the day.
As the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, wrote, “This is not our way. It is criminal violence against innocents. It harms the State of Israel, it harms us, it harms settlers. It harms security forces who are busy searching for those responsible for the terror attack, and most of all it harms us as a moral society and a lawful country.”
This latest incident shows us clearly the seriousness and possible consequences of this moment, and what the future could look like, if we do not do something now.
We are just one week before Purim. The perpetrators of last night’s violent riots are the heirs of Baruch Goldstein, the Jewish terrorist, who on Purim in 1994, walked into the mosque at the tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and killed 29 people in cold blood. Purim is one part of our tradition that evokes in us the sentiment of “us versus them” — of seeing pure evil, called Amalek in our tradition, embodied in other human beings. We can understand the human reaction of terrible pain to loss, but the lesson of Purim is that we must conquer the instinct for revenge — conquer the Amalek in ourselves.
As I mentioned in my sermon on Shabbat, regarding the situation in Israel, even here in the Diaspora, we have the power to make our voices heard to reclaim the vision of our spiritual homeland.
“We do not know the way ahead but it is only with love of Israel and a gracious heart that we can hope to find a new vision, not to be another iteration of a Jewish state failing in its eighth decade but re-finding the broad and open and spiritual inspiring vision to carry not just Israel, but all of the Jewish people, including all of us here in America, into the decades and centuries ahead in the flowering of our redemption." Here is a link to a video of my sermon.
Make your voices heard, let the consulate know, join a demonstration, protest the actions and policies of this Israeli government.
Sincerely,
Rabbi Adir Glick
