Rabbi's Week in Review Blog

This comes a week later than I had hoped. When heading out of town last week, I wrote my blog early, before the most pertinent news of the week had come out. That news was the murder of six of the Israelis held hostage by Hamas.  

The best known of the six was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, known not because his life mattered more than the other five hostages — they were all gute neshamas, good souls, who touched the lives of others in a positive way.

Hersh was known for the life he lived and also because his parents have been leading the fight to demand from the Netanyahu government a cease-fire that would include the return of all the hostages. Their speech at the Democratic National Convention was enormously impactful. Part of that memorable speech was their plea not only for the return of the hostages but also “to stop the despair in Gaza.”  

Part of my recent trip was to attend a family wedding. A cousin also in attendance is a friend of Hersh’s parents, Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin. Her own sadness for her friends made the loss that much more real and that much more painful.

The question from here: What should be our response in supporting the hostages remaining in hellish captivity? I am taking my cue from the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have hit the streets in protest of Netanyahu’s inability and/or unwillingness to enter into a cease-fire agreement that would include bringing the hostages home. 

While nothing excuses the brutality of Hamas and their disregard for the value of human life, we must call out Netanyahu’s callous disregard for the hostages; the risk to Israelis in the north, prolonged by the war in Gaza; and his callous disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians. Also, while our focus is on Gaza, there are rampant violations of the human rights of Palestinians in the West Bank by settlers, with the encouragement of Netanyahu cabinet members Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. None of these actions represent our Jewish values.

In the second blessing of the Amidah, we pray to the G-d who frees the captives. It is a mitzvah, a commandment of utmost importance. Let us not just pray with our words but also, in the words of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, pray with our feet. Our voices and our actions matter in this crucial moment. We must be advocates for peace, and for the real and long-lasting security that comes only with peace.