Judaism’s vision of justice and compassion extends to all human beings
Other signatories include Rabbi Daniel Raphael Silverstein, a British oleh who runs the Applied Jewish Spirituality website from Israel, and Rabbi David Levin-Kruss, a teacher at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, who once held a position at Stanmore Synagogue.
The letter condemns the “horrific” Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and its “cynical disregard for the lives of the people it claims to represent” in Gaza.
But it goes on to say that the action of Hamas “does not absolve Israel’s government from assuming its share of the responsibility for the profound suffering of Gaza’s civilian population”.
Israel’s prolonged military campaign “has devastated Gaza,” the rabbis state. “The death toll is rising with very significant losses of lives, and Israel’s limiting of humanitarian aid, at times completely halting the entry of food and medical supplies, has raised the spectre of coming starvation.”
Hamas's “sins and crimes do not relieve the government of Israel of its obligations to make whatever efforts are necessary to prevent mass starvation.”
There had been “months when Israel blocked humanitarian convoys on the mistaken premise that increased suffering would bring about Hamas’s surrender,” the letter states.
“Instead, the result has been the deepening of despair. The justified anger toward Hamas has dangerously expanded by some extremists into blanket suspicion of the entire population of Gaza—children included — tarnished as future terrorists.”
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, “extremist settler violence has resulted in the murder of civilians and has forced Palestinian villagers from their homes, further destabilising the region.
“Amid this devastation, the absence of a clear post-war vision from Prime Minister Netanyahu has allowed the most extreme voices in the Israeli government — including ministers from the religious Zionist community — to fill the vacuum with disturbing proposals. These include the forced ‘voluntary’ exile of Palestinians from Gaza and the sacrifice of remaining Israeli hostages in the pursuit of an elusive ‘total victory’.”
Instead, they argue that “this moment demands a different voice — one grounded in our deepest Jewish values and informed by our traumatic history of being victims of persecution.
“Orthodox Jewry, as some of Israel’s most devoted supporters, bears a unique moral responsibility. We must affirm that Judaism’s vision of justice and compassion extends to all human beings. We must affirm that Judaism’s vision of justice and compassion extends to all human beings.”
Rabba Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz[Missing Credit]
The intervention is notable for coming from Orthodox voices whereas concerns or criticism about Israel’s actions in Gaza have predominantly been expressed in recent months by Progressive or Masorti leaders.
Apart from Rabbi Rosen, Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich, Danish Chief Rabbi Jair Melchior and Chief Rabbi of Norway and Israel’s former Diaspora Affairs Minister Michael Melchior have signed it.
One of Modern Orthodoxy’s leading thinkers, Rabbi Dr Yitz Greenberg from New York, has joined the call for moral responsibility, as has the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi, Steve Greenberg, and others who will be familiar in particular to Limmud Festival regulars such as Israeli yeshivah heads Rabbi Daniel Landes and Rabbi Herzl Hefter.
Rabbi Blau recently gave the opening address to Smol Emuni US (the Faithful Left), a new group on the left of Orthodoxy that offer a more doveish alternative to pro-settlement streams on the right.
