Hitzonim | Outsiders

Dear Modern Nation State of Israel,

I am most clear in my salutation to avoid conflation with am Yisrael, the people of Israel. From Jacob’s namesake and his wrestling wth G-d, we are a stubborn people who are resilient until daybreak and both deeply indebted and deeply committed to our traditions. We do not eat from the meat of the thigh near the hipbone to commemorate this ancient story of struggle with the Holy One. For it was G-d’s angel who touched Jacob’s thigh, leaving him permanently impaired.

Is it by weakness that we remember Jacob’s limp? Certainly not. Those who take seriously our values will understand that it is not weakness but strength to name the disability of an ancestor. And so it is strength to exercise our own restraint to govern our eating, when omnivorous we may be capable, it is strength of self control that we choose not to be.

This is the people of Israel on this portrait: Stubborn, resilient, quick to make meaning from our plights, aware of our own strength and aware of when it should be limited, and above all, committed to our values and traditions.

That you, oh Israel, the state, presuppose your existence as a Jewish homeland, one that secures the safety of the Jewish people, are you not accountable to am Yisrael? To our values? To our resilience? To our traditions? What is is it to be a state for a people that fails to speak with its people?

You, oh Israel, have failed in your foundational duty to secure safety for am Yisrael and hold yourself accountable to us. Instead, you have made all Jews less safe by your choice to engage in acts of mass atrocity, murder, indiscriminate bombing, humiliation, withholding of aid, the destruction of houses and houses of worship alike, hospitals, schools, refugee camps, does your vengeance know no bounds? While genocide is a ruling left to the Hague, the verdict is clear in the white flags clutched in the hands of Palestinians, shot by a sniper when crossing the street, or Israeli hostages escaped, mistaken for a threat, or the naked men loaded in trucks, or the Palestinian youth held without cause in Israeli jails, the medical procedures on kitchen tables, and the pregnant women with no safe facility in which to labor and deliver.

The verdict is clear when 30,000 lie dead and the ink isn’t dry on the flyers dropped by drone directing displaced people to consult a website for their safety, meanwhile all internet and communications are severed. Neither is the ink yet dry on the brochures advertising new real estate ventures for Israelis in the ruins of Gaza. What of the psychological trauma to Israeli forces themselves whose lives from here on out will be haunted by the sights, smells, and scenes of a bloody campaign?

Where in Jacob’s tent did you find that to strive with G-d is the permission to commit mass atrocity in the name our people earned during a Divine encounter with Creator and creation. Did Jacob limp so that you may kill?

What of b’tzelem Elohim? What of tzedek tzedek tirdof? What of pikuach nefesh? That all are created in the image of the Holy One; that justice must be pursued by just means; that all commandments may be overridden by the cherishing of a single life?

How do we celebrate Tu B’shevat, the new year of the trees, when you burn the olive groves and occupy the land?

How do I kiss my three boys–Isaac, Noah, and Gideon–on their foreheads tonight at Shabbat when 10,000 children lay dead in Gaza?

Oh Israel, do you not see how profoundly you have failed the people for whom you claim to ensure safety? For this very letter that I write risks further division within and estrangement from my own Jewish community whose allegiance to you has been fostered for generations so much so that we cannot admit 30,000 are dead without replying that the hostages are still captive or that 10,000 rockets have been fired into Israel this year. Where are our torn shirts and darkened mirrors for our Palestinian cousins?

Shema Yisrael, there are three times more dead than there are rockets fired from the occupied territories. Bibi evokes Amalek, the perennial enemy of Ancient Israel whose name is to be blotted out. It is weakness, insecurity, and distrust that follows this path. It is strength to exercise our own restraint.

Now is the time for peace. Peace is at our doorpost. Peace is a sign on our hand and on our forehead. Peace is the thousand year prophet’s call who criticizes our leaders for offering sacrifices at the altar while failing to care for the community.

In B’shallach this week, our parshah, G-d drowns the Egyptians in the Sea, yet G-d also hears the liberated people’s call, has compassion, and delivers manna. Who do we seek to be, oh Israel? The outstretched rod of murder or the double portion of manna?

I call for ceasefire not in spite of my Jewish identity but because of it. T’shuvah, my beloved siblings. It is time to tie our tongues that call for vengeance and remember the Holy tongue that spoke all the world into existence and trusted us with its care.

-amh 1/26/24