For Every No, Five Yeses: The Moral Courage of Loving Israel

There are moments when love demands that we raise our voices. And there are moments when love demands that we raise them against people who claim to act in our name.

The escalating violence committed by extremist Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank is one of those moments. Attacks on farmers, assaults on journalists, the theft of olive harvests, intimidation, destruction, and violence are not expressions of Jewish sovereignty. They are desecrations of Jewish responsibility. They are betrayals of the very dignity Zionism was created to restore.

I write these words as an unapologetic Zionist. Not despite my Zionism, but because of it.

Zionism is a core expression of Jewish identity. Jewish sovereignty is neither an aberration nor an apology. The rebirth of Jewish national life in our ancestral homeland is among the great miracles of modern history. I believe all of this as fiercely today as ever. And precisely because I believe it, I refuse to allow violent extremists to define what Jewish sovereignty means.

My teacher, former Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor Arnold Eisen, once offered guidance that has shaped my public voice: “For every no we say about Israel, we must offer five yeses,” he once said to me.

This is not an instruction to dilute criticism. It is an instruction to ground criticism in love. The five yeses do not cancel the no. They explain why the no matters.

Here are my five yeses: 1) Yes to Jewish self-determination. 2) Yes to the extraordinary creativity of Israeli society. 3) Yes to the soldiers and families who have borne unimaginable burdens defending Jewish life. 4) Yes to Israel’s democratic promise and the equal dignity of its citizens. 5) Yes to the covenant that binds Jews everywhere to one another and to the responsibilities of sovereignty.

And then, without hesitation, my No: No to Jewish terrorism. No to stealing Palestinian olives. No to violence committed under the banner of Torah. No to political leaders who tolerate or encourage these acts.

A Zionism incapable of saying those words has forgotten its purpose.

This past Shabbat, Rabbi Shaul Robinson of Lincoln Square Synagogue demonstrated precisely this moral courage. An unwavering defender of Israel, Robinson condemned extremist settlers who have attacked Palestinian olive farmers and stolen their harvests. Citing a ruling by rabbis of Gush Etzion, he reminded his community that Jewish law unequivocally prohibits theft from non-Jews and that such actions constitute a desecration of God’s name. They wrote:

‘…harvesting these olives constitutes theft. As Rashi rules: ‘Even a non-Jew who worships idols may not be robbed or exploited.'”

Rabbi Robinson then invoked Abraham, who refused to allow his shepherds to take what belonged to others, even in the land God had promised him. Must loving Israel mean defending these atrocities? Rabbi Robinson’s answer was unambiguous: No. Zionism demands better.

Historian Gil Troy, writing this week in the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon, issued an equally urgent warning. He identified seven covenants sustaining Israel’s Jewish and democratic character, including security, shared responsibility, human dignity, citizenship, and moral accountability. He condemned not only extremist settler violence but the political indulgence that allows it to continue. Such failures, Troy warned, threaten an eighth and indispensable covenant: hope, Hatikvah. His argument is not against Jewish sovereignty but against those who corrode its moral foundations from within.

These are not reluctant Zionists offering qualified support. They are passionate Zionists demanding that the Jewish state live up to the covenantal obligations that make its existence so precious. Their rebuke is powerful precisely because their love is unmistakable.

My dear friend and fellow educator Shalom Orzach, an Israeli, responded to Robinson’s teaching with a challenge I deeply respect. Why, he asked, should we need Jewish law to tell us that these actions are abhorrent? Why should Diaspora Jews hesitate to speak forcefully about Israeli conduct simply because we do not live there?

He is right that geography cannot absolve us of responsibility. Jewish peoplehood does not end at a border. Nor does conscience.

But I responded that the language of Torah remains essential for American Jewish communities because we must ensure that our moral revulsion at violence committed by fellow Jews is never weaponized against the Jewish people themselves. Shalom pressed further. We must concern ourselves not only with what the nations will say, but with what Jews ourselves must say.

There is no contradiction between those obligations. We must answer to our own conscience and speak responsibly before the world.

This is where Eisen’s guidance becomes indispensable.

There is a current form of public Jewish criticism of Israel that becomes so relentlessly accusatory that its audience hears almost nothing of Jewish national achievement, Jewish vulnerability, Israeli courage, or the beauty of the society being criticized. Its practitioners may privately love Israel deeply. But public language matters. If our communities hear only condemnation, we should not be surprised when younger Jews begin to experience Zionism itself as a moral embarrassment.

I do not question the sincerity of those critics. I question the completeness of their public moral vocabulary.

We need the courage to say no without forgetting why we say yes.

Jewish moral teachings remain indispensable. But they cannot relieve us of the responsibility to think seriously about what happens when Jews must exercise power in history. We must refuse to surrender one essential Jewish obligation in the name of another. Jewish safety and Jewish morality. Jewish sovereignty and democratic accountability. Love of Israel and the courage to rebuke its failures. Not either. Both.

Violent settlers must be stopped. Theft must be punished. Palestinians must be protected from criminal attacks. Political leaders who excuse or enable violence must be held accountable. These are not concessions to Israel’s enemies. They are demands of a Jewish state worthy of its own founding ideals.

What makes the voices of Rabbi Shaul Robinson and Gil Troy so important is that no one listening carefully can mistake their rebuke for rejection. Their criticism is anchored in unmistakable devotion to Israel, the Jewish people, and the covenant that binds us. They remind us that love is not the absence of judgment. Love is the reason judgment matters.

The extremists stealing olives are not defending Zionism. They are disfiguring it. The politicians who fail to stop them are not protecting Jewish sovereignty. They are corroding its moral foundations.

And those of us who love Israel must not be silent. For every no, five yeses. Not as an arithmetic formula for avoiding discomfort, but as a discipline of Jewish love.

The Jewish people did not return to history merely to survive. We returned to build, to create, to defend, to repair, and to bless.

That is a promise worth fighting for.

Am Yisrael Chai!