Devastation as far as the eye can see is our Yom Kippur geography. If a closing prayer is a must, chant the Amidah. The Shema. Anything that comes to mind. With a caveat. Stop the prayers if they don’t make sense in the Gaza rubble. If a prayer doesn’t make sense when the names of the murdered are read, call up another prayer. This goes for any comments that are made as well. If they make sense in the presence of the Gazan dead. Otherwise be silent.
Last Thursday Rabbi Shalom Lewis of Congregation Etz Chaim outside Atlanta gave what can only be understood as a call to genocide in his Rosh Hashanah sermon to welcome in the Jewish new year. The sermon calls for a war on Islam and Muslims worldwide. Lewis says a “holy crusade” against Islam is needed to”exterminate it utterly and absolutely.” Lewis is no fringe figure. He has served this popular suburban congregation for nearly 40 years and was given a commendation by the US Congress.
Rabbis Susan Talve and Randy Fleisher pray for justice in the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Mo., but support AIPAC when Israel is involved. Racial justice at home, apartheid over there.
Did Chuck Schumer just say, ‘My opinions on Palestine are evolving’? That is the aim of a new campaign aimed at the senator’s assertion that he is Israel’s guardian in the U.S. It’s time to talk about Israeli human rights violations. Demo on Monday at his NY office.
Two days ago I noted the intense backlash from Israeli leaders toward Mairav Zonszein’s op-ed…
Netanyahu has great timing. Israel announced another 2500 settlement units in East Jerusalem even as the PM had a seemingly friendly 12th meeting with Obama, the most Obama has had with any leader. The State Department said that the settlements will distance Israel from its “closest allies,” and dim the hopes for a Palestinian state.
In his new book, Israel: Is It Good for the Jews? Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, no stranger to racial controversy, says that the Palestinians caused their own expulsion from their lands in 1948 by resisting Zionist immigration. “They simply had to be pushed out… the enemy had to go.”
The Israeli army had a busy summer so now its friends are staging fundraisers to help the army with the Cleveland Cavaliers and New York Nets basketball teams. And with Rabbi Howard Stecker on Long Island.
Robert Naiman’s Truthout op-ed, “Attacking J Street Won’t Bring Justice for Palestinians” is based on the fundamentally flawed premise that appealing to Congress can bring about a just resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.