Politics in Synagogue? Amen to That!

This past Friday, I was in the audience at a synagogue program with representatives of Brothers and Sisters in Arms (BSA). I was interested in attending because I had gotten to know the group through their NYC protests against the judicial coup being orchestrated by Bibi and Co. in Israel. When BSA pivoted to service and relief in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, I pivoted with them.  So I was curious to hear what they would have to say nearly a year after that soul-searing day.

The conversation was facilitated by one of the rabbis of the host synagogue.  I stopped counting how many times either the rabbi or the speakers mentioned that their efforts were not “political,” that they are not “partisan.”  They described BSA’s efforts as inclusive of all strata of Israeli society.  I kept thinking, that can’t be true, since right wing zealots seeking to overthrow Israeli democracy surely don’t stand or march with them.  I knew they were thinking broadly, including religious Zionists, for example.  But still, I was troubled by the inclusivity claim.  It struck me as an attempt to describe a kind of comity that simply does not exist in Israel at this point in historic time.

But it was the repeated references to not being political that had me practically jumping out of my skin.  There is a notion, especially in the synagogue community in America, that it is verboten to be political from the bima.  That strikes me not only as idiotic, but as a tragic misunderstanding of Judaism.  The version that wants politics banned from the synagogue thinks that being political means telling people what to think, and especially, how to vote.  I don’t want or need anyone to tell me those things.  But let’s at least base our thinking on clarity.

‘Politics’ comes from the Ancient Greek politika, and, according to this definition, is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of status or resources.  By this definition, politics infuses everything from condo and co-op boards, to formal political chambers, to marriages.  And it most certainly can be found threaded throughout the Hebrew Bible.  In fact, one can easily make the claim that the Hebrew Bible is a profoundly political document, since it is entirely about relations–between human beings and God; between and among human beings; between tribes, kingdoms, and so on.  Every imaginable combination of human interaction is described and politicized in the Hebrew Bible.  How do I know this?  Take any story from it and tell me how it does not involve making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals.  The prophets rain fire on the misdeeds of the people, describing their failings, taking sides in the process.  God does that repeatedly, taking the side of the widow and orphan, and reminding humans that that is our obligation too.  How to treat slaves; how to treat the stranger; parent-child relations.  They are ALL in the Hebrew Bible.  So why on earth would taking sides between right and wrong, between moral and immoral, not only be acceptable in a synagogue, but required?

To take the politics of human relations out of the synagogue equation is akin to draining the blood from a body and still expecting it to function as a recognizable human being.  To describe as non-political, or non-partisan, a movement in Israel whose purpose is to save the nation from sliding away from democracy and into autocracy, is to describe a fiction, a thing which does not exist.  It is a lie to comfort those in places like synagogues, to make congregants believe that the Jewish people are united in our fight for a democratic, more equal, more just Israel.  That is a lie.  A comforting lie perhaps, but still a lie.

And it is this lie, coupled with the cowardice of far too many Jewish “leaders” in America that has enabled and emboldened the horrific ascendance of an autocratic, messianic government in Israel, one whose values are not only a chilul hashem, but an existential threat to the state.  Yes, Israel has horrible external enemies.  But it is the threats from within, the divisions stoked by a cynical, self-serving prime minister that have opened Israel to the greatest threats since the state’s founding.  To speak of unity, of a shared interest in preserving democracy and the rule of law in the face of the intentional destruction wr_ought by its own government is a kind of magical thinking that would be amusing, were it not so tragic.

Politics belong in synagogues, because for the minority of Jews who enter them, truth matters.  Wisdom, leadership, and moral clarity matter.  Politics can ennoble the human and national enterprise when they inspire us to pursue policies aligned with the Jewish values that are our greatest inheritance.  When we shy away from politics for fear of causing offense, we ironically turn our backs on the tradition we endlessly invoke, a tradition that is radical, critical, complicated, and honest.  If none of these ingredients can be found in our religious spaces, what is the point of it all?