Why I refused to sign the rabbinic letter on Israel’s actions in Gaza - The Jewish Chronicle

When I received a request to sign the Orthodox rabbinic letter on Gaza initiated by Rabbi Yosef Blau, I read it and found it too deficient to sign. I have since learned that others, who did sign it, also found it deficient, but they signed “because a statement had to be made”.

But, in dealing with matters of life and death, it is not enough to “make a statement”.

Any statement must be carefully calibrated. It must reflect the full range of the facts on the ground, not just some; and it must grapple with the full range of the moral questions the war raises, not just some. It must take into account the agonising quandaries imposed on, not chosen by, Israel and the Jewish people since October 7, 2023.

Nothing in the interim has changed my mind. If anything, I could have then, and could now, expatiate further on this letter’s deficiencies.

Nonetheless, I confine myself now to the exact response as I wrote it then: "I cannot sign this statement because it is deficient in facts, in nuance and in context.”

The number of casualties in the Gaza Strip due to Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas is unverified, and one should not even implicitly extend the slightest credibility to Hamas, from which most of these figures derive.

The statement refers to “allowing an entire people to starve”. Yet here is food available in the markets of some parts of the Strip. An “entire population” is an exaggeration that affirms the animus of Israel’s enemies. The statement lacks factual nuance.

It is correct that Israel’s premise of withholding aid would pressure Hamas into surrender was mistaken. But this is hindsight. The statement shows no evidence of the difficulty facing decision-makers in Israel in dealing with an unrestrainedly cruel enemy. Again, absence of nuance.

The statement mentions human shields and the devastation of Gaza’s hospitals, schools and homes, but the statement does not identify the link between the two.

Because Hamas uses human shields, there was no way for Israel to attack Hamas’s battalions and soldiers other than where they were: in hospitals, schools and homes. The absence of this linkage in the statement exempts Hamas from the moral onus of imposing this horror, and does not acknowledge that a Hamas leader called Gazan casualties “necessary sacrifices”.

Our own moral obligations arise in a context. The statement lacks context.

The statement refers to “the most extreme voices in the … the religious Zionist community.” They don’t represent me. But a statement of conscience should itself not be extremist.

This statement, selective in its presentation of the hunger problem and lacking in nuance and context, strikes me as extremist.

I am also troubled by its lack of reference to the ultimate sacrifices so many Israeli soldiers and civilians have made; to the rending of so many Israeli families forever; to the hostages and cruelties they are subjected to (above and beyond the inherent cruelty in their kidnapping); and to prayer to the God of Israel.

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg, PhD, is the editor and publisher of the Intermountain Jewish News, for which he has been writing award-winning commentary for over 50 years. His latest book is Across the Expanse of Jewish Thought.

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