Rabbi's Week in Review Blog

CBS News’ Sunday Morning ran a story about a new exhibition in New York City that displays clothes and other artifacts left behind at the Nova Music Festival, the gathering that Hamas attacked October 7. Death, kidnapping/hostage-taking and sexual violence — they all took place on that terrible day. The Sunday Morning segment included an interview with a woman who lost her young daughter. The exhibit, along with this horrific attack on our Jewish people, highlights a simple message: that music should be a safe space for everyone.

On the day that I write this, I am attending the annual Yom HaShoah commemorative program. It is an emotionally painful time, and as Jews, our pain is real and justified.

My anger over the events of October 7 has not dissipated, and I hold strong to the memory of the Shoah and what our people lost. Yet, my efforts (meager though they may be) to reach out to Palestinians here at home — to find a path toward peace, justice, shared humanity and dignity — have been perceived by some as somehow selling out my own people.  

Early on after October 7, it was President Obama who said this moment requires us to hold on to conflicting truths. I thought about this in regard to the many, many truths (and untruths) coming out of the protests on many college campuses. Amongst the truths: yes, there is antisemitism coming out from some participating in the protests (e.g., protesters at UCLA providing wristbands for passage through the protest encampment to non-Jews so they can get to parts of the campus, while denying passage to Jews); some protesters (really a small minority) have vandalized property; campus life has been unfairly disrupted as a result of the protests; the police response to the protests has, in many instances, been inappropriately overzealous, if not violent;  campus administrators have abdicated their own responsibility by calling in the police to disrupt or disband protests; and campus administrations (save a few) have failed to provide a space for real and sometimes difficult conversations, in which differing views can be respected and heard in order to get to a better place — something that should have occurred well before these protests began.

Amongst the untruths: that certain politicians who made their way to the Columbia University campus really care about antisemitism or have a real concern for the welfare of our Jewish people. Their selective performative politics on campus protests, while they maintained a deafening silence when neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville and stood in front of a synagogue in Charlottesville on Shabbos, showed the true colors of these politicians.

As someone who has participated in my share of protests, including a couple of arrests for civil disobedience, I am the last person who would argue against the validity of protests, including the present protest. If I do have any critique on the protests, it would be that in certain ways the narrative and purpose of the protest have gotten lost, the protests have lacked discipline, and the stated goals might have been better considered.

Yet, the protesters do have every right to protest, and the narrative regarding the ongoing suffering of Palestinians in Gaza should not be lost. This is where conflicting truths really come into play. October 7 was horrific and demanded our outrage. The conflicting truth is that Palestinians are suffering from bombings, from famine, from denial of needed medicine and medical treatment, not to mention now being homeless. And we continue to move from one violent encounter to the next, sending our Israeli kids into the next war right out of high school with seemingly no end in sight.

The best truth I heard came from three Columbia University Jewish students who participated in the protests. On a podcast produced by the periodical Jewish Currents, these students talked about the meaningful and important conversations with Palestinians, that there was enormous respect as Jews prayed as Jews and Muslims prayed as Muslims. In their experience, no one can claim that the protests have had no benefit.

So while I still stand proudly as a Jew, as I have done my entire life, the same Jewish values of which I am so proud require from me a different response than just outrage. In this both painful and seminal moment in Jewish history and world history, we must search for ways to change the dynamic. One of the best statements I have heard was that the two sides to the conflict are not Israeli and Palestinian; rather, the two sides are those who believe in peace and are willing to work for it and those who do not believe in peace and stand in the way of those who do.

In that regard, those who oppose peace are the failed leaders on both sides of the conflict.  Hamas doesn’t just see Jewish lives as having no value; they have failed their own people in seeking better lives. Netanyahu and cabinet members such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich were abusing the lives and rights of Palestinians long before October 7. While their actions do not in any way excuse the actions of Hamas, they made all of this more likely rather than less likely. Netanyahu cared little for the lives of peace-loving Israelis who attended the Nova Festival, or those living on kibbutzim near the Gaza border. It is the failed leadership on both sides that is the true enemy of peace.

My hope and prayer is that this cycle of violence, fueled by hatred emanating from failed leadership on all sides, comes to an end. Let us have the strength and courage to be Rodfei Shalom, Pursuers of Peace.