Tag Archives: zionism

Thoughts in the Pews

06 Sunday Oct 2024

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This Rosh Hashanah I spent much of my time in synagogue thinking about this past awful year in the life of the Jewish people and the State of Israel – the October 7 Hamas massacre, the hostage-taking, the ensuing war, the destruction in Gaza, the 18,000 missiles launched by Hezbollah against Israel, Iran’s April attack, the extremist Iran-based Houthi attacks, Israel’s military response against all these Islamic extremist terrorist groups seeking the destruction of Israel, and the dramatic rise in anti-Israel, anti-Zionism and antisemitism in America and around the world. I’ve been weighing and evaluating what this traumatic year will mean for our liberal Jewish and Zionist identity and values and what we might commit to doing in the New Year.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that this has been the most horrific, frightening and sad year in the life of the Jewish people since the end of the Holocaust. The most inspiration I have drawn from the events of this year has been the response of Israel’s civil society in support of the hostage families and the young soldiers and reservists who left their homes, families and businesses and did whatever was asked of them in defense of the Jewish people and State. I’ve been inspired as well by the loving and positive response of world Jewry to our Israeli brothers and sisters, and by President Biden’s and America’s support of Israel’s right to defend itself, and also by his and his administration’s concern for Palestinian civilians who have suffered so severely in Gaza as a consequence of this war.

Haviv Rettig Gur, an Israeli commentator on The Times of Israel Daily Podcast, suggested this past week that Rosh Hashanah this year may well be the inflection point for Israel that we’ve been waiting for, when Israel and its enemies take a turn, find a way to end this current conflict, to the return of the hostages, and to determining the next steps that will lead to greater regional stability and peaceful coexistence with the Palestinian people on a path to a two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and to an expansion of the Arab nations in the Abraham Accords.

He noted that Rosh Hashanah is a holiday unique among all the major holy days in the Jewish calendar year. The other major Jewish festivals of Sukkot, Pesach, and Shavuot begin with a new moon. Rosh Hashanah begins in darkness, without a full moon, beneath a firmament of stars the lights of which come to us from a far earlier era in the history of the Milky Way Galaxy. These High Holidays, beginning in darkness and moving towards an expansion of light as the crescent moon reaches its fullness on Sukkot, call upon the Jewish people to begin again, to seek moral and spiritual enlightenment, to emphasize the sacred character of life, to reaffirm our faith in the best of the human condition and in our innate ability to solve our many personal and societal problems, and in the hope that change and goodness can come in this New Year.

To those amongst our people who have thrown up their hands in disgust by the killing and destruction in Gaza and by the corrupt leadership of the most extreme right wing government in the history of the Jewish State, I understand the rage and despair. I have felt it too. But I ask for caution before you step away from the State of Israel and the Jewish people as some are now doing. The founding and development of Israel is arguably the greatest accomplishment of the Jewish people in the past two thousand years. Yet, this year has been a test for many Jews, and some have turned their backs on Israel and Jewish life. This is not the time to turn away. Since the anti-judicial reform movement that took place during the year before October 7 (and still threatens Israeli democracy as long as this current government rules), Israelis have turned to us Diaspora Jews for our moral and emotional support. After October 7, our solidarity with Israelis has meant much to them. They tell us so in ways I’ve never heard before. Israelis are concerned for us too and our well-being as antisemitism has grown in America and in many European capitals. We Jews there and here are one family, and though there are Israeli Jewish extremists with whom I don’t identify in any way, there are hundreds of thousands of Israelis with whom I do identify very strongly, with love for and pride in who they are and who we are as Jews who share common liberal Jewish and Zionist values.

This is the time for us Diaspora Jews to reinvest in ourselves as Jews, as supporters of Israel, and in who we are as a people. It isn’t enough any longer to be merely so-called “cultural Jews” or “culinary Jews.” Many American Jews have turned away because they don’t believe in the God of Jewish history and tradition. But, Jewish faith in God is only a portion of what characterizes the Jewish people in the modern era. If you don’t believe in God or in the religion of the Jewish people, there is still so much more to what constitutes Judaism and Jewish peoplehood that is appealing and self-affirming – our common history, a shared historic Homeland, an ethical tradition, the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages of Yiddish, Ladino and Aramaic, the Jewish arts of painting, sculpture, film, dance, song, and literature, and the long list of Israeli and Jewish accomplishments and inventions that have enhanced Israeli and modern Jewish life and the world as a whole. In all of that, we have a right to feel a deep sense of pride as Jews – but only if we know what our people has accomplished and what liberal Jewish values characterize us.

I encourage everyone to set as one goal in this New Year to read Jewish history, to learn about Zionism and Zionist thought as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and as our people’s social justice movement. Contemporary Jewry, by and large, does not know nearly enough Jewish history or about the content of our classic religious, theological, and philosophical texts from the Hebrew Bible through the writings of our rabbis, sages, philosophers, mystics, Enlightenment, and Zionist thinkers. Encourage the young people in your families, from post-bar and -bat mitzvah age to university age to take courses on Judaism, Zionism, the history of the State of Israel, and Jewish ethics, history, and tradition. A Jew cannot know his/her path in life without knowing from whence they’ve come as a people and why we are who we are and what we value.

This ten-day period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur has the capacity to restore and reinvigorate our sense of our Jewish identity, to realign our Jewish moral compass, to refocus and renew our support for our Israeli brothers and sisters, and to gird ourselves for more uncertainty in the Middle East and in America.

As we come together on Yom Kippur this coming week, I hope for the end of this war, the immediate return of the hostages to their families, the safety of Israel’s soldiers and innocent Palestinians too, for the victory of the IDF against Israel’s enemies, for our strength in standing against antisemites on the left and the right in America, and for peace with security for all peoples at war not only in the Middle East but in Ukraine and everywhere around the world.

Gmar tov u-l’shanah tovah u-m’tukah.

May we be sealed in the Book of Life and be graced with a good and sweet New Year.

Zionism and Liberalism in America – Up Close and Personal

27 Thursday Jun 2024

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The linkage between Zionism and Liberalism in America today is one of the most important themes I write about in my recently published Memoir – From the West to the East – A Memoir of an American Liberal Rabbi (West of West Centers Books, 2024).

In this volume I discuss many important themes that directly confront Jewish and non-Jewish liberal Americans including the challenge of faith for the non-orthodox, my cancer diagnosis and the trauma and confrontation with death that it unleashed in me at the young age of 59 in 2009, the growing intermarriage rate between Jews and non-Jews, my decision in 2012 to officiate at interfaith marriages after 32 years not doing so and the strong unexpected positive reaction of my community when I spoke about it on the High Holidays that year, my engagement with the Soviet Jewry movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the challenge I made to my large Washington, D.C. congregation (Washington Hebrew Congregation) to become a Sanctuary Synagogue for El Salvadoran asylum seekers fleeing the Death Squads, the immediate negative reaction I received from leaders of the Reagan Administration when I spoke about the issue on Rosh Hashanah morning in 1987, my Los Angeles synagogue’s covenant relationship with an African American Church in South Los Angeles before, during and after the Rodney King beating and Los Angles riots, the homophobic stance of the Boy Scouts of America in the early 2000s and my synagogue’s decision that sparked controversy when we decided to end our sponsorship with a long-time Cub Scout troop, my 50-year activist commitment to a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the vicious hostility I have received continually from right-wing extremist pro-Israel activists in my city, the tragedy of the Hamas-Israel war, the antisemitic character of BDS, anti-Zionism and antisemitism, my leadership of the Association of Reform Zionism of America (the Reform movement’s Zionist organization representing 1.5 million American Reform Jews) that brought me to the center of the national institutions of the Jewish people and the world and Israeli Reform Zionist leadership, the J Street Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet centered in our nation’s capital representing more than a thousand rabbis and cantors, and my reflections about American intersectional progressive left-wing activism and conservative-right wing extremism in relationship to the American Jewish community and American liberal Zionism.

I share many dramatic stories about my engagement with all the above as well as my relationship with the most important mentors in my life including my father who died when I was 9 years-old, my Israeli great-grand-uncle, Avraham Shapira, the first Jewish commander and guard of the first agricultural settlement in Petach Tikvah from 1890-1948 who I met as a boy in 1956 when he visited our family in Los Angeles, my childhood Rabbi Leonard Beerman, the pacifist founder of Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles with whom I developed a close relationship in the final years of his life, and my dearest friend, mentor and father figure, Rabbi Martin S. Weiner of Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco whose compassion, wisdom, social justice activism, and commitment to the Jewish people guided me in my first seven years as his Associate Rabbi and who set the standard for me of what a congregational rabbi must be as a leader and a mensch. I credit whatever success I have had to many colleagues, my synagogue leadership, and especially my wife Barbara, who has been my life-partner and dearest friend of more than 40 years, and my sons Daniel (his wife Marina) and David whose love, support and pride in me have sustained me through many challenges I have encountered as a rabbinic and community leader.

In the Epilogue that I wrote after October 7, 2023, I share my outrage against Hamas, my grief at the loss of so many Israeli and innocent Palestinian lives, my desire for revenge against Hamas, and my eventual affirmation of the dire need for a complete ceasefire and end of the war, the immediate return of all hostages, a clear plan forward for Gaza and the West Bank that includes new Israeli and Palestinian leadership, the United States, and western aligned Arab states, the conduct of the war, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

See a few of the many endorsements on the book jacket above, the publishers description of my story and the cameo appearances of some of the 20th and 21st centuries greatest heroes.

I invite you to purchase the book directly from my publisher at https://westofwestcenter.com/product/from-the-west-to-the-east/ and especially share copies with young adult Jews who may be experiencing a crisis of identity as Jewish Americans in these years of challenge.  The book is not yet available on Amazon.

Confronting the Moral and Political Issues Raised by the Israel-Hamas War

23 Sunday Jun 2024

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As the Israel-Hamas War entered its 8th month at the beginning of May 2024, I wrote and posted 5 blogs (titles and links below) to help clarify the political and moral issues raised in this war, arguably the most serious threat to the State of Israel and Jewish people since Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.

I invite you to read again the 5 blogs listed below and share them with those in your family and amongst your friends who may gain a measure of insight and perspective about what Israel and the Jewish people are facing today.

The first item is particularly apt for college-age students who will return to their campuses in the fall and for young liberal American Jews under the age of 35 who have confronted anti-Israel sentiment, anti-Zionism and antisemitism in the workplace and in social media. According to polls, this younger American liberal Jewish demographic is the most alienated from Israel and organized American Jewish life as a consequence of the entrenched power of Israel’s most right-wing, extremist, ultra-Orthodox, and racist governing coalition in its 76-year history, the lack of a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the Israel-Hamas war. The majority of younger American liberal Jews, however, despite the extremist right-wing politics of the Israeli government and the war still remain supporters of Israel and have drawn closer to the Jewish people and state, as polls also indicate.

I wrote the first blog at the top of the list below in preparation for meeting with thoughtful graduating high school students in my synagogue who were confused and torn about Israel’s government, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, West Bank Jewish settler violence against Palestinian shepherds and farmers, the harsh military occupation of the West Bank, the internal tensions between secular and ultra-Orthodox and extremist settler Israelis, and the war. Following hours of discussion, I urged them to carry those talking points with them to their campuses as a means of girding themselves against irrational and hate-filled fellow students who don’t really understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and who naively gravitated to support demonstrators who are anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, or antisemitic. The other four blogs discuss, as the titles indicate, some of the core issues raised by Hamas’ terrorist attack against Israelis on October 7 and the ensuing war.

I pray for the peace of Jerusalem and the safe return of the hostages.

Talking Points for College Students Concerning Palestinian Protests – 31 Friday May 2024  

Despite an increasingly divided Israel at war, the State of Israel is still worth celebrating – 16 Thursday May 2024  

How BDS is Part of the Problem – 09 Thursday May 2024   

“There is No Warrant to Israel ‘Genocide’ Claim” – 01 Wednesday May 2024  

Confronting Antisemitism on College Campuses – 28 Sunday Apr 2024

TIOH Speaks Shabbat w/Rabbi John Rosove, discussing “From the West to the East – A Memoir of a Liberal American Rabbi” Friday, June 21, 7:30 pm

17 Monday Jun 2024

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Click here to join our “Temple Israel of Hollywood Speaks Shabbat” dinner with me (7300 Hollywood Blvd). I will be interviewed following services and during Shabbat dinner by journalist Susan Freudenheim Core, formerly an editor and writer at the LA Times and once the Managing Editor of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. You can purchase the book directly here or acquire copies this coming Shabbat evening.

My publisher wrote this on the cover jacket:

“John Rosove messes with our easy notions of identity. His deeply probing and arresting memoir tosses aside the neat little boxes we put ourselves in. Longtime Hollywood rabbi, he is proof that a thinking person can be many different things at once. American Liberal. Progressive Zionist. Lover of Israel. Dreamer of Palestine. Man of peace.”

The following is advanced praise:

“From the West to the East is a beautifully written and thoughtful guide to the challenges facing American Jewry, shared by one of America’s most influential rabbis. From the demographic changes in the Jewish community and its relationship to Israel, to the existential threats and profound moral dilemmas confronting Israel amidst a tide of rising antisemitism, Rabbi Rosove’s words are sure to inspire — and provoke — as any account of this period should and must.” – Congressman Adam Schiff, author of Midnight in Washington – How We Almost Lost our Democracy and Still Could, Democratic candidate for the Senate from California

“In this moving memoir, Rabbi John Rosove models how a liberal Jew can be a passionate lover of Israel while remaining uncompromisingly faithful to the prophetic tradition… Now, at a critical crossroads for the community, he offers an indispensable guide to help American Jews navigate through a time of crisis.” – Yossi Klein Halevi, author of Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, and senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem

“In his powerful and revealing memoir, Rabbi John Rosove persuasively confronts some of the most challenging moral issues of our time, including Israel-Palestine, civil rights and liberties, immigration, and more. From the West to the East is not just a memoir. It’s a book full of lessons to help us navigate a world that often seems unrecognizable.” – Zev Yaroslavsky, former member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and LA City Councilman, author of Zev’s Los Angeles

“From the West to the East invites us to experience an immersive slideshow—one that is personal, vivid and compelling—the engaging journey of a committed liberal American Zionist leader over the last 50 years. Through reflections and wonderful stories, Rabbi Rosove deftly captures the complexities, beauty and challenges of navigating. This is not a preachy tome; it is lovingly told from his California home. With wisdom gleaned from experience, Rosove’s memoir illuminates how the interplay of activist courage and faith have been builders of American liberal Zionism. It shares what principled determination can yield and hence, a measure of hope to draw upon now, in these most wrenching times.” – Robin M. Kramer, former chief of staff for both Los Angeles Mayors Richard Riordan and Antonio Villaraigosa, and past president of the board of trustees of Temple Israel of Hollywood

“At a time when lots of us are sick with despair, Rabbi John Rosove offers a cure. A life of activism – from his arrest as an anti-war protestor, to lobbying to free Soviet Jews, to fighting for peace between Israelis and Palestinians – Like Abraham Joshua Heschel a generation before him, Rabbi Rosove shows that at the heart, and power, of Judaism are decency, kindness, empathy, and Menschlichkeit. His is the voice, and this is the beautiful book we need in these troubled times.” – Professor Noah Efron, Chair of Graduate Program in Science, Technology & Society at Bar Ilan University, Israel, writer and host of “The Promised Podcast”

“From the West to the East is a beautifully written, intensely personal and deeply profound book. John takes us through the long arc of his consequential and impactful career, and with the benefit of hindsight, brings ideas, emotions and history alive. His love for Judaism, America and Israel shine through on every page. A rabbi’s rabbi, this memoir is a must read for rabbis and all who are interested in the contemporary Jewish experience.” – Rabbi Ammi Hirsch, Senior Rabbi, Stephen S. Wise Free Synagogue, Manhattan, NY, host of “In These Times Podcast”

“John Rosove’s fine sense of humor, his excellent storytelling skills, his willingness to address the most confounding disputes head on make this memoir an affecting and engaging read. Rosove has had a lifelong love affair with Israel, at once clear-eyed and affectionate, avoiding the Pollyannaish sentimentality and extreme judgmentalism that so often obfuscate our Israel discourse. His memoir is an act of witness and testimony, an insider’s up-to-the-minute account of the dilemmas that have tried the souls of liberal American Jewry as Israel’s government has grown increasingly illiberal. This book is a call to arms for the vision of Reform Judaism and of Zionism and it is a delight to read.” – Don Futterman – author of Adam Unrehearsed, co-host of The Promised Podcast, Israel Director of The Moriah Fund

“Rabbi John Rosove’s Memoir is a ‘Guide for the Perplexed’ in our era. John embodies the deep connection between Zionism and liberalism and he refuses to compromise his moral standards at a time when discerning truth is becoming ever more difficult.” – Rabbi Galit Cohen-Kedem, Founding rabbi of Kehilat Kodesh v’Chol in Holon, Israel

“Rabbi Rosove vividly portrays his life as a man with two functioning hearts in a poignant reflection of his deep connection to both the land of the free and the home of the brave, as well as to Jerusalem. Both hearts pulsate with a powerful Jewish conscience that sees, hears, motivates for action and inspires reflection and understanding. This book recounts the personal odyssey of a unique rabbi unafraid to wrestle with man and God in his quest for Tikun Olam.” – Anat Hoffman, Founder and Chair of Women of the Wall, former Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center

“I describe Rabbi John Rosove this way: Piv v’libo shavim (His mouth speaks what his heart feels), which is the sense one gets when reading From the West to the East. I was swept along on his life journey and experiences, sharing in his dilemmas with all its complexities—all lovingly expressed through his tears of joy and sorrow.” – Yaron Shavit, Deputy Chairman of the Executive of The Jewish Agency for Israel, President of the 38th Zionist Congress

“Rabbi John Rosove’s Memoir From the West to the East should be required reading for all who love Israel and being Jewish, and who struggle to find a balance between the universal and the particular, and applying liberal values to our Zionism in order to make a better world. In clear and accessible writing, Rosove shares profoundly relevant stories and lessons gleaned from a lifetime of service. I am grateful to John for being the rabbi, teacher and leader that he is, and for sharing his wisdom and life’s lessons in these pages.” –Rabbi Josh Weinberg, Vice President of the Union of Reform Judaism for Israel and Reform Zionism and Executive Director of ARZA, the Association of Reform Zionism of America 

Talking Points for College Students Concerning Palestinian Protests

31 Friday May 2024

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I was invited this May to speak with my synagogue’s graduating high school seniors about how best they might respond to anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrators on college campuses when they appear on their college campuses for the first time beginning in August when classes commence.

I emphasized a few points up-front, that the October 7 Hamas massacre and hostage taking is the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust and that the death and destruction in Gaza of thousands of Palestinian civilians is a humanitarian nightmare. I said as well that Hamas must be held to account for bringing this war upon Israel and the Palestinian people and for deliberately using Palestinians as human shields resulting in the death and injury of tens of thousands of innocent human beings. Though Israel in this war of self-defense bears responsibility for harm done to Palestinian civilians too, Hamas is by far the most responsible party in this disastrous war.

We talked about many things together in our two-sessions and three hours of conversation including the harm Israel’s continuing Occupation of the West Bank and of East Jerusalem has had on the Palestinians and upon the soul of the Jewish people and Jewish State. I noted that most protesting students against Israel, however, despite their legitimate humanitarian concerns for innocent Palestinian civilians, do not understand the history and politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and more generally the century-long Israeli-Arab conflict, have little knowledge of the nature and character of Hamas as an absolutist terrorist Islamic organization intent on the destruction of the State of Israel and the murder of all Jews. Most students do not understand Israeli democracy and politics, the nature of the current extremist Israeli government as opposed to the more moderate attitudes of the Israeli population as a whole, nor do they understand how  the American intersectional movement’s presumptions about victimization have little application to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I urged the students, when they get to their college or university, to do two things: First, find a Jewish community on campus in which they can feel safe and supported in their pro-Israel liberal values and concerns; and second, to take courses on Middle East politics and history with professors who are fair, balanced, moral, critical thinkers, and who present the varying positions and perspectives of Zionism, Israel and Palestine without prejudice.

I presented the following talking points to the students and we discussed each one in depth. The subject of each bullet point is in response to a faulty accusation against Zionism, Israel and the Jewish people. Just as the medieval rabbinic sage Rashi (11th century France) wrote commentaries on the Tanakh and Talmud in response to a koshi (difficulty) in the text, so too are the following responses to difficulties in the debate concerning Israel and the Palestinian people.

  • As a liberal Jew, liberal Zionist, and supporter of the State of Israel, one can be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian, meaning that one can support two states for two peoples even as both peoples claim the same land as its national home. A 2-state solution will require compromise by Israel and the Palestinians that includes establishing clear borders, sharing Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel and the capital city of Palestine, security guarantees for both states, a demilitarized State of Palestine, shared water, economic and cultural relations. Hamas is not capable of compromise and neither are the extreme right-wing messianists in the Israeli ruling government coalition and settler community in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and so they should not be at the table when negotiations take place. True peace will require that Israelis and Palestinians not demonize the other as illegitimate in their respective educational systems. Two states for two peoples is necessary as a matter of justice for the Palestinian people who deserve, like the Jewish people, to have a nation-state of their own, and for Israel’s self-interest to remain democratic and Jewish.
  • In 1900, there were 80,000 Jews living in the Land and 600,000 Arabs. By 1939, there were 450,000 Jews and 1.05 million Arabs living in Palestine. Jews had flocked to Palestine as European antisemitism intensified. Many thousands of Arabs came from surrounding Arab lands seeking work that became available because of Zionist building projects. Those Arabs who emigrated are called “Palestinian” if they only lived in Palestine for at least 2 years (according to the PLO’s designation). Many have no historic connection to Palestine beyond the past 80 or 90 years.Jews have lived in the Land of Israel continuously since antiquity and the Land was never devoid of Jews since the time of the Biblical Judges (circa 1200 B.C.E.).
  • Zionism is defined generally as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and is, at its heart, the Jewish people’s social justice movement (see below). Zionism began in the late 19th century as part of a European movement in many countries to establish nation states. Zionism was a response to the “problem of the Jews” (i.e. antisemitism) and the “problem of Judaism” (i.e. that Jewish and Hebraic culture would save the Jewish people from disaffection and assimilation). The Zionist movement is highly diverse today from secular to ultra-Orthodox. Zionism presumes that Judaism is far more than a religion; that it is a civilization inclusive of a long history, a Homeland, languages (Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Aramaic), law (Torah, Talmud, Codes, Responsa literature, etc.), ethics, a sacred literature, faith, theologies, rites, rituals, holidays, customs, culture, and the arts.
  • The State of Israel is the modern political expression of Jewish nationalism and is NOT a colonial power, nor is it a foreign element in the Middle East, nor an oppressive racist state inside the Green Line (the armistice line after the 1948 War). The majority of Israelis come from the Arab world, North Africa, Ethiopia, Latin America, Asia, and are people of color. Therefore, it is not a “racist” nation, though there are plenty of racists in Israel. Israel is also not an Apartheid State as was South Africa because every Israeli Arab citizen has equal rights with every Jewish Israeli citizen. Palestinian Israelis, however, living inside the Green Line are treated as 2nd class citizens with respect to services given by the state and, in many cases, there is discrimination. However, unlike Apartheid, in Israel there are no separation laws. Arab Israelis are lawyers, physicians and health care workers, business people, and Members of the Israeli Knesset. There is also an Arab-Israeli citizen on Israel’s High Court. Those Arabs living in the West Bank and in Jerusalem, however, are not Israeli citizens and live under an often harsh military administration. Those Palestinians do not enjoy the same rights as Israeli Jews and Arabs.
  • Judaism is both a universal and a particular tradition, and Zionism serves not only the rights and security of the Jewish people but is the social justice movement for the Jewish people. The ancient Biblical Prophets of Israel, though expressing universal humanitarian values, were speaking specifically to the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. Tikun Olam (translated as “the repair of the world,” originally a mystic concept, is understood today as “social justice”) has universal humanitarian application, but it was never divorced from the peoplehood of Israel (Am Yisrael). The Jewish State has become an arena in which, for the first time in 2000 years, the Jewish people has been able to test our tradition’s ethics and moral principles in the context of our attaining sovereignty and power. Those Jews who focus only on Judaism’s ethical tradition, however, while ripping it from the peoplehood of Israel have done a gross disservice to the nature of Judaism itself.
  • In 1948, 600,000 Jews were expelled and/or fled from antisemitism in Arab Lands after rioting against them was provoked upon the establishment of the State of Israel. The same numbers of Palestinian Arabs fled or were driven from Palestine-Israel after the 1948 and 1967 wars. The former settled in the new State of Israel and the latter settled into refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and the Gaza Strip. However, thousands of Palestinians remained in their villages and cities inside the new State of Israel and were not forced to flee. Both groups of Jews and Palestinian Arabs also left the region and settled abroad. Whereas Palestinian leadership is demanding on behalf of Palestinian refugees the rightful return to their homes and villages that they vacated in the midst of an aggressive  war prosecuted against Israel by the surrounding Arab states (the purpose of which was to destroy the Jewish state of Israel), Jewish refugees from Arab lands have never made a comparable demand upon those Arab nations from which they fled nor do they wish to return to their homes in those Arab nations.
  • The expression “From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free!” (Referring to the Jordan River on the east to the Mediterranean Sea on the west) is essentially an anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and antisemitic declaration because it denies to the Jewish people what every other people in the world are entitled to claim for themselves – the right of self-definition, self-determination and a nation state of their own in their ancestral Homeland.
  • Some Jews are anti-Zionists but are not necessarily self-hating Jews or antisemites. These include extreme orthodox Jews who believe that a Jewish state can only come with the coming of the Messiah, and anti-nationalists, such as those affiliated with The Jewish Voice for Peace. We may not understand them or agree with their perspective, but their positions do not necessarily mean that they are self-hating Jews or antisemitic, though many harbor positions and attitudes that may indeed bleed into antisemitism.
  • Hamas is an extremist, intolerant, anti-liberal, misogynist, anti-LGBTQ, Islamic, autocratic, and theocratic Palestinian terror organization that, before October 7, fired tens of thousands of missiles into undisputed Israeli territory indiscriminately from Gaza since it took over the Strip in 2007 in a violent coup de etat against the Palestinian Authority (PA). Hamas’ first order of business in 2007 was to march leaders of the competitive PA to the highest buildings and throw them to their deaths. They execute Palestinians frequently who speak against the Hamas regime, deny the rights of LGBTQ individuals, and according to their extremist interpretation of Sharia law, punish girls and women with beatings if they express individuality and resist the patriarchal order. They subject girls to clitoral mutilation and women are required to wear the Burqa or Nijab or Hijab as a sign of submission to male dominance and power. Before October 7, Hamas had the approval of less than 30 percent of Palestinian Gazans. No election has been held since 2005. Hamas must be distinguished from the Palestinians as a whole. Many protestors of this war do not distinguish between Hamas and the Palestinian people thereby indicating their lack of understanding of the Palestinians and the historic nature and character of the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Hamas conflicts.
  • The Biden Administration has been the most supportive American presidential administration of any in Israel’s history. President Biden has a life-long deep affinity for the people and State of Israel and has a vision of a united regional pro-western coalition that includes Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Emirates, and a reconstituted Palestinian Authority against the Islamic extremist Iran and its Muslim proxies (e.g. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, among others). Biden has called for a pathway to a 2-state solution, and Saudi Arabia has agreed to make peace with Israel if Israel accepts an eventual 2-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To those who criticize Biden as not being pro-Israel enough or as anti-Arab fail to understand the nuances of this conflict, the nature of Hamas and Islamic extremism, and the international stakes for America and western civilization.
  • The current Israeli government is the most extreme, right-wing, supranational, supremacist, and racist government in Israeli history. It is against a 2-state solution and believes that Palestinian-Israeli citizens should not enjoy equal rights with Israeli Jewish citizens. There is still a strong minority of Israeli opinion, however, that recognizes that only in a 2-state solution can Israeli democracy and the Jewish character of the only Jewish state in the world be sustained over the long term. To be pro-Israel and anti-Israeli government is therefore legitimate, especially in a democracy.
  • Diaspora Jews have the right to share our opinions with Israeli leaders based on the premise that we are one people and one greater Jewish family living in the Jewish State and Jewish Diaspora with strong links of affection and identity. Though Diaspora Jews are not citizens of the State of Israel, do not pay taxes, and do not send their children to the Israeli army, what Israel does affects Diaspora Jewish pride and security nevertheless, and we therefore have a right to share our ideas with Israel’s leaders. That is different than our demanding that Israel follow policies we believe it should follow. For the first time during the pre-October 7 protest demonstrations against the anti-democratic judicial overhaul by the current Israeli government, opposition leaders called upon Diaspora Jews to support them and be part of the conversation concerning what Israel’s democracy required.
  • There is a strong minority of extremist and violent West Bank Jewish settlers whose goal is to force Palestinians to leave the West Bank so that Jews can expand the borders of the Jewish State to include all the land between the river and the sea as part of the State of Israel de jure. These extremists are a destabilizing force within Israel.

In the past few weeks, I posted several blogs that help to clarify the difficult issues facing Israel and world Jewry since October 7. See www.rabbijohnrosove.blog. I discuss there anti-Zionism, anti-Israel sentiment, and antisemitism on college campuses, the charge of genocide against Israel, and why Israel is worthy of our love and support in light of this war and all that Israel has contributed to the Jewish people and humanity as a whole.

Despite an increasingly divided Israel at war, the State of Israel is still worth celebrating

16 Thursday May 2024

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Introductory Note: I spoke earlier this week on Israeli Independence Day in Washington, D.C. to members of the Adas Israel Congregation. I was invited by the synagogue’s rabbis, on the occasion of the publication of my Memoirs, to reflect about how Israel and Zionism have changed since my childhood and where I believe we liberal Zionists and lovers of Israel are today, especially since October 7. I will announce here in the coming days when my Memoirs become available through Amazon and/or the publisher.

The following is what I said to the Adas Israel Congregation, a large Conservative Synagogue in the nation’s capital:

Today is the 221st day of the war against Hamas. Many Israelis are saying יש יום העצמאות אבל כולנו עוד בסוכות – “This is Israel Independence day, but we’re all still in Sukkot.” It will remain so until, I suspect, the surviving hostages in Gaza are all home – May that day come as soon as possible.

So much has changed since October 7 in the Jewish world as our people are pondering the meaning of this painful inflection point in Israeli history. I think that at the very least, what’s required of us all is to revisit what it means for us to be part of the larger Jewish family that encompasses both Israelis and Diaspora Jews.

Despite the many questions we likely carry in the midst of this longest war in Israeli history, I believe that celebrating this day of Yom Haatzmaut is still a necessity for our people, for the story of the Jewish people and the founding of the State of Israel are unique in world history. I say this despite the fact that Israel is increasingly divided between what Haaretz’s columnist Alon Pinkus describes as a

“…high-tech, secular, outward-looking, imperfect but liberal state – and the Kingdom of Judea, a Jewish-supremacist, ultra-nationalist theocracy with messianic, antidemocratic tendencies that encourage isolation. Never in the proud 76 years of Israel’s sovereign existence has there been a sadder, more somber, depressing and acrimonious Independence Day than this year. On a day that usually highlights and extols Israel’s major achievements, the country will instead be solemnly introspective, despondent, angry and devastated by the catastrophe of October 7, 2023.”

So much has changed about Israel since I was young growing up in the 1950s. I was raised to understand Zionism and Israel in romantic idealistic terms and that our people, long-persecuted, had transformed the narrative of Jewish Diaspora identity from that of being a powerless and victimized religious community into a free, independent, strong and empowered people by virtue of returning to our national home and establishing for the first time in 2000 years a Jewish and democratic state.

I spent my first year of rabbinic studies in Jerusalem beginning in the summer of 1973, only a few months before the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War. In the months following that transformative event, the atmosphere in Israel dramatically changed, not unlike what has occurred this past year since October 7. A dark pall of gloom and grief settled over the country. Gone were the ebullient years following the ‘67 war. Gone was a sense of can-do optimism. Gone was the feeling that the ’67 lightning Israeli victory against Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan would deter future Arab attempts to destroy the Jewish state. The ‘73 war shook the nation and transformed Israelis’ self-image from that of David battling Goliath to a far more vulnerable country. Israelis were reminded that antisemites still wished the Jewish people harm. Nothing had so shaken Israel since 1948 as the Yom Kippur War, until October 7.

In my lifetime, Israelis and the Jewish world have not been as stunned, convulsed with fear, grief and outrage as by the Hamas attack that reminded us of our Jewish vulnerability and of Israel being situated in a dangerous neighborhood.

For decades leading up to October 7, in addition to the internal changes described so accurately by Alon Pinkus, I believe that both Israelis and Zionists abroad didn’t take seriously enough that the international ground was being prepared by Israel’s enemies over many decades to transform our Zionist narrative as one of longing to be new kinds of Jews – strong, independent and resilient in our ancient Homeland – into the image of a foreign colonial transplant thrust into the heart of the Arab Muslim world, an usurper of Palestinian land and homes, an oppressor over the oppressed, an occupier and victimizer of the indigenous Palestinian people.

Accentuating this change internationally of the image of Israel as a racist oppressor state is the rise of the intersectional movement in America. Intersectionalism is defined as “the complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, and intersect in the experiences of marginalized people and groups” thereby forming alliances by oppressed groups against oppressors. Intersectionalism eventually conflated the blacks under Apartheid in South Africa with Palestinian Arabs living under Israeli occupation. Israel is now hated as the despised “other” by too many vulnerable far-left black and brown progressives who actually have nothing personally to do with the Middle East, who have little knowledge of the history of and nature of the Zionist movement or the State of Israel and its multiple contributions to the world, its democratic and pluralistic character. Those anti-Israel far-left people of color do not know, I suspect, that the majority of Israel’s population are non-white former immigrants from the Arab world, North Africa, Ethiopia, Latin America, and Asia. Nor do they understand the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the multiple times Israel was prepared to exchange land for peace in a two states for two peoples resolution of that long conflict.

Since October 7, I’ve worried about a great many things, the most prominent being the security of the State of Israel, the well-being of the Israeli hostages and their families, and the shattered families of those murdered on that day, two of whom, young sisters ages 25 and 20, who grew up in my synagogue’s elementary school and lost their lives at the Nova concert.

I worry also about the lives of every Israeli soldier in Gaza today, the more than 750 families of soldiers who lost their lives fighting in this war, and the masses of innocent civilian Palestinian families who’ve lost their loved ones and homes and are in dire need of more adequate humanitarian assistance.

I’ve worried whether Israel would step over the line and fight this war according to international standards of war. I’ve wondered, for example, about the justification of Israel’s use of massive numbers of 2000-pound “dumb-bombs” intended to take out Hamas commanders and destroy Hamas tunnels, military command posts and arms stockpiles, but have killed thousands of innocent Palestinians. And I’ve worried about Israel’s use of artificial intelligence to bomb Hamas sites without due consideration for the number of civilian casualties that each strike would cause.

I know, even with these worries, that when Israel began attacking Hamas targets it dropped hundreds of thousands of leaflets over Palestinian neighborhoods, sent hundreds of thousands of text messages and hundreds of thousands of robocalls to warn Palestinian civilians to leave certain buildings and areas before Israel attacked them as Hamas targets. I know that Israel opened up safe passage highways for Palestinian civilians to escape before Israel bombed its targets. I am well aware that Hamas embedded everywhere in and under Gaza’s homes, apartment buildings, schools, community centers, mosques, and hospitals and that it blocked the escape of so many Palestinian civilians, callously and cruelly fired upon its own fleeing people with the aim of deliberately increasing the death toll in its international delegitimization effort against Israel.

It’s remarkable to me that so much of the world so quickly has forgotten what started this war, Hamas’ murder of 1200 Israelis and the taking of 250 hostages, the gang rape of dozens upon dozens of young Israeli women and the wanton killing of seniors, babies and children.

It’s been my position since about the 100th day of the war that Israel should have done everything possible to get the full return of the hostages even if it meant ending the war. A majority of Israelis now put the lives of the remaining hostages as Israel’s first priority, even over destroying Hamas’ remaining military capability. Israel could have claimed victory then with the understanding that Hamas’ ability to govern and rule over Gaza was already dramatically diminished. Had Israel planned for the “day after” the fighting, worked with the United States to create a coalition of western-aligned Arab nations including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, the Emirates, and the Palestinian Authority to take charge of Gaza then (and now) and begin to rebuild it, the disaster caused in this war might have been more limited. I know, however, that Hamas is uncompromising and brutal towards its own people, and that it has wanted to continue the war to increase the numbers of Palestinian dead civilians in its delegitimization effort against Israel. But, a coalition of nations might have had a positive effect then. The world might well have been more sympathetic to Israel in its effort to help create a new Gaza without Hamas than it does now. The formation of a coalition governing power would not have left Gaza so vulnerable to Hamas resurrecting itself in Northern Gaza, as it so clearly now is doing.

There are those in Israel who justify continuing this war saying that “the only time we’ll have security is when we keep the sword on our enemy’s neck,” enter Rafiach and finish off Hamas once and for all, though most Israeli and American military and intelligence experts believe that Hamas cannot be completely destroyed. But other voices warn that “when we act like every other people, we become like them.”

Yesterday was Yom HaZikaron (May 13), the day Israel mourns the 25,000 fallen soldiers and victims of terror who have died since 1860. Today, on Yom Haatzmaut (May 14), we celebrate our people’s sovereignty and independence. Despite this traumatic year of war; despite the rule of the most right-wing extremist and racist government in the history of the state; despite the growing gap within Israeli society; despite the dramatic rise in antisemitism, anti-Zionism and anti-Israel sentiment around America and the world, Israel’s 76th anniversary is still an occasion to celebrate the Jewish state as the greatest accomplishment of the Jewish people in the last 2000 years.

It’s a remarkable accomplishment that the Zionist movement facilitated the immigration of millions of Jewish refugees and that the State of Israel absorbed them as citizens.

It’s remarkable that ancient Hebrew has been resurrected into a modern language that flows naturally through the lips of little children and is the language of celebrated poets, songwriters and literary figures.

It’s remarkable that Israel remains a democracy (inside the Green Line – the 1949 disengagement lines) despite multiple wars and ongoing terrorism.

It’s remarkable that Israel has become a world class leader in agriculture, biotech, medicine, communication, cyber, climate, water desalinization, higher education, archaeology, and the arts, and is second only to the United States in the number of new patents every year.

It’s remarkable that there are 15,000 active NGOs in Israel, most not politically aligned, that promote universal moral values, human rights, democracy, religious pluralism, the environment, and a shared society between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arab citizens. Though racism and hostility between Arab and Jew exists, and far too often violence breaks out with deadly results (especially in the West Bank), if we visit any Israeli hospital in the country, we’ll see Arabs and Jews receiving compassionate care and treatment together on the same wards delivered by both Arab and Jewish physicians and nurses.

Thirty years ago there was a taboo against homosexuality in the Jewish state. Now, 250,000 people march in Tel Aviv’s annual Gay Pride Parade and there are estimated to be 750,000 LGBTQ individuals in Israel, many coming from the orthodox and Arab-Israeli sectors, though both communities shun homosexuality. The modern State of Israel accepts and welcomes them.

Israel faces many existential challenges from within that impact Israelis negatively and us Diaspora Jews too whose identity, pride and security as Jews and Zionists depend upon the vitality of Israeli democracy and its aspirations for peace with the Palestinian people and Israel’s surrounding neighbors.

I hope that when the dust of this war settles, the hostages are home, new leadership takes over Israel and the Palestinian Authority, a new Gaza begins to emerge from the rubble of war, and the antisemitism and anti-Zionism subside, that our young liberal and progressive Jews in particular, and many of us older American Jews as well who may feel alienated from Israel because of this war and on account of the divisions within Israeli society will be able to lift our collective eyes from the barrage of dark news, tragedy and conflict and be able to see that Isaiah’s vision for the Jewish people to be an אור לגוים – a light to the nations – still is manifesting itself in Israel.

May those days come soon and may there be peace in Jerusalem. Amen!

Confronting Antisemitism on College Campuses

28 Sunday Apr 2024

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The American Jewish community has rightly responded with alarm at the dramatic rise in antisemitic incidents in America in recent years, especially since October 7, 2023 when Hamas terrorists viciously attacked Israeli civilians in southern Israel. We are also feeling stung by the dramatic surge of anti-Israeli protest demonstrations on college campuses. University presidents are struggling to address this sudden increase of protesters while striving to preserve free speech and condemning antisemitic intimidation and rhetoric that can lead to violence against Jewish students and supporters of Israel. Many colleges and universities, struck by the speed and intensity with which the demonstrations have arisen and grown, have canceled classes for the remainder of the semester and graduation ceremonies altogether. The metastasizing effect of antisemitism is stunning, though not surprising at a time in which ignorance of Israeli and Middle East history, Judaism and Zionism, compounded by the media’s repetitive focus on the tragedy that has unfolded in Gaza and engulfed the 2-million mostly innocent Palestinian civilians, and in light of the widening cultural and political polarization and upheaval that has taken hold in American culture that began with the presidency of Donald Trump.

What do we do about all of this? First, it’s important for everyone, and especially young college and university demonstrators, to consider what antisemitism really is, what it isn’t, and what constitutes legitimate criticism against the policies of the State of Israel.

A short blog does not provide nearly enough space to discuss the age-old phenomenon of antisemitic hate. That said there are a number of modern and classic iterations of antisemitism that are being promulgated by the hard political left and the conservative right in the United States. They include Holocaust denial, offensive stereotypes of Jews as Christ-killers, puppet masters, imposters, and swindlers who manipulate national events for malign purposes. Antisemitism casts Jews as foreigners, controllers of banking, the media, entertainment, politics, and government. It denies the Jewish people’s right to national self-determination and a nation state anywhere in the Biblical Land of Israel based on the false premise that there never was a Jewish presence there despite massive literary and archaeological evidence to the contrary. Antisemitism applies double standards to Jews and the Jewish state not applied to any other people or nation, uses the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism to characterize Israel, Israelis and Jews, draws comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, and holds Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel. At its core, antisemitism is self-righteously based in the irrational and in fear and ignorance of Israelis, Jews and Judaism. It is anti-liberal, intolerant, racist, and immoral.

Not all anti-Zionism, however, is antisemitism for there are many anti-Zionists who are proudly self-identifying Jews. To characterize Zionism quickly is also beyond the purview of a blog. But I can say at least the following; that the Zionist movement began in the late 19th century as a political movement to address European antisemitism and to bring oppressed and persecuted Jews to the ancient Homeland of the Jewish people and build the institutions of a future state of the Jewish people. It was also a cultural movement to renew the Hebraic spirit amongst the masses of Jews around the world and in Palestine based upon the teachings of the ancient Prophets of Israel who called for a society based upon justice, compassion and peace. There are many streams of Zionism today that have developed over the years from left-wing to right-wing, political to orthodox to Reform, to secular.

Legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies and freedom of thought, press and assembly are not only intrinsic to Israeli culture but to Diaspora Jewish culture too. Criticism of Israeli policies is therefore not necessarily antisemitic, though some of it is if such criticism is based on the denial of the inherent right of the Jewish people to a state of their own. To be able to judge whether anti-Zionism is also antisemitic, it is necessary to study and understand Jewish, European and Middle East history, how and why the Zionist movement emerged and grew, and the history of the State of Israel and its relationship with its Arab neighbors and the Palestinian people.

For Jewish students and supporters of Israel to fear walking on any college or university campus anywhere in America ought to alarm not just the Jewish community, but people across religious, cultural, racial, ethnic, and gender lines. That there are students at Columbia University and other campuses who chant their approval of Hamas ought to terrify anyone who values freedom and a liberal progressive society. When Hamas took control of Gaza in a violent military coup in 2007, its first action was to march leaders of the rival Palestinian Authority to the highest building in Gaza and throw them to their deaths. LGBTQ individuals are punished severely by Hamas as are women who stand up for their rights. Hamas, an extremist Islamic terror organization that is uncompromising and repressive, does not value human rights nor the lives of its own citizens who Hamas has used consistently as human shields in its many wars against Israel. How American students who profess to be humanitarians and progressives can chant their support of Hamas and the destruction of the democratic liberal state of Israel is confounding.

I have written in former blogs about this Israel-Hamas war, that it is not a war against the Palestinian people but rather an existential struggle against Islamic extremism that seeks the destruction of Israel on any land between the river and the sea and the murder of all Israelis and Jews. I have written as well consistently for the return of the Israeli hostages as a first order of business for Israel and for a massive infusion of humanitarian aid into Gaza for Palestinian civilians. I have supported the hope that when the fighting is over that Gaza ought to be governed by a moderate alliance of Arab states led by a reconstituted Palestinian Authority without Hamas being a part of the next government. And I hope that the Israeli military will not continue its war in Rafah and cause more death and suffering as it continues its mission to root out and kill Hamas, and instead enter into a formal alliance with Saudi Arabia and other moderate western-oriented Arab states along with the United States against Iran and its proxies.

I understand and empathize with those students on American campuses who are deeply pained by the suffering of innocent Palestinians caught up in this awful war initiated by Hamas. I support their outrage and am disgusted for all kinds of reasons by Prime Minister Netanyahu and his failures as a leader of Israel. I am concerned that Israel has used far too many 2000-pound “dumb bombs” to root out Hamas commanders hiding in their 400 miles of deeply dug tunnels everywhere under Gaza and consequently killed too many innocent Palestinians whenever it dropped those bombs. But, I ask those students to weigh their motives that have drawn them to the ramparts of protest against Israel, and to ask themselves whether they are also offended by the suffering of Israelis on October 7 at the hands of Hamas, and whether they are as concerned for those Israelis who have been held as hostages by Hamas as they are for the Palestinians who have suffered for years because of Hamas’ brutal totalitarian rule. And I ask them to search their own hearts and souls and ask if they are propelled by deep-seated antisemitism or not.

This war is not only a war between Hamas and Israel. It is a struggle between western civilization and extremist Islam. That is why the United States, Britain, France, Jordan, Egypt, and some say even Saudi Arabia, joined in shooting down thousands of Iranian drones and missiles aimed at Israel to do extensive damage and killing of Israelis on April 13th. Those countries understand what this conflict is really all about and I would hope that thoughtful university and college students who represent the intellectual cream of American society would understand what is really going on in the Middle East too.

Speaking to the Next Generation of Liberal and Progressive American Jews about Israel

19 Friday Jan 2024

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Introductory Note: On Thursday evening, January 18, I spoke to a group of long-term older congregants of Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles about how to speak with the younger generations of liberal and progressive Jews in their families who feel unmoored by the rise in antisemitism in America and the Hamas atrocities on October 7, and who feel alienated from Israel on account of its prosecution of the war against Hamas that has resulted in the death of so many thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The following were my remarks.

Most of us here tonight appear to be over the age of 60, and so it’s important to begin by acknowledging that we likely think of ourselves in relationship to antisemitism and Israel differently than do our Millennial and Generation Z children and grandchildren.

As a boomer (I was born in 1949), I was raised with an idealized and romanticized vision of Israel as a small struggling new state being born like a phoenix out of the ashes of the Shoah. And I marvel at the major accomplishments of the Jewish state in absorbing hundreds of thousands of refugees, in its growth in agriculture, the sciences and technology, in the development of the Hebraic spirit, and in its military successes in wars thrust upon it from its earliest years. I so respect, as well, the moral principles first articulated by the biblical prophets and enshrined in the state’s aspirational Declaration of Independence.

My millennial sons’ impressions of Israel have been influenced not only by growing up in our liberal Zionist home, but by the traumas of the past 30 years including the Rabin assassination, the failed Oslo peace process, the 2nd Intifada, the occupation and expanding settlement enterprise, 5 Israel-Hamas wars, and the corrupt leadership of PM Netanyahu and his extremist right-wing government. Though my sons identify proudly as liberal American Jews and liberal Zionists, they are far more cynical about today’s Israeli leadership and its prosecution of this war than I am despite their appreciation of the positives in Israel’s life, culture and history. They express increasingly their sense of hopelessness about Israel’s political and moral direction as it is being led by PM Netanyahu and his government, and they are deeply disturbed by the massive loss of life in Gaza despite their outrage at the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7.

The dramatic rise in antisemitism in the past few years in America and since October 7 especially has shaken them as well, as has the unprecedented hate and misinformation they and the younger generations of liberal American Jews are encountering on college and university campuses, in the work place and online. Many of their friends and peers, Jews and non-Jews, actively question Israel’s moral character in the prosecution of this war and on account of the policies of the current illiberal Israeli government. Many people they know openly characterize Israel as an oppressor nation, a colonial concoction of western imperialism, and an apartheid and racist state. Some have gone so far as to question Israel’s moral right to exist anywhere between the river and the sea.

I have always favored a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, since October 7 there have emerged many in America’s progressive young left-wing who say openly and shamelessly that they would like to see a return to 1948 and no Jewish state of Israel, an attitude I regard as blatant antisemitism because they deny the Jewish people the right to a nation state of our own in our historic Homeland.

Though this attitude is that of a very small minority in America (according to polls), many of our own liberal and progressive Jewish young people are increasingly critical of and alienated from Israel and are questioning the meaning of Israel and liberal Zionism in their lives. In response, it is important for us to remind them why Zionism emerged in the late 19th century and grew so dramatically in the 20th century.

Zionism was an answer to the “problem of the Jews” (i.e. antisemitism) and the “problem of Judaism” in that it represented the return of the Jewish people to history, the restoration of our people’s pride, dignity and independence in our historic Homeland, a rejuvenation of the Hebraic spirit and culture in the land of the prophets, and a test of our people’s religious and ethical values in the context of attaining sovereignty and power for the first time in two millennia. Ultimately, Zionism was meant to fulfill the prophetic vision for the Jewish people to become a light to the nations; in so many ways the State of Israel has already done so.

Arguing on behalf of Israel, however, in the current environment of war is difficult, to say the least. Add to that difficulty what preceded the war – the coming to power of the most extremist, racist, super-nationalist, Jewish supremacist, and ultra-Orthodox government in Israeli history and the nearly year-long protest movement that brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets every Saturday night to protest the government’s radical judicial reform legislation that would have diminished Israel’s democracy. Then came Hamas’ October 7 attack and hostage-taking, Israel’s overwhelming military response to destroy Hamas’ military capacity and ability to rule over Gaza, Israel’s efforts to free the hostages, the consequential destruction of Gaza and the killing and injury of so many thousands of Palestinian civilians. All of it is a toxic cocktail that has caused so many of our children and grandchildren to feel unmoored, demoralized, disaffected from Israel, questioning what Israel has become and what their relationship is to the Jewish state.

To pour salt into our people’s open wound, Israel has been charged with the crime of Genocide by the ICJ in The Hague, which strikes Israelis and so many Jews around the world as an utter outrage given Hamas’ actual genocidal intent against Israel and the Jewish people. The charge against the State of Israel is equivalent to blaming the victim of the very crimes of the Hamas aggressor.

October 7 and the Hamas-Israel war are among the most difficult moral, ethical and emotional challenges for Jews who care deeply about Israel and the health, safety and well-being of our Israeli brothers and sisters, and who are also concerned about the suffering of Palestinian civilians who have been placed cynically in harm’s way by Hamas’ situating itself inside and near private homes, apartment buildings, community centers, mosques, schools, and hospitals and under a massive sophisticated maze of tunnels totaling between 350 and 450 miles (NYT – January 18).

The largest question for us in the older generations of American liberal Jews is how we should respond to the next generations about this war and Israel in this unprecedented era of Jewish history?

First, I think that all of us have to be able to live with the tension between our American liberal Jewish values that emphasize justice, peace, diplomacy, pluralism, and compromise, along with the necessity of Israel fighting Hamas militarily as a radical extremist Islamic movement that does not value justice as we westerners understand justice, does not believe in compromise or peace with Israel on any land between the river and the sea, and is intent on murdering Jews and destroying the State of Israel.

Second, I want to be able to trust that the IDF is behaving according to international laws of war, the “principle of distinction” (i.e. choosing only military targets), the “principle of proportionality” (i.e. using only the amount of force necessary to neutralize the threat while assessing expected civilian harm), the “principle of precaution” (i.e. taking into account all matters necessary to mitigate civilian suffering), and the “principle of humanitarian obligation” (i.e. being certain that food, water, medicine, and fuel reach the Palestinian civilian population).

That said – we have to acknowledge that Israel likely has made mistakes when it dropped thousands of 2000-pound “dumb” bombs on populated areas seeking to destroy the underground Hamas tunnel system. We cannot turn a blind eye to the death and injury these bombs have caused. According to top American military experts who have experience fighting in dense urban settings such as Gaza, the Biden administration has recommended strongly to Israel that the massive bombings have to give way now to targeting specific Hamas command sites using smaller precision missiles and special op forces.

We American Jews have to accept as well the truth that we do not really know what the IDF and the Israeli intelligence services know. Israeli intelligence insists that it is prosecuting the war by the book – but many of us suspect that at times Israel has crossed a red line in a brutal and inhumane way and not adequately taken into account the damage it is doing to Palestinian civilian life while targeting Hamas.

Dr. Tal Becker, an intelligence expert, ethicist and advisor to the IDF, argued a few weeks ago that Israel cannot in real time share its intelligence during the prosecution of the war, and that it is a mistake for us to rush to judgment about what Israel has done. There will come a day of reckoning, he said, not just concerning the failure of the government, intelligence services and the IDF to protect Israelis in the south on October 7, but also how the IDF conducted and prosecuted this war in light of the international rules of war.

We American liberal Jews have to hope that as the strongest military power in the Middle East, IDF commanders are checking constantly to assure that Israel’s use of power is as an instrument in achieving absolutely necessary and defined ends and not as an ideology in and of itself. We have to hope that Israel is fighting this just war justly in an impossible urban environment.

The humanitarian disaster caused by this war has placed the burden of responsibility on Israel, though Israel says that “it has facilitated the delivery of over 130,000 tons of humanitarian aid, that Israel has excess capacity to inspect and process trucks, and that there’s no backlog and no limitation on Israeli’s end. But UN aid agencies counter Israel’s claims that Israel is hampering the delivery of lifesaving assistance to Gazans.” (Washington Post, January 18). Who is right – Israel or UN aid agencies?

Third, we have to keep in mind that there is no pathway to peace between Israel and the Palestinians except in a two states for two peoples resolution of their conflict (though presently a two-state solution is not being discussed in Israel), and that Hamas must be defeated and have no role at all in what comes after the war. Half-measures won’t be adequate. Many believe that calling for a ceasefire prematurely, even if doing so will result in the release of all the hostages and the killing and injury of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians will stop, will leave Hamas in Gaza to repeat October 7 over and over again, as Hamas leadership has promised publicly to do.

Most Israeli experts now believe, however, that Hamas cannot be fully defeated nor uprooted from its 350 to 450 miles of tunnels under Gaza and that continuing the war will sacrifice the lives of the remaining hostages and risk even more Israeli soldiers’ lives and the lives of thousands more innocent Palestinian civilians. If a hostage-prisoner exchange with an extended ceasefire can save the lives of the 136 hostages still being held as well as saving the lives of Israeli soldiers and innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza, then a ceasefire would be worth doing. This prisoner-hostage exchange would likely include 8,000 Palestinians now imprisoned in Israeli jails, 559 of whom are serving life sentences for murdering Israelis. It would also include the 130 Hamas terrorists captured inside Israel on October 7 and hundreds more captured in Gaza during the war and brought to Israel. There are also countless Palestinians who have been arrested in the West Bank every week who are guilty of lessor crimes, and hundreds of young Palestinians who have been jailed for minor offenses such as throwing rocks. Releasing the worst of these prisoners presents a huge risk to Israel that they will return to Hamas and again attack Israelis.

It is now my position that Israel ought to negotiate for the remaining Israeli hostages and bring them home as soon as possible because with every passing day there is more risk to their lives, to the lives of Israeli soldiers and innocent Palestinians in a war that cannot, as understood by many Israeli military leaders, eliminate Hamas entirely.

October 7 has challenged the Zionist ethos that Israelis could rely upon the IDF and their government to protect them against terrorism and attack. But October 7 also has shown the importance of the Zionist cause, that the Jewish people has the right and the need for a national home.

One more question to consider with our American young liberal and progressive Jews – Can the Jewish people survive over the long-term without a Jewish state? It is my conviction that except for intensive orthodox communities and perhaps small pockets of secular-liberal Jews, within a few generations – should Israel cease to exist – the majority of the world’s Jews will assimilate and disappear. Consequently, October 7 has to be understood as an existential attack on the Jewish people, Judaism, the Jewish historical experience and memory, Jewish values and religion, and everything we believe and stand for as Jews.

Since 1948, we Jews thought that the enemies of the Jewish people could no longer undermine our confidence as a people. We thought that a Jewish state would be the solution to Jew-hatred, that pogroms and antisemitism were part of a distant past in Jewish history.

October 7 reminds us that barbarians still are at the gate, and they will break into our dwellings, rip babies form their parents’ arms, and commit the most brutal crimes against humanity that we have not fathomed or talked about publicly since the Holocaust. The mass hoopla by too many Gazans who shamed our hostages and abused Jewish corpses was a barbarous assault on our dignity as a people and on common decency.

Based upon forensic evidence discovered in southern Israel after that infamous day in October, we now know that Hamas intended to stay in Israel a month or longer and slaughter far more Israelis that it did. In many respects, despite Israel’s military successes so far in Gaza, Hamas already has won aspects of this war. There are still 136 hostages being held (though informed Israeli sources suggest that between 10 and 20 hostages have been murdered); 180,000 Israelis have been displaced as refugees in their own country; Israel is isolated in the international community except for the US, the UK, Germany and perhaps a few other nations; and Israel has been brought before the ICJ of the Hague to stand trial for the crime of Genocide.

Rabbi Ammi Hirsch of the Stephen S. Wise Free Synagogue in New York asked these important questions on his podcast In These Times:

“Why has Hamas become popular with so many young Americans? Hamas doesn’t permit free speech, freedom of the press, or freedom of religion, political pluralism or opposition parties, or anything that defines a liberal society. In Hamas’ world abortion is illegal and LGBTQ is illegal. Corruption is rampant with Hamas leaders living in luxury.

What explains the support that western liberals give to fundamentalist, misogynistic antisemites such as Hamas and Hezbollah? Why do those who see racism everywhere in daily life fail to recognize the systemic antisemitism of Hamas? Why do those who are so acutely sensitive to the assignment of moral accountability to both individuals and institutions fail to assign moral agency to the Palestinians? Why do progressives treat Palestinians as passive victims bearing no political or moral responsibility for their actions? What business do progressives have supporting those who oppress gays, women, minorities, and Christians? What business do free speech advocates have ignoring the suppression of free speech? Why do progressives give aid and comfort to the enemies of progress? By what measure of decency do they abandon liberal Muslims who challenge extremists in their own midst? Why do those who so believe in diversity condemn Israel, one of the most diverse countries in the world?

This is not liberalism; it’s a betrayal of liberalism. It isn’t progressivism; it’s a back-sliding of progress. How could a vast number of people in the west confuse an Isis-like philosophy for a liberation movement and ignore, explain, deny, and justify blood-thirsty brutalities?”

In conclusion, I want to offer a few things to consider, in addition to what I have said thus far, when talking with our liberal and progressive American Jewish young people who may feel morally and emotionally alienated from Israel.

First, that we Jews are one family and that we have to listen to each other’s concerns and perspectives. We older liberal Jews especially have to listen to our younger liberal and progressive Jewish family members and their friends without necessarily having to respond to every statement they make that may rankle us.

Second, that we American Jews live here and Israelis live there. Virtually every Israeli Jew and some Arab-Israelis too has lost someone or knows someone who has been a victim of Hamas. October 7 is a shared national catastrophe the likes of which has not occurred since the 1973 War or the 1948 War of Independence. We American liberal and progressive Jews have to be able to empathize with Israelis’ grief and fear as well as their joys.

Third, for sanity’s sake, we need to be selective about what legitimate sources of information, news and commentary we read and watch, and steer clear of most social media that tends to distort and shock. My recommendations are as follows:

The Times of Israel Daily Briefing Podcast and the online Times of Israel news site

The Haaretz Podcast and Haaretz’s English language daily online newspaper

The For Heaven’s Sake weekly podcast with Rabbi Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi

The Promised Podcast weekly out of Tel Aviv

The Forward on-line magazine

The Israel Policy Forum with Michael Kaplow

The J Street Daily Roundup of News, Commentary and Opinion

The In These Times Podcast hosted by Rabbi Ammi Hirsch

My book Why Israel (and its future) Matters – Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to the Next Generation (reissued, November 2023) with an Introduction written after October 7 and an Afterword by my millennial sons Daniel and David Rosove.

Finally, I recommend highly that you listen to Dr. Tal Becker’s 32-minute opening statement before the International Court of Judgment at The Hague in defense of the State of Israel to the charge of Genocide. You can find it on You Tube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQaDIcdgLRc

This blog also appears at the Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-next-generation-of-liberal-and-progressive-american-jews-and-israel/