When a Rabbinic rebuke can endanger Jewish lives - The Jewish Chronicle

To date, over a thousand rabbis, some of them my respected colleagues and friends, have signed a letter written by Rabbis Jonathan Wittenberg, Arthur Green and Ariel Pollak petitioning Israel to, among other things, “stop at once the use and threat of starvation as a weapon of war.”

Although I am not a rabbi, I too was invited to sign the letter. Had its accusations been more tentatively worded, I might have done so. As it was, I could not add my name to sections of the letter that go beyond the mitzvah of a reformative tokhehah or moral rebuke. While much of the content of the letter is uncontroversial, parts of it lend the considerable weight of its authors and signatories’ rabbinic credentials to what many would regard as deniable and ideologically compromised claims about the conduct of Israel.

It would be hard to take exception to the sound theological principles on which the letter rests. The text quite properly reminds its readers of the equal worth and dignity of Jews and Palestinians as created alike in the image of God. The authors of the letter also rightly note that empathy with all blameless sufferers, whether neighbours or strangers, is not an option but a Jewish obligation.

Although none of the classical rabbis after Akiva had any experience of a Jewish war that could support a morally unanimous investigation of Jewish wars today, it is the complex task of rabbis to correlate a Jewish literature on the prosecution of war and its historical moment. Jonathan Wittenberg and his co-authors go some way to doing that. Their unease with a war that they correctly identify as a legitimate battle against “evil forces of destruction”, and refrain from calling a genocide, echoes some of the rabbinic unease with the less compassionate biblical sources on total war.

But in referring to “a policy of withholding of food, water, and medical supplies from a needy civilian population” the letter appears to neglect the biblical and rabbinic proscription of irresponsible speech about one’s fellow Jew which, if publicised, would cause its object anguish, fear or reputational damage (lashon hara).

There are many different types and degrees of lashon hara but the difficulty of its later qualification or retraction and the gravity of its consequences can be such that the rabbis go so far as likening it to an act as irrevocable as murder.

There is a well-known hasidic story in which lashon hara is likened to cutting open a pillow and watching its feathers blow away in all directions. This letter was written for circulation “to rabbis around the world” and calls on “the Prime Minister and the Government of Israel to respect all innocent life” (as if they don’t already). But, like the feathers floating out of a split pillow, its words will be irretrievable and very unlikely to remain among Jews who wish Israel well.

In fact, precisely because it has been written and signed by a thousand rabbis, not the usual celebrities and political agitators, this letter is more likely than most to be consulted by historians and, well before then, to reach Israel's most implacable enemies, giving them the highest Jewish warrant for their blood-libellous demonisation of Israel.

Of course, it would be morally and politically childish to insist that Israel can do no wrong. Israel must always be accountable to its own project and idea. And if the truth of this letter’s charges were beyond reasonable doubt, most contemporary Jews would be reluctant to invoke rabbinic prohibitions against “informing” (mesirah) to suppress their publication, even in social and political environments as hostile to Jews as they are today.

Nonetheless, testimony carries a heavy burden of responsibility for the fate of the accused. The Talmud insists on establishing the facts of a case before hearing its witnesses.

Yet which of the letter’s rabbis are in a position to verify what is or is not happening in Gaza? The IDF’s communications to the press are notoriously laconic. Israel’s aid strategy is not a fixed policy but must constantly adapt to rapid changes in cooperation and military activity on the ground. Moreover, reporting on Gaza, even in what the letter calls “the respectable media”, is mostly supplied by, and in the interests of, Hamas for whom the ideological management of Palestinian suffering will alone win its war against Israel.

There may be times when Israel – which is also morally obligated not to acquiesce in its own destruction – does not have the luxury of better ethical choices. But this letter should not ignore credible evidence that Israel is not engaging in what the letter refers to as the (deliberate?) "mass killings of civilians.” It should not ignore credible evidence that Israel is not starving Gazans.

Although Judaism has laboured for two millennia under no less a charge than deicide, the letter warns that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza will inflict historically unprecedented damage to “the moral reputation not just of Israel, but of Judaism itself.”

But were there to be even the slightest doubt about the veracity of this letter’s charges – were there to be any risk that it is amplifying Hamas’ misinformation and lies and fuelling the antisemitism that is causing so many innocent Jews daily anguish and fear – then it should have been written differently or not at all.

The book of Proverbs observes that “death and life are in the tongue” (18: 21). In times and situations like these, words that take the moral high ground can endanger Jewish lives. This is not the moment for rabbis, of all people, to supply ammunition to Jew-haters and legal, religious, cultural and educational institutions hostile to Israel, especially when it is not clear that a violation of Torah law or any other law has occurred.

What Jew of good heart could fail to share this letter’s grief for the innocent casualties of the war in Gaza? Who would not sign up to its hope for a peaceful future for everyone in the region? But in the crude hands of a national and global Israelophobic media, everything that is good and right in this letter will go unseen. If or when that happens, these rabbis' laudable attempt to save the good name of the Jewish people will have only furthered its destruction.

Melissa Raphael is Professor Emerita (Jewish Theology) at the University of Gloucestershire and Leo Baeck College, London

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