We are today witnessing a dramatic rise in antisemitism in the United States and around the world that most Jews alive have never seen, experienced or imagined before. This millennia-old shape-shifting hatred that appears in different forms in every era continues to permeate our politics and culture.
It is important to understand what modern Jew-hatred is and what it is not. To that end, despite it being a complex psychological, cultural, religious, political, and historic phenomenon unlike any other hatred in world history, I offer a few comments below that I believe help clarify what this hatred is, what it is not, and what we Jews (and others) should do as we confront it.
“There are a number of modern and classic iterations of antisemitism that continue to be promulgated by the [political] far left and far right. They include Holocaust denial, offensive stereotypes of Jews (such as casting a Jewish individual as a Christ-killer, a puppet master, imposter, and swindler who manipulates national events for malign purposes, a foreigner, a controller of banking, the media, government, and the wealthy elite), denying the Jewish people our right to self-determination, applying double standards to Jews and Israel that are not applied to any other nation, using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism to characterize Israel and/or Israelis, drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, and holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel.” –Rabbi John Rosove, “From the West to the East – A Memoir of a Liberal American Rabbi” (West of West Books, 2024)
“The antisemite was a coward, afraid of himself, of his own consciousness, of his own liberty, of his instincts, of his responsibilities, of solitariness, of change, of society, and the world — of everything except the Jews. The antisemite doesn’t hate Jews because of some bad experience with flesh-and-blood Jews, but uses a preexisting ‘idea of the Jew’ as a prism for ordering his troubled world. Antisemitism was thus a psychic liberation from responsibility for one’s conscience, a rebellion against the burdens of rationalism….If the Jew did not exist, the antisemite would invent him.” -Jean Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew (1946)
“Jews know that democracy is their best protection. Less democracy means less protection for all minorities, and even if the dictator makes a big show of being the Jews’ protector and a friend of Israel, it’s at best temporary and conditional. No one is ever safe with a dictator, certainly not the Jews.” -Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz, July 29, 2022
“Today, anti-Zionism is often a form of antisemitism, but not always. After all, there are plenty of anti-Zionist Jews who identify as Jews proudly. However, the single-minded blind obsession with Israel often bleeds into hatred of Jews and normalizes Jew-hatred. Of course, not all criticism of Israel is illegitimate or unwarranted, and certainly not antisemitic, but some of it is, and on some college campuses and on-line forums a lot of it is. We need to be able to appreciate subtlety, nuance, and historical context, and to distinguish between legitimate critique and the new mutated form of antisemitism dressed up in the garment of pathological anti-Zionism.” -Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch – Podcast “In These Times” with Natan Sharansky (2022)
“What we generally call antisemitism is a 19th-century coinage that helped turn an ancient religious hatred into a racial hatred. As racial hatred came to be considered uncouth after World War II, anti-Zionism (that is, blanket opposition to a Jewish state, not criticism of particular Israeli policies) became a more acceptable way of opposing Jewish political interests and denigrating Jews. Should Israel cease to exist, new forms of bigotry will surely develop for the next stage of anti-Judaism, adapted to the prevailing beliefs of the times. The common denominator in each of these mutations is an idea, based in fantasy and conspiracy, about Jewish power. The old-fashioned religious antisemite believed Jews had the power to kill Christ. The 19th-century antisemites who were the forerunners to the Nazis believed Jews had the power to start wars, manipulate kings and swindle native people of their patrimony. Present-day anti-Zionists attribute to Israel and its supporters in the United States vast powers that they do not possess, like the power to draw America into war. On the far right, antisemites think that Jews are engaged in an immense scheme to replace white, working-class America with immigrant labor. Tucker Carlson and others have taken this conspiracy theory mainstream, even if they are careful to leave out the part about Jews… the foul antisemitism of the right, yoked to its old themes of nativism, protectionism, nationalism and isolationism, is erupting into the public square like a burst sewage pipe.” –Bret Stephens – What an Antisemite’s Fantasy Says About Jewish Reality – NYT – Jan. 21, 2022
“In 2025 America, antisemitism is real – sometimes in plain sight, sometimes encoded and winked at, and sometimes expressed as obsessive hatred of Israel and Zionism. The problem transcends left-right politics – stretching from Nick Fuentes and “great replacement” conspiracists on the far-right to those on the far-left who cast Jews globally as oppressors. We see it everywhere – from chants in the streets to online memes in our social media feeds and conspiracies festering in the darker corners of the web. As we wage this critical fight, we must take care not to undermine either our own interests or the health of American democracy. And we must be honest that – at times – the fight against antisemitism is itself being politicized and weaponized. If we are not careful in our approach, we risk ending up less safe, less free, and more isolated.
We cannot define legitimate criticism of the Israeli government as antisemitism – especially not in law. Weaponizing antisemitism as justification to slam the gates shut [on immigration into the United States] is not “protecting Jews,” it is erasing a core American ideal that granted us protection. To allow right-wing actors – including those willing to defend and platform dangerous figures like Nick Fuentes – to chip away at those pillars in the name of “protecting Jews” is not only hypocritical and ironic – it is deeply, dangerously self-defeating. Not all the anger coming at the Jewish community today is rooted in ancient hatred. Some of it is rooted in protest against the policies of the government of Israel – policies that many Jews disagree with as well. While some protest on the left crosses a line into antisemitic narratives, that doesn’t negate the legitimate reasons for much of the protest. We cannot fight antisemitism by censoring political speech, by withdrawing from civil rights coalitions, by letting the far-right weaponize our fear, or by refusing to look at our own agency and responsibility. We should be honest that both the left and right ends of the spectrum have some antisemitic elements and not allow this important issue to be made into a political football. We need to defend democracy. Defend free speech. Build alliances. Protect the rule of law. And we need to do all this out of a firm conviction that Jewish safety in America will not come from isolating ourselves or policing ideas. It will come only from solidarity, partnership, and the deep and universal American promise that freedom and equality are not for some, but for all.” –Jeremy Ben-Ami, “Can We Do Better at Fighting Antisemitism,” Word on the Street, November 2, 2025)
In the last number of weeks, Rozana International began operating a mobile clinic in Gaza to begin to address the overwhelming health tragedy there. Rozana’s staff of two doctors and a nurse—all Palestinian Gaza residents—are treating 100 Palestinian patients every day in a large tent; men, women and children who were bombed out of their homes and who themselves are living in makeshift shelters. In this fragile setting, a team of local medical professionals is on the ground every day—treating injuries and addressing urgent health needs. With a planned increase in staff and sufficient supplies, the clinic looks to serve 10,000 patients a month.
Rozana International is an organization that uses health diplomacy to strengthen ties of communication and cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians. I have been a supporter for about ten years and believe not only in its humanitarian mission but in its success as a way to help Palestinians in dire need of medical help, but also as an Non-Governmental-Organization (NGO) that brings out the best in Israelis and Palestinians, working together to save lives.
On Sunday, November 9, I invite you to join a webinar with Mohammed Asideh, Rozana’s director of advocacy and the head of Rozana’s Palestine NGO office in Ramallah. He is in charge of Rozana’s Gaza Mobile clinic.
Rozana’s short-term aspiration, once the first clinic is fully operational, is to open and fund a second clinic to handle minor surgeries that are not getting the attention of the severely diminished hospital system. Rozana also has separate funding to provide a “warm line” for a lactation counseling pilot project for Gazan mothers. These projects are the building blocks that will allow Rozana to establish a permanent Rozana Palestinian NGO office in Gaza. When that happens, it will allow Rozana to play a significant humanitarian role there going forward.
Rozana Palestine’s operations include a variety of policies that comply with U.S. government guidelines regarding counterterrorism and money laundering.
Both the Quran and the Talmud teach that if we are able to save even one life, we save the entire world. We who support Rozana believe that precept must include our Palestinian brothers and sisters. Despite the ongoing tragedy of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the creation of Rozana’s Mobile Clinic gives Americans of all faith traditions and those with no faith tradition as well the opportunity to help save Palestinian lives.
I believe in Rozana, its leadership, its health care physicians and nurses, and what it has done so successfully over many years in bringing Israelis and Palestinians together in partnership. It is an organization worthy of our support.
Please join us in this Webinar to learn more about Rozana’s life-saving work. You will be moved. To register – join us on November 9 at 1:00 PM EST .
In response to a landmark congressional letter to President Trump led by Senator Adam Schiff (Democrat – California) and signed by 46 Democratic Senators (all but Senator Futterman of Pennsylvania) voicing clear opposition to potential Israeli annexation of the West Bank or Gaza, J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami issued the following statement:
“This is a tremendous show of unity across the Democratic caucus. Together, Democrats are sending a clear message to extremists in the Israeli government: If they think they can get away with annexation without consequences, it’s time to think again.
The letter demonstrates a broad, principled commitment to Israel’s long-term security, aspirations for Palestinian statehood, a viable path to peace, and a sustainable US-Israel relationship rooted in shared democratic values. We applaud the senators’ leadership in making clear that illegal, unilateral annexation runs counter to American values and would harm Israel’s interests by reversing the progress toward regional integration achieved by the Gaza ceasefire and weakening the US-Israel relationship.
J Street has long believed that Israel’s future as a secure, democratic homeland for the Jewish people depends on the Palestinian people’s ability to live in freedom and dignity in a state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza. Extremists who want to claim the entire land for Israel are pursuing annexation to make that outcome impossible, locking in endless conflict, destroying Israel’s democratic character and entrenching Israel’s status as a pariah state.
We urge the Trump Administration to continue making clear that any steps toward annexation are unacceptable and undermine progress made through the ceasefire, and to prioritize the pursuit of a renewed diplomatic effort to achieve a regional peace.”
Note: J Street is a pro-Israel, pro-democracy and pro-peace political organization in Washington, D.C. that affirms that only a negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is agreed to by Israelis and Palestinians peacefully working together can the legitimate needs and national aspirations of both peoples be met. J Street endorses more than 200 Members of Congress and has chapters in most major American cities as well as chapters on more than 40 college and university campuses across the country. For more information about J Street policies and advocacy work, go to http://www.Jstreet.org.
Introductory Note: I delivered this sermon on Kol Nidre at Temple Israel of Hollywood where I served as Senior Rabbi from 1988 to 2019. The YouTube above is available to watch or the written text below.
Shanah tovah.
It’s so good to look out from this bimah once again and see so many friendly faces. I’ve missed you.
I thank our Board of Trustees and my clergy colleagues for extending to me the invitation to speak with you on this holiest of nights. I’m honored to have this privilege. The adage that you can’t go home again doesn’t apply to me here. Temple Israel was and remains a home away from home for my family and me. Our sons were educated here, and now our two grandchildren are enrolled in our schools. L’dor va-dor.
Since I became Rabbi Emeritus six-plus years ago so much has happened in each of our lives and our families, in the life of this community, in our country, Israel and the Middle East, and around the world.
And here we are, together again at this annual reunion, as we begin Yom Kippur and Temple Israel’s 100th anniversary year.
Tonight commences our day of fasting, reflection, self-criticism, and renewal, and is an opportunity to count our blessings too, to cherish each other, to remember those who have passed on who have been dear to us, and those who built this community and left it to us as part of their legacy.
Particularly in these soul-crushing and heart-breaking times in which we’re trying to make moral sense in this new era that began on October 7th two years ago, it’s important to remind ourselves who we are and who we’ve been as Jews over our long history.
Judaism includes many things, a moral and legal tradition founded upon the principle of tikun olam (repairing the world), a religion and faith, a culture, history, languages, a Homeland, literature, art and music.
Though twice we were forcibly exiled from the Land of Israel, we’ve kept the Holy City of Jerusalem in our hearts. In exile we’ve suffered persecutions, but we survived as Jews despite all those who sought to destroy us.
Our liturgies, philosophies, theologies, and ideologies evolved as we’ve lived and adapted in lands throughout the world.
We are therefore not a religious and faith community alone. We’re a people and civilization distinguished by our moral values, ideas, and sense of community, lived experience and history no less significant than the Greek, Roman, Ottoman, and British empires, though we’ve never occupied as much territory as any of them.
I was asked to speak tonight about Israel, the war, Zionism, and our relationship as American Jews to the Jewish State, and I confess that after accepting the invitation, I asked myself how I ought to speak about this most horrific inflection moment in modern Jewish history and in the history of Israel.
To start, the 20-point peace plan unveiled on Monday at the White House, has many good things in it, including an end to the war, the immediate return of the hostages, a plan for the day after in Gaza, the surrender of Hamas, a surge of humanitarian aid, no forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, an eventual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a recognition of the Palestinian aspiration of self-determination and a “credible pathway” toward statehood, and the support of the Arab world, not a small thing at all.
The proposal needs Hamas to support it and we’ll know soon enough if it does. Word is that it intends to reject it, but even if Hamas accepts the plan, it’s likely that Prime Minister Netanyahu and Hamas’ leadership will, for their own domestic political reasons, drag their feet and put obstacles in the way, or even derail the initiative altogether.
A significant weakness of the plan is that no Palestinians were involved in developing the agreement and there was no mention of the future of the West Bank. For true peace and a two-state solution ever to emerge, Israelis and the Palestinians must work face-to-face, from the ground up, not top down with one of the parties excluded, as Trump’s plan does.
After the press conference, PM Netanyahu, speaking in Hebrew, rejected Palestinian statehood as he has done throughout his political career.
I fear, therefore, that the status quo before Monday’s announcement hasn’t really changed, though I would love to be wrong.
My initial intent in speaking with you tonight was not to talk policy; rather, to reflect about who we are as Jews, and what impact the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 and these two years of war have had on our identity as liberal American Jews, our Jewish values, and our relationship with the people and State of Israel.
Since October 7th, like so many of you, I have continually felt despondent, outraged, grief-stricken, vengeful, and deeply worried about the families of those murdered on that day, the well-being of our hostages and young soldiers and their families, and about the thousands of innocent Gazans who have lost their loved ones, homes, and communities.
I’ve been a Zionist since my earliest years. My family was among the earliest pioneers to Palestine starting in 1880, and I have many dear Israeli friends. I’ve studied, taught and written about Zionism, the State of Israel, and Jewish history, about Jewish texts, literature and values. But, nothing has pierced my heart and soul like what we have experienced during these past two years. Consequently, no sermon I have ever given has been more difficult and painful for me to write than this one.
The founding of the State of Israel only three years after the greatest tragedy ever to befall our people, transformed who we were to become as Jews in this era. The new state returned us to our ancient Homeland and to history. Israel gave us confidence and agency. It restored our pride as a people. It offered us protection from antisemitic hate and violence. And it became a laboratory in which our people’s ethical tradition could be tested in the context of our attaining power and sovereignty for the first time in two thousand years.
But, what happened on October 7th represented the greatest existential threat in most of our lifetimes to everything we have been as a people in the modern era.
Israeli commanders feared in the initial days after the attack not only that Hamas would continue its savage rampage going north killing Jews with the ultimate goal of destroying the Jewish state, but that Israel’s enemies on all sides would join the war in a coordinated attack. Such a combined assault would have overwhelmed Israel’s defensive capacity.
Even before that awful day, Zionism and the State of Israel had come to be regarded by many in the United States and around the world cynically, with derision and in the most pejorative terms. That downward trend intensified and metastasized almost immediately as Israel began fighting back. Those hostile to Israel have for years sought to re-frame Israel’s narrative as discriminatory, racist, colonialist, and as a cancerous foreign element in the heart of the Islamic Middle East that had no legitimate right to exist.
An increasing number of progressive left-wing Americans, people many of us thought were our friends and social justice allies, agreed openly with the harshest Israel critics, justifying morally what Hamas did and some even celebrating Hamas by calling its brutal and savage terrorists, inexplicably, “freedom fighters.”
Every people has the right of self-definition, and we liberal American Jews and Zionists who support and love the State of Israel have that right as well. Especially now after two years of war, a dramatic rise in antisemitism around the world, and Israel being labeled a pariah nation, we Jews cannot allow Israel haters, antisemites and right-wing extremist Jews to define us or to determine the inner life of the Jewish people. We need to be able to restate our liberal Jewish narrative and lead with it whenever we discuss with those who know much or little about the history of the Jewish people, Judaism, Zionism, and the State of Israel.
I want to express to you tonight as clearly as I can, from the deepest place in my being, in an effort to reclaim our narrative, why I remain a liberal American Jew, a liberal Zionist and a supporter of the people and State of Israel despite my very strong protest against the policies of the most extremist, anti-democratic, right-wing, messianic, and myopic ruling coalition government in the history of the Jewish state.
As a liberal American Jew, I believe in the right of the Jewish people to a state of our own in our historic Homeland and in the right of Israel militarily to defend itself whenever it’s attacked by terrorists and hostile states set on its destruction.
As a liberal American Jew, I affirm that the universal humanitarian values advocated by the ancient prophets of Israel, developed by rabbinic tradition over the past two millennia, and included in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, including equality, justice, compassion, empathy, human rights, and peace – all foundational virtues in Judaism – must be the core values guiding all of the Israeli government’s policies and reforms, its military and civil society.
As an American Jew, I acknowledge that I am not an Israeli citizen. I do not pay Israeli taxes nor do I send my children and grandchildren to the Israeli military. Nor do many of us American Jews know people who were murdered on October 7, though two of the young people killed at the Supernova music festival, Norelle and Roya Manzuri (aleihen b’shalom), grew up here in our own Briskin Elementary School.
Few American Jews have family members who were taken as hostages, and few among us have been subjected to missile attacks forcing us to run quickly with our children and babies in our arms into shelters with only seconds to spare before the explosions and the walls of our home shake.
Only Israeli citizens have the right to take the hard decisions that impact their lives and well-being. However, as an American Jew who loves Israel and who cares deeply about Israel’s citizens and future, I insist that I do have the right to share my ideas and criticism of Israeli government policies and trends that I believe are harmful to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, that threaten our security and well-being as Diaspora Jews, and are contrary to our liberal Jewish and democratic values.
I had little doubt that Israel had to respond militarily in order dramatically to reduce Hamas as a military threat to enable Israelis safely to return to their homes in southern Israel, just as Israel had to defang Hezbollah in Lebanon to allow Israelis to return safely to their homes in the north.
However, I’ve been haunted ever since I read words written soon after the war began by a dear Israeli friend, Nadav Tamir, who wrote:
“After October 7th, I understood the anger and desire for revenge, but I feared Hamas would win the battle for our souls if they succeeded in making us as murderous and vengeful as they are…” (1)
I knew Hamas couldn’t win this war on the battlefield. Thankfully, Israel is too strong and strategic a military power, but like my friend, I worried too that Hamas would succeed in corrupting the heart and soul of the Jewish people.
This war began as a just war of self-defense against a cruel and vicious enemy that committed massive war crimes against our people. Israel’s initial war goals were to bring the hostages home and to degrade Hamas’ ability ever to attack Israel again as it did on that day.
Like many Israelis and American Jews, I too have felt the need for revenge, but I’ve asked myself at what cost to my heart and soul and to the soul of the Jewish people should I or any of us continue to harbor such self-destructive emotions? And at what moral cost to our people have these two years of violence and killing had upon Israelis and the Jewish people around the world?
Earlier this year, 600 retired Israeli security military and intelligence officials wrote to President Trump to urge him to apply pressure on Israel to end the war because they believed that Hamas was no longer a military or strategic threat to Israel and that there was nothing more to be gained in continuing the battle, that the war was harming Israel’s international legitimacy, causing immense suffering for Gazan civilians, and that the war was no longer a “just war.”
But, despite their advice and expertise, the fighting has gone on and on. Though Trump has now tried to end this war, over the past two years, Israeli bombers, missiles and tanks have utterly destroyed Gaza, house after house, apartment building after apartment building. Water, electricity and sewage infrastructure no longer exist. It’s estimated that 90 percent of all homes, 436,000 residences, are either destroyed or damaged beyond repair with tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians dead – men, women, children, babies, the elderly, entire families wiped from the face of the earth. They and so many of our own Israeli soldiers and hostages that have been killed could have been saved had the war ended long ago.
If all of this isn’t awful enough, from March to May of this year, the Israeli government withheld all humanitarian aid from Gaza allegedly to force Hamas to release the hostages and to surrender. But that tactic backfired. We’ve seen the images of starving children. Even if Hamas doctored some of the photographs for its corrupt propaganda purposes, is there really any doubt that thousands of children were starving because Israel used humanitarian aid as a weapon of war? This tactic was not only immoral and un-Jewish, but according to international law, a war crime.
After heavy criticism from the United States, Israel opened the gates and aid began flowing again on hundreds of trucks daily into Gaza, but far more is needed to address the horrific long-term effects of famine.
It is American policy that Israel and all recipients of United States’ weapons must adhere by law to standards concerning humanitarian aid and the use of force. As painful as it is for me to say this because I have always supported American military aid to Israel throughout my life, I support those 27 Democratic Party Senators who in July voted to block the sale of U.S.-made heavy bombs, guidance kits for bombs, and assault rifles to stem Israel’s use of these offensive weapons to harm civilians, block humanitarian aid, and contribute to mass starvation in Gaza. Though the bill didn’t pass in the Senate, the intent of those Senators was to put maximum pressure on President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his extremist government to end this war.
Those 27 Senators are friends of Israel. In their vote to withhold offensive weapons they carefully distinguished between those weapons and the defensive weapon systems of Iron Dome, Arrow, and David’s Sling that save Israeli lives. These Senators should not be accused of being anti-Israel as some in the American Jewish community have done. They are not that. They instead should be praised for acting on behalf of the best interests of Israel and the Palestinian civilians of Gaza and for applying necessary pressure on the Israeli government to do what is just and compassionate.
Many of us are aware also of the organized right-wing extremist settler violence and murder of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, the demolition and burning of their homes, orchards and fields with impunity and often with the participation of uniformed Israeli soldiers. The intent of these violent settlers, with the backing of this extremist Israeli government, is to drive Palestinians out of the West Bank altogether, from their homes and villages in which they have lived for generations, to make way for more Jewish settlements and the eventual annexation of the West Bank into a Greater Israel, also contrary to international law.
Several weeks ago, I was stunned when Prime Minister Netanyahu arrogantly boasted that Israel will become “Super Sparta” – a reference to the ancient hyper-militaristic, self-reliant society that was isolated from the rest of the world. The “Super Sparta” vision prizes armed-force prowess above all else and is not a vision for Israel’s future that most of us would recognize or of what early Zionists hoped for Israel to become as a nation amongst nations. It’s a road-map to deepen Israel’s pariah status around the world and to accelerate Israel’s moral and political decline.
It ought to be clear by now that given the massive destruction and killing that continues day after day that Israel has crossed red lines and committed war crimes. War crimes are committed in every war, and in this war, it’s likely that rogue commanders and rogue soldiers have shot civilians without provocation, and missiles and bombs have destroyed buildings inhabited by Hamas commanders without nearly enough concern for the number of civilians who would certainly be killed. Those commanders and soldiers should be held accountable when the war is over.
We Jews know better. Our own people have been the victims of war crimes throughout our history. Judaism gave the world a system of justice and a moral tradition of compassion based upon the principle that every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the divine image, and therefore is of infinite value and worth.
Israeli soldiers have long been trained in what’s called Tohar HaNeshek, purity of arms, meaning that every means and every effort must be taken at all times by every commander and soldier to preserve innocent human life. (2)
To their great moral credit, hundreds of Israeli reserve soldiers are now refusing to report for military duty because they know that Israel is now fighting a cruel and unjust war. The vast majority of Israelis too, according to polls, are demanding that the war, killing and suffering end, and the remaining hostages be returned home.
This war has shaken Israelis and world Jewry to our core. The wounds of each of our peoples, of Israel and Palestine, are going to be difficult to heal or overcome for generations.
In the United States and around the world, we Jews are dealing also with a rise of antisemitism – much of it exacerbated by this war – that most Jews alive today have never seen, experienced or imagined before.
The Palestinian-Israeli struggle is amongst the oldest unresolved conflicts in the world. The Israeli historian and writer Fania Oz-Salzberger put it exactly right when she wrote a month ago:
“Here’s a truth to reckon with: neither Israelis nor Palestinians are going to disappear any time soon. No one can destroy their respective claims to a sovereign state in their ancestral homeland, which happens to be the same land. Barring a cataclysmic event, there will be no river-to-sea Palestine and no Greater Israel. This is a conflict that can only be solved by territorial and political compromise.” (3)
There are serious ideas, in addition to what we heard on Monday, that have been developed over the last number of years between Palestinians and Israelis working together, from the bottom-up, who recognize and accept each other’s legitimate national aspirations, needs and rights. Despite whatever despondency I have felt, there are two related ideas that I actually find hopeful and visionary.
One is called “Eretz L’kulam – A Land for All: Two States, One Homeland”, a political vision developed by Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinian Arab citizens. The proponents of the idea envision two democratic and sovereign states alongside each other – Israel and Palestine – linked together in a confederation much the way the European Union functions. (4)
The second idea is a “23-State Solution” that includes all the western Arab states and Israel in coalition with each other, complete recognition of Israel for the first time in Israel’s history by most of the Arab and Muslim world, and the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state, perhaps as part of the confederal model. (5)
This isn’t the time or place to discuss the details of these ideas, but it’s important to know that there are creative and pragmatic ideas that can offer hope and a way forward. After the holidays, this sermon will be posted on our synagogue’s website and on my personal blog (6), and I will include links to both of these proposals that spell out the details, if you are interested.
All ideas about how to resolve this conflict are, of course, not risk-free, but the status quo is unsustainable. Violent rejectionist Jewish Israelis and violent rejectionist Palestinian Arabs will have to be controlled harshly by each state’s respective police forces in any future negotiated agreement.
To be Jewish, especially in these times, means, in part, to lift ourselves up out of the morass of confusion and despair, to reclaim our virtue as critical and creative thinkers who raise moral questions and seek practical solutions, and who can argue with one another without withdrawing from the fight or being intimidated by Israeli zealots or their supporters in the United States who slander us as self-hating Jews, antisemites, Kapos, and traitors because we dare to be critical of Israeli policies and actions as a matter of conscience and moral outrage about this war that long ago should have ended.
We Jews have always viewed our purpose through an aspirational lens. We have striven as a people to be better than we are, that we do not ever settle for the status quo, and that we stay committed to correct moral wrongs and move forward as best we can.
Some of our own young liberal and progressive American Jews, however, are decoupling the State of Israel from their Jewish identity, and others are closing the door behind them and disavowing being Jewish altogether. Many are walking away from the American Jewish community because they believe that we rabbis and teachers, Jewish leaders of synagogues, national Jewish organizations and Jewish summer camps, who taught them Judaism’s moral principles emphasizing compassion and empathy, justice, human rights, and peace are, in their minds, hypocrites because we have not been nearly critical enough, or critical at all, of Israel’s bad behavior in this never-ending war.
I want to speak now to you, our young generation of Jews.
I understand how many of you feel and why you feel as you do. But, I believe that this is not the time to turn your backs on our people, on Judaism, on liberal Zionism, or on the State of Israel.
Our Jewish moral and ethical principles transcend any specific point in time or series of events. Judaism is not what we see in war or as a consequence of our having to cope with antisemitism, though both can teach us much about ourselves as Jews.
Judaism is what we rabbis, teachers, synagogues and Jewish summer camps tried to impart to you, our young people, about the vitality in living an enriched Jewish life, about the multitude of ways to be spiritual beings within Jewish community, about the wisdom our sages, mystics, and great thinkers have left for us, about ways to live the rhythms of our holidays and life cycles, and about the meaning of the establishment of the State of Israel as the greatest single accomplishment of the Jewish people in two thousand years.
Though you may wish to turn away, I hope you will decide to stay engaged in whatever way is meaningful to you because we need you, your way of thinking, and your critical moral voice.
Another thing about us Jews – our struggles are nothing new. We are, after all, Yisrael – a people who wrestles with God and with the moral challenges and complexities we face every day as individuals and as a people.
We Jews have always recognized the wide chasm between what is and what ought to be. The best of us, however, have not sat on the side-lines nor given up without entering the fight on behalf of our people and for human rights, justice and peace for all peoples and nations, including the Palestinians.
We live in a violent and corrupt world. It’s understandable that so many of us want to turn away from the news out of the Middle East and throw up our hands and shout “enough already!”
But, once we do that and we’ve had a chance to breathe and restore our moral and emotional equilibrium, it’s better for us to draw close to one another again and reaffirm our Jewish identity, our age-old principles and values, and our faith that eventually there will be a better day for Israelis and the Palestinians.
I keep reminding myself that history swings like a pendulum, from the death of the spirit to renewed life, from division to unity, from war to peace, from despair to hope, and that we Jews have lived this swinging back and forth over and over again throughout our history.
I remind myself that every human-made problem has a human solution if we apply critical and creative thinking, our understanding of the needs and truths of the “other,” and the will to compromise in order to solve the seemingly unsolvable.
As a Jewish community, each of us has the right to think what we want and to feel what we feel – as I have shared with you my thoughts and feelings here tonight – and the Jewish community ought to be a safe space for everyone to find their place and their voice, to argue with one another passionately but respectfully, to disagree without becoming disagreeable, and where even our harshly contrasting ideas and perspectives, our many different life experiences, and our generational distinctions can live alongside each other with humility as we engage in discussion, argument, criticism, and self-criticism.
Our people’s safety valve is that we talk and discuss and argue, and hopefully that we also listen to each other, especially to those with whom we disagree the most.
Our challenge as American Jews in these days is to find ways to come together and to affirm our foundational Jewish values as we struggle to cope in these painful and disturbing times and not to become numb to the barrage of terrible events that are all around us.
And it’s our challenge as well to look to the future with fortitude and hope. Our history of survival as a people teaches us to do so.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote:
“To be a Jew is to be an agent of hope in a world serially threatened by despair …No Jew knowing Jewish history can be an optimist, but no Jew worthy of the name abandons hope.” (7)
This new era in Jewish history begins with a darkly written chapter, but this is not the last chapter. It’s upon us, all of us, to write what comes next.
I wish us all the strength, perseverance, thoughtfulness, and moral courage necessary in this New Year.
I often sign-off my emails to my Israeli friends saying:
“Stay safe and sane. With love – John.”
And I say to you too, my beloved congregation:
Stay safe, sane and strong. And most importantly, hold those whom you cherish very close. We need each other.
With love – John.
G’mar chatimah tovah.
Notes:
Nadav Tamir, “Never Again”, The Times of Israel, August 22, 2025.
This is my third consecutive post in a series of three concerning the meaning and importance of liberal Zionism and the State of Israel.
In this torturous, confusing and challenging era for Jews since October 7, 2023, I believe it’s worthwhile to read or re-read books that can help focus our moral, Jewish and liberal Zionist compasses. To that end, I recommend 4 volumes:
Gil Troy, The Zionist Ideas – Visions for the Jewish Homeland – Then, Now, Tomorrow with a Foreword by Natan Sharansky(New York: JPS Press, 2018)
“The Zionist Ideas is a must-read, a comprehensive Zionist Bible for the twenty-first century. The outstanding scholar and community leader Gil Troy presents an impressive range of thinkers, from yesterday to today, from left to right, illuminated by his extraordinary commentary, all of which affirm the enduring moral character of the Zionist idea: that Zionism, beyond safeguarding the Jewish state, is anchored in a humanistic ideology of universal resonance.” –Irwin Cotler, former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada and human rights activist.
Yossi Klein Halevi, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor – with an Extensive Epilogue of Palestinian Responses(New York: Harper Perennial, 2018)
“The most insightful description of this deep-rooted conflict–from the Israeli perspective–which I have ever read . . . A master linguist, Yossi Klein Halevi has voiced the hopes and feats of many Israelis, as well as many Zionists in the diaspora.” –London Jewish Chronicle.
Ari Shavit,My Promised Land – The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel(New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2013)
“With the heart of a storyteller and the mind of a historian, Ari Shavit has written a powerful and compelling book about the making of modern Israel. No country is more emotionally connected to the United States, and no country’s fate matters more to many Americans. And yet until Shavit’s My Promised Land, it has been growing more difficult to sense the character of Israel through all the caricatures. This book is vital reading for Americans who care about the future, not only of the United States but of the world.” –Jon Meacham, American presidential historian and author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power.
Rabbi John L. Rosove, Why Israel and its Future Matters – Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to the Next Generation(New Jersey: Ben Yehuda Press, 2019; reissued after October 7, 2023)
“Rabbi Rosove shares 11 compelling letters directed at his two sons, but this fascinating work is in fact aimed at an entire generation of perplexed young Jews. He delineates the just case for Israel with precision and delicacy, sans fluff or pandering. This is a book which strives to combat Israel haters and bashers and gives real tools and answers to those liberal Jews who feel somewhat frustrated and confused about Israel. A must-read!” – Isaac Herzog, President of the State of Israel.
All 4 books are available from their publishers or on Amazon.com.
Despite the rightward turn of the Israeli government, we continue to believe in the Zionist enterprise and the viability of the State of Israel, write four leaders of progressive Zionism.
AUGUST 3, 2016
[Introductory notes: Simultaneously with my posting of my blog on August 6, 2025 – “What does it Mean to be a Liberal American Zionist?” – the British-born former Director of Policy Analysis at AIPAC, Michael Lewis, posted the following article on LinkedIn that was originally published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) 9 years ago, almost to the day, that I co-wrote along with my colleagues (see names below). I thank Michael for posting this. I had forgotten about it. Little has changed, however, in my thinking about what it means to be a liberal Zionist except today, because so many “progressive” Jews no longer identify as Zionists, I prefer to be called a “liberal” Zionist. One more thing. Though the vast majority of Israelis today believe, after October 7, that a two-state solution is unlikely ever to happen, there is still no alternative if Israel is to remain both Jewish and democratic. When I think of the current relationships between the United States and Germany and Japan, no one would have thought such alliances would have been possible in 1945. Perhaps, once this horrendous war ends, there might be a new light showing the way along with the will amongst our two peoples to chart a course that will enable Israel and the Palestinian people to live next to each other in security and peace.]
NEW YORK (JTA) — As progressive American Zionists, we take seriously the critique of Israel and Zionism by professors Hasia Diner and Marjorie N. Feld, contained in their Aug. 1 Haaretz article, “We’re American Jewish Historians. This is why we’ve left Zionism behind.”
However, unlike them, we affirm progressive Zionist values. And those values mandate activism in order to ensure that Israel is both a democracy and the national home of the Jewish people.
The difference between us and professors Diner and Feld is that we continue to believe in the Zionist enterprise and the viability of the State of Israel, despite troubling trends: the rightward turn of the Israeli government; the corrupting influence of the nearly 50-year Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people in the West Bank; the growing messianic nationalism of the settler movement; the ultra-Orthodox influence on the Israeli government and its control over Jewish religious life; the second-class status of Palestinian Israeli citizens. We have a duty as Diaspora Zionists to critique Israeli policies whenever we believe that the State of Israel violates Jewish and democratic values as articulated in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
For us, Jewish “nationalism” cannot be the sole objective of Zionism. Rather, Zionism and the Jewish nation is a means towards the perfection of the Jewish people and the world (tikkun olam).
Since its establishment, Israel has meant many things to many people: a haven from persecution, a catalyst for Jewish renewal and a place where the rhythms of civic life are Jewish rhythms. We regard the State of Israel as the Jewish people’s laboratory of Jewish ethical living, one that has seen unparalleled achievements and successes, as well as considerable deficiencies and failures. We regard the founding of the state as a consummate historic opportunity, to test the efficacy of Jewish ethical values, institutions and the diversity of Jewish peoplehood all while holding onto political power as a sovereign state.
Sadly, the professors base their argument on the highly reductionist notion of Judaism as simply a religion, and they even seem to breathe life into the 40-year-old defamatory attempt to label Zionism as racism. They suggest that it was Israeli homogenization that led to the demise of Jewish communities around the world, as if the great holy communities of Warsaw, Vilna and Krakow would somehow be intact today if it weren’t for…Zionism.
They also deeply oversimplify the reality here in the U.S., with its religiously neutral environment. America, and American Jews, have championed the “Goldene Medinah” — the Golden Land — as the great melting pot and exalted land of assimilation and acculturation. But today, Jews throughout the U.S. struggle with the challenge of balancing the benefits of American religious freedom while responding to communal trends in which Jews struggle to find connections, meaning and relevance in being Jewish.
As Zionists, Israel is the center of global Jewish life, and, it is important to recognize, it has managed to create a vibrant and creative Jewish society with a rich and incredibly ethnically diverse Judaism. Yet, Diaspora Jewry is a partner in assuring Israel’s viability as a democracy and a Jewish state, and its security as a sovereign nation. Our role in the Diaspora is different than that of Israeli citizens, but it is no less important. Indeed, our two centers need each other’s wisdom and support.
Professors Diner and Feld seem to have been defeated by their mythic understanding of Zionism and Israel. Though there is merit to their legitimate concerns about the “other” and what Jewish nationalism must do to include non-Jews as equal citizens in the state, it is unfortunate that they are turning away from Zionism altogether. Their relationship with Israel seems to be conditional. We would like to suggest an unconditional relationship to Israel. That means, like family, when we see troubling trends and abhorrent behavior, rather than disavow the entire enterprise, we prefer to roll up our sleeves and get more involved.
They are right that the Palestinians are entitled to empathy, justice and redress. Israel cannot continue to occupy another people and remain true to its democratic and Jewish values. The only way to preserve Israel as a Jewish state and a democracy is for Israel and the Palestinians to enter into negotiations leading to two states for two peoples.
Similarly, Israeli Jews and Diaspora Zionists must actively engage non-Jewish Israelis to address the real tensions within Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state. Making Israel both more democratic and more Jewish is a serious challenge, but it is the essential struggle of Zionism. And as we reject Professors Diner and Feld when they give up on Israel as a Jewish state, we oppose Israelis and other Jews who take actions that threaten Israel’s essential nature as a democracy.
Ultimately, our vision of progressive Zionism — which is embodied in the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the Zionist movement’s Jerusalem Program — is one grounded in hope and action. And we will continue to strive to fulfill this vision to ensure a just, secure and peaceful future for all Israelis, and an Israel that can be a dynamic inspiration to Jews around the world.
(Rabbi Josh Weinberg and Rabbi John Rosove are the President and Chair of ARZA, the Association of Reform Zionists of America. Gideon Aronoff and Ken Bob are the CEO and National President of Ameinu.)
Even before Hamas’ attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, the definition and meaning of “Zionism” had increasingly come to be understood in far-left-progressive circles in the United States and around the world in strongly cynical and pejorative terms. Zionism became even more so understood negatively once Israel began its morally just counterattack against Hamas beginning on October 8th and later against Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran. Those who were in league with the world-wide anti-Israel movement before October 7 and who had sought for years to re-frame the Zionist narrative as discriminatory, racist, colonialist, and a product of European imperialism discovered that they were gaining increasing support among many politically progressive left-wing Americans who claimed the humanitarian mantle against what they believed was Israel’s military over-reaction to what Hamas did to Israelis on that bloodiest day in the history of the State of Israel.
Every people has the right of self-definition, and we Zionists – and especially we liberal American Zionists – have that right as well.
I believe that this is the time for us to take back our liberal American Zionist narrative and lead with it whenever we discuss with those who know much or little about the history of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel. That is what I want to do in this blog post, to express why I am a proud liberal American Zionist despite my deep protest against the policies of this most extremist Israeli right-wing messianic government in the history of Israel.
I am a proud liberal American Zionist and as such I believe in the right of the Jewish people to a state of our own in our historic Homeland and in the right of the Jewish State militarily to defend itself when attacked by terrorists and hostile states.
As a liberal American Zionist I affirm that the universal humanitarian values advocated by the ancient prophets of Israel, developed by rabbinic tradition over the past two millennia, and included in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, namely that justice, equality, human rights, compassion, and peace must be core values guiding every Israeli government’s policies, its military and civil society.
As a liberal American Zionist I am proud of what the Zionist movement and the people and State of Israel have accomplished in virtually every arena of human endeavor including immigration and the absorption of refugees, agriculture, education, the sciences, medicine, bio-technology, cyber, culture, the arts, diplomacy, human rights, civil society, and self-defense.
As a liberal American Zionist I understand that the intent of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran is to destroy the State of Israel and murder as many Jews as possible in their messianic zeal to establish an extremist caliphate over all of historic Palestine “from the river to the sea.” As one example of this murderous intent, Hamas’ leadership said early on in the war that 100,000 Palestinian martyrs were not too many to fulfill its extremist mission to murder Jews and destroy the Jewish state.
As a liberal American Zionist I am proud and grateful that the United States historically has been Israel’s most important and generous ally and that Israel’s security needs have enjoyed bi-partisan American political support.
As a student of Israeli and Middle East history, I know that Israel has tried many times to resolve diplomatically the Israeli-Arab and the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts resulting in two-states for two-peoples as a matter of justice for the Palestinians and enlightened self-interest for Israel, but that extremist and uncompromising Palestinian leadership has walked away every time.
As a liberal American Zionist I acknowledge that I am not an Israeli citizen, that I do not pay Israeli taxes nor do I send my children and grandchildren to the Israeli military to fight in Israel’s wars. Only Israeli citizens have the right to take the decisions that directly impact their lives and well-being. However, as an American Jew and liberal Zionist who loves Israel I believe that I have the right to share my ideas and criticism of Israeli government policies that I believe are harmful not only to Israel’s own best interests as a Jewish and democratic state but to my security and well-being as a Diaspora Jew and my liberal Jewish and democratic values.
As a liberal American Zionist, for months I have felt the anguish, grief and rage of what Hamas did on October 7th. I continue to worry daily about the survival of the remaining hostages and the well-being of their families and the families of the Israeli soldiers killed and injured in this war. I have worried as well since this war began about the suffering of the two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
As a liberal American Zionist I believe that Israel, in fighting this just war has not always fought the war justly. It ought to be clear that Israel has crossed many red-lines despite all the challenges and difficulties in fighting a war against a non-state actor that deliberately hides behind and uses its own people as human shields. Israel’s massive killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and its use of humanitarian aid as a weapon of war are immoral and un-Jewish.
It is American policy that Israel and all recipients of U.S. weapons must adhere by law to standards concerning humanitarian aid and the use of force. As painful as it is for me to say this because I have always supported American military aid to Israel throughout my life, I support those 27 Democratic Party Senators who voted recently to halt the sale of offensive weapons to Israel as a way to put pressure on PM Netanyahu and his extremist government to end this war now, to stop the suffering, the starvation, the killing of civilians, and the deaths of Israeli soldiers and hostages.
These 27 Senators are friends of Israel, every one of them. They have always supported Israel’s true security needs. In their vote to withhold offensive weapons now after all these months of war they carefully distinguished between those weapons and the defensive weapon systems of Iron Dome, Arrow, and David’s Sling, which save Israeli lives. These Senators should not be criticized for their vote or accused of being anti-Israel. They are not that. They instead should be praised for acting on behalf of the best interests of Israel and the Palestinians and for applying necessary pressure on this extremist Israeli government to do what is just and compassionate – to end this war now, to bring home the hostages immediately, to pour massive humanitarian aid into Gaza, and to stop the killing and injury of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians.
The vast majority of Israelis themselves and the vast majority of the American Jewish community agree that the war must end now, the hostages returned home, and humanitarian aid be provided in quantities that can stop the hunger and starvation.
I say all of these things as a committed liberal American Zionist and as a lover of the people and State of Israel.
The ongoing crisis in Gaza is a devastating reminder of the immense human cost of war. Nearly two years into Israel’s war against Hamas, Israelis are still waiting for the return of their loved ones held hostage, and innocent Palestinians are caught in a mounting humanitarian catastrophe. Hamas has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to sacrifice the Palestinian people in its pursuit of Israel’s destruction, but Israel must not sacrifice its own moral standing in return. Neither escalating military pressure nor restricting humanitarian aid has brought Israel closer to securing a hostage deal or ending the war.
While long-delayed and not-yet-certain to be more effective than previous efforts, we are encouraged by Saturday night’s announcement that the Israeli military would revive the practice of dropping aid from airplanes and make it easier for aid convoys, including those from the UN’s World Food Program, to move through Gaza along “designated humanitarian corridors,” and to temporarily cease fighting in Gaza for a humanitarian pause.
No one should be unaffected by the pervasive hunger experienced by thousands of Gazans. No one should spend the bulk of their time arguing technical definitions between starvation and pervasive hunger. The situation is dire, and it is deadly. Nor should we accept arguments that because Hamas is the primary reason many Gazans are either starving or on the verge of starving, that the Jewish State is not also culpable in this human disaster. The primary moral response must begin with anguished hearts in the face of such a large-scale human tragedy.
Our tradition teaches that all people are created b’tzelem Elohim—in the image of God. One consequence of this is the moral priority, which is affirmed throughout the Bible and rabbinic tradition, of feeding the hungry—both for the individual and for the self-governing Jewish community.
More than a few members of the current Israeli government have publicly called for Israel to decimate the Gaza strip. The most recent was Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu who, on Thursday lauded the Israeli government for “racing ahead for Gaza to be wiped out.” He added: “Thank God, we are wiping out this evil.” Of equal concern are far-right Israeli politicians who advocate for Israel to permanently push most Gazans from much of Gaza and replace them with Jewish settlements. We condemn all such statements. They do not represent Jewish values nor those embodied in the Zionist vision that produced Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
Despite PM Netanyahu’s calls to ignore these full members of his cabinet, their presence in this government has consistently morally compromised Israel’s actions.
Starving Gazan civilians neither will bring Israel the “total victory” over Hamas it seeks, nor can it be justified by Jewish values or humanitarian law. It’s hard to imagine that this tragic approach will bring home the 50 remaining hostages, including the 20 whom we pray are still alive.
It’s imperative that the Government of Israel ensures that the recently announced plans to deliver humanitarian aid succeed as Israel works with international partners to ensure its safe and sustained delivery and do whatever possible to reduce or eliminate the shootings and other injuries sustained at food distribution centers. We applaud Israel’s green light for foreign nations to resume providing humanitarian aid to the Gaza population desperate for food and are confident that they will do all they can to ensure that such aid does not fall into the hands of Hamas.
As Israel has effective control of 70% of Gaza, with the intent to remain in significant swaths of it, even if only temporarily, it should be directly involved, facilitate and cooperate with the international community, international humanitarian NGOs, and regional friends, to take urgently needed actions, such as these suggested by Israeli Reform rabbi and Member of Knesset Gilad Kariv:
• To prevent the alarming number of civilian deaths in and around the food and humanitarian aid distribution sites.
• Opening a significant number of food distribution centers at various locations across the Gaza Strip.
• Large-scale entry of infant formula (especially liquid formula) and ensuring safe delivery to both functioning medical centers and the few remaining international aid facilities.
• Establishing secure methods—potentially through cooperation with regional countries—for delivering food supplies to aid organizations and international agencies.
• Resuming sufficient water supply to population centers in Gaza, in accordance with international health standards.
• Authorizing and assisting in the supply of medications, the establishment of field hospitals and clinics operated by remaining Palestinian medical staff, by foreign governments and by international agencies, especially in areas where hospitals have ceased functioning.
Finally, while it is imperative that Israel and the U.S. resume diplomacy to bring home all hostages and end this war, denying basic humanitarian aid crosses a moral line. Blocking food, water, medicine, and power—especially for children—is indefensible. Let us not allow our grief to harden into indifference, nor our love for Israel to blind us to the cries of the vulnerable. Let us rise to the moral challenge of this moment.
Kareem Abdul-Jabaar’s newly published book We all want to change the world – My Journey through Social Justice Movements from the 1960s to Today is a sweeping, thoughtful, self-revelatory, honest, and inspiring review of most of the major social justice movements and human rights challenges in the United States since the 1950s when Kareem was coming of age as a African American athlete in New York City. One of the greatest basketball players in the history of the NBA, Kareem is now among the most prolific writers, probing thinkers and public intellectuals in America.
I read Kareem’s Substack newsletters from start to finish each time he publishes (twice weekly) and I find him always smart, rational, intellectually honest, thorough in his research, moral, and entertaining with his short videos of extraordinary athletic feats, musical selections, and cultural moments. Just as his Substack newsletter is worth reading, so is his newest book.
Kareem covers the impact on American society of the movements for Free Speech, Civil Rights, anti-Vietnam War, Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation, and the cultural, emotional and psychological mindsets that spawned the courageous leadership that furthered human rights and opportunities in the United States for discriminated groups of Americans.
Kareem describes his personal mantra as that inspired by civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer’s adage: “No one is free unless everyone is free,” and what Dr. King said in another way: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
As a young black man growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in New York City, becoming a famous athlete, meeting Dr. King, Mohammad Ali, and other leading black sports, entertainment and human rights figures, and reading constantly from the time he was a teen-ager, the shy, intellectual, self-reflective and compassionate young man felt compelled to think not only about himself and his athletic career and the moral compromises that many fellow black athletes felt they had to make in order to further their careers, but about every individual struggling for dignity beyond the stereotypes and cultural definitions that oppressed them.
Kareem wrote:
“Writing [the chapter on Civil Rights as My Gateway Movement] was especially challenging for me. As I chronicled the history of decade after decade of civil rights abuses and the martyrs who gave up their lives in pursuit of the freedoms already promised by our Constitution, I felt the rising heat of frustration and anger from my younger days. I needed to take frequent breaks to remind myself that frustration and anger by themselves accomplish nothing. Injustice is fueled by indifference, but passion without a plan is just as destructive. For me, the fiery passion of my youth needed to be channeled in order for me to do my part to bring about justice.”
This book is well-researched and well-written, and it lays out the historical facts and events of each of the human rights movements Kareem discusses in detail. He first presents those events historically, then dives into the emotional, social, and psychological challenges the leaders and followers of each movement confronted. For me, about three years younger than Kareem (age 78), I remember so much of what he describes, and I appreciate his insights about the forces that propelled the leadership of each movement to do what they did, as well as the baked-in cultural norms that reflected (and still reflects) the thinking of massive numbers of Americans.
Among other self-revelatory sections of the book, Kareem describes himself as a feminist. He wrote:
“As a Black teenager growing up in New York City, I loved books, movies, television, and music. Looking back on all that I was exposed to, I see now how those popular art forms conspired to produce a pounding thrum of dangerous misogyny, an insistent earworm that ran through my generation as it had so many generations before. With this evolving women’s movement, as more and more voices joined the chorus protesting misogyny, our heads were cleared enough to choose for ourselves. That’s how it was for me.”
In his epilogue, Kareem confessed:
“The biggest challenge I had in writing this book was the frequent breaks I had to take due to the build-up of frustration and anger. Again and again in my research, I saw the same pattern: basic human rights denied, indignities and disrespect piled on, and the refusal of oppressors to acknowledge why they were wrong. The worst was the complicity of so many people who disagreed with the discrimination in principle but who were too complacent to act. They might justify their collusion with ‘What can I do?’ but they already know the answer. They just don’t like it.”
He concludes the book discussing the ongoing need for open and public protest in all the areas he discussed:
“The Founders enshrined the right to protest in our Constitution. They did that because they knew that the forces of self-interest and corruption would always try and to subvert the ideals of democracy they laid out.”
Kareem can be forgiven for the human rights issues he did not include in his book. However, there is one that Kareem does not discuss in this volume – the oldest of all hatreds, antisemitism. I’ve wondered why he didn’t discuss it specifically since it has become a major issue in North America, on college and university campuses, and around the world especially since Hamas’s brutal attack, murder and rape of 1200 Israelis and others on October 7, 2023 in Southern Israel and reactions to Israel and Jews as a consequence of the ensuing war between Hamas and Israel.
On October 9, 2023, two days after the Hamas attack, Kareem wrote in his Substack newsletter of his support of Israel. He condemned Hamas categorically, and elsewhere he described antisemitism as “especially heinous.” Kareem was the 2022 winner of Canada’s “Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center’s first Ally Against Anti-Semitism Award,” so his pro-Jewish and pro-Israel bona fides are undisputed. Given Kareem’s 1.1 million Substack readers and the likely large number of people of color, athletes, and liberal-left readers who will read this book (as well as interested moderates and conservatives), I would have appreciated his discussion of antisemitism, its nature and history going back thousands of years and reemerging today in the United States, especially in this post-October 7th period in which so many on the far left publicly have identified with Hamas against Israel and Zionism and so many on the far right who openly court and identify with neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists, including the sitting President of the United States.
Hamas is among the most brutal, undemocratic, unenlightened, Jew-hating, extremist Muslim terrorist organizations in the world. It is one thing for decent people to want peace and justice for the Palestinian people in some kind of a demilitarized state of their own alongside a secure and democratic Jewish State of Israel, but it is something else entirely to support Hamas and its call for a free “Palestine from the River to the Sea.” That position means the destruction of the State of Israel and the murder of Jews. It is antisemitic Jew-hatred.
There is a strong human rights case to be made about this oldest of hatreds that would have merited Kareem’s inclusion of a discussion of antisemitism in his book. Historically, the evidence is clear that in every country in which Jews have been discriminated against, attacked and accused of corrupting the soul of a people or nation, human rights generally and democracy specifically have been diminished and/or destroyed. To me, antisemitism would have been an obvious chapter to write about. I’m disappointed that Kareem didn’t take the opportunity to address Jew-hatred head-on, especially because I know he understands what antisemitism is and its “heinous” character. It was a missed opportunity to educate those very groups and individuals in which antisemitism has taken root and found a home in recent years on both the far left and the far right.
Fear, anger, outrage, disgust, rage, anxiety, worry – these are among the feelings millions of Americans have been experiencing since Trump took control of the federal government, appointed incompetent sycophants to his Cabinet, began firing hundreds of thousands of federal workers, dismembering whole government departments and agencies, crashing the economy, obliterating the life savings of millions of seniors, threatening America’s social safety net, and wrecking the international global trading system.
And then there’s the endless war in Gaza that PM Netanyahu refuses to end thereby callously forsaking the lives of the remaining hostages, withholding desperately needed humanitarian aid from the most vulnerable Palestinian civilians in Gaza, and allowing more killings in Gaza and the destruction of Palestinian lives and villages in the West Bank.
In his novel The Human Stain, Philip Roth wrote cynically:
“…we leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint. Impurity, cruelty, abuse, error, … – there’s no other way to be here. Nothing to do with disobedience. Nothing to do with grace or salvation or redemption. It’s in everyone. Indwelling. Inherent, Defining. The stain that is there before its mark. Without the sign it is there. The stain so intrinsic it doesn’t require a mark. The stain that precedes disobedience, that impasses disobedience and perplexes all explanation and understanding. It’s why all the cleansing is a job. A barbaric joke at that. The fantasy of purity is appalling. It’s insane. What is the quest to purify, if not more impurity?” (p. 242)
Roth’s dystopic characterization of the human condition is soul-crushing and contrary to fundamental Jewish values promoting goodness, justice, compassion, and human decency.
Years ago at a convention of Reform Rabbis in Jerusalem that met between Purim and Pesach, Yossi Klein Halevi offered this teaching about the truths at the core of each holiday. Purim, he said, reminds Jews that there are indeed evil actors in the world whose hatred of our people threatens us and we cannot be naïve about their worst intentions. Pesach reminds us, he said, that as a people who have long known enslavement and suffering must never forget that it’s our duty to remain compassionate despite the cruelty around us.
Pesach reminds us also that we need each other, our families, friends, and community as we face the multitude of moral challenges before us. When we open the door for Elijah, we’re reminded that not all is lost, that hope abides despite the human stain that leaves its corrosive residue in the heart, and that it’s our moral and Jewish duty to act justly, to love mercy, and to pursue peace.
Our role today, along with the millions of Americans who marched last weekend against the despotic over-reach of this corrupt and heartless American President, is to be, like them, on the right side of history. And it is to be grateful for the thousands of lawyers and law firms, the hundreds of college and university presidents and faculties, and the many decent public servants in Congress, state capitals and local communities across the United States who are resisting tyranny.
As Jews who love Israel, it is our place to act in solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of Israeli demonstrators marching weekly and calling for an immediate end to Israel’s longest war, the return of the hostages, the restoration of humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians in Gaza, and on behalf of Israeli democracy.
When the ancient Israelites escaped Egypt with Pharaoh’s troops in pursuit, they came to the Sea of Reeds, a natural blockade to their liberation. Moses turned to God in prayer and asked for Divine agency. However, Nachshon ben Aminadav took history into his own hands and leaped into the sea, whereupon the Holy One took note of Nachshon’s courage and parted the waters that the people might escape upon dry land.
The Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 54b), many centuries later, reflected on the moral responsibility of our people to take action whenever they confronted injustice, corruption, and hard-heartedness:
“If a person can protest the misdeeds of one’s household, yet does not, that one becomes guilty with them. If a person can protest the deeds of one’s towns-people, and does not, that one is guilty with them. If a person can protest the deeds of the entire world, and does not, that one is guilty with them.”
Rabbi John Rosove's Blog 