A lament

Earlier in May, an event took place at the Reform Kehillat Ra’anan synagogue in Ra’anana, a mostly liberal town north of Tel Aviv. This event is an inflection point.

Despite threats, the synagogue chose to proceed with a ceremony expressing hope that both Jewish and Palestinian lives would no longer be lost to the conflicts. The ceremony had been screened there last year without incident. As Yitzhak Rabin said, “You do not make peace with your friends. You have to sit down with your enemies”—that is, with those with whom you disagree. This is particularly important since one-fifth of Israel’s population is, in fact, Palestinian Arab. Arabs were included in the last government and have served in all walks of Israeli life, including the Supreme Court.

But the spirit of Rabin’s assassin waxed hot. After posting inciting messages on social media, a right-wing group blocked the ceremony, threw rocks, and attempted to break into the synagogue.

Orly Erez-Likhovsky, Director of IRAC—the Israel Religious Action Center, which litigates to preserve religious freedom in Israel—describes what happened when she tried to escape the mobs:

Out of nowhere, as I was driving, the driver’s side window shattered, and I felt an excruciating blow to my left shoulder. A thousand pieces of glass covered me.
In complete shock, I kept driving. We noticed two motorcycles following us and called the police, who sent a patrol car that chased them away.
I drove to the ER at a hospital nearby in Kfar Saba, went into the bathroom to shake off the glass that miraculously didn’t injure me. But my shoulder was throbbing. I was treated by a Palestinian medic.
MK Gilad Kariv came to the ER, and Rabbis Chen and Lipaz didn’t leave my side until my daughter came at 1:30 AM to drive me home. My car, its window broken and body damaged from being kicked by the mob, was towed to a repair shop.

This stoning is a disgrace. For Americans, imagine if a group of MAGAs tried to stone the head of the NAACP or ACLU at an event seeking reconciliation. Yet all the main umbrella Jewish groups in the United States have remained silent. Only those groups directly affiliated with Reform and Progressive Judaism—like the Union for Reform Judaism and the World Union for Progressive Judaism—have spoken out.

This silence, when our fellows in Israel have been subjected to pogrom-like behavior, is unbelievable.

Even more discouraging is what came back online after I posted my distress about the event on Facebook (or whatever it is now called). The vast majority of commenters said nothing about the stoning or the violence. Instead, they attacked Reform Judaism, saying it had no place in Israel.

One commenter—who was actually somewhat kinder and more nuanced than most—stated that Reform was not real because Reform women did not go to the mikvah. Others said the only real Judaism was that decreed by the Israeli Rabbinate.

This attitude is wrongful. We are such a pitiful remnant, whose numbers have still not recovered from the Holocaust. How can some Jewish people decide that well over half of this remnant are not really Jewish because we do not observe halakhah as they do? How can they ignore violence perpetrated by Jews against other Jews with whom they disagree?

More fundamentally, these exclusivists misunderstand Judaism. We are a questioning people, a concept that our very name—Yisra’el—enshrines. We do not have perfect heroes. Even Moses, who had a Cushite wife, sinned. So did Abraham and Isaac, when they passed their wives off as their sisters.

We have books like those of the prophets—such as Micah—who place right conduct above all else, and like Kohelet, who doubts that observance earns reward. That grappling with moral conduct and the vagaries of life is Judaism’s most spectacular gift to the world. We do not reach perfection, though we must carry on the work, as Pirkei Avot reminds us.

So let us remain united, because all of us need to work for the preservation of Israel and of our Jewish faith—in our own paths.