That infuriating "Jewish unity" thing

What are these orthodox rabbis doing??? Blaming Israeli protesters for October 7???? Let me break this down.

I heard about a Shabbat sermon today that is so sickening that I can’t get past it.

An Orthodox rabbi (not in Israel) told his flock that the reason why October 7 happened was because of the “lack of unity” caused by all those anti-government protesters.

Yes. He said it’s our fault. Those of us fighting to protect Israel’s future, get back the hostages, end the war, and restore democracy. The Hamas massacre, this guy said, is our fault. That really happened. Today.

To be fair, I have been hearing variations of this theme everywhere for a while now — on the radio, in the supermarket, and even in my own living room. Blaming leftists for terrorism and for, you know, anything that they don’t like, is a favorite tactic of Bibi Netanyahu’s supporters, as well as his X-obsessed son, sitting in Miami on the taxpayer’s dime, avoiding responsibility and army service while attacking his father’s critics as terrorists. Blaming protesters is also a popular line of Israel’s police minister, the former-terrorist-himself Itamar Ben Gvir, who likes to frame protesters as a threat and frequently directs the police to use violence to silence protest (though the Supreme Court recently ruled that he can’t actually do that…. we’ll see how that goes….)

All of that is itself a revolting line of attack against democracy, free speech, and the well-being of Israelis. And it especially targets Israelis concerned with things like governmental integrity, justice, equality, and human rights. As well as, you know, getting back the hostages and ending this godforsaken war. It uses this toxic tactic of delegitimizing critics and painting us as disloyal, and hence potentially punishable. Less worthy. Kind of a bit less human.

This is the world we are living in right now. Where the people with the most power use their platforms to delegitimize dissent, criticism, or perceived disloyalty. Where they work to dehumanize those who dare speak out against corruption and evil.

Yes, evil. Netanyahu is evil. (I’m right now writing about events in Israel. But I could just as easily be describing trends in the US. How crazy is that…)

We are living with leaders who use language and force to justify the unjustifiable. And to delegitimize and dehumanize those who they perceive as a threat.

And now we have this cadre of rabbis using their pulpits to continue the process.

So this rabbi today told his flock (where my spouse was sitting; not me, I was home in Israel looking after my kids and grandkids who are ALL dealing with the effects of endless reserve duty, still going on) so while I’m doing all that, managing the real-life fallout of this government’s faulty decision-making, my husband was out of the country, listening to a rabbi tell everyone in the room that the reason why October 7 happened was because of the protesters. (Like me). Because of the lack of unity.

My head is awash with many angry swear words that I am very tempted to write here in order to describe the general persona of Orthodox rabbi.

But I won’t do it. I know it’s wrong to generalize about people that way. Or at least, it should be wrong. I’m thinking of a hashtag like #NotAllOrthodoxRabbis. But anyway I don’t think it will stick.

To my spouse’s credit, he stood up to this rabbi and talked about how important it is for people to have freedom to protest in order to protect democracy. Also, since October 7 the pro-democracy protesters are giving their hearts and souls to getting a hostage/ceasefire deal, and how on earth can anyone be against that? My husband also pointed out the hypocrisy of Orthodox rabbis who are presumably okay with OTHER kinds of protests — like, say, haredi protesters who don’t want to lose their privileged status of getting free handouts along with free army exemptions — but then find outrage when the protesters are not necessarily religious. Or right wing. Like, religious protests are okay, but when “leftists” do it they are a threat to the wellbeing of Israel and the Jews??

Hmm.

So I have a few more things that I’d like to say to this rabbi, even though I’m thousands of miles away. Because I’m not as polite as my spouse. And I’m also tired of this fucking war and all that it has wrought. And also, if this rabbi said all this, you can be sure there are lots of others out there saying it, too. And the people saying these hideous things need to be put in their place.

So here goes:

• It’s the fault of Hamas, not “leftists”. Let’s be clear: The October 7 attack was caused by Hamas, not by pro-democracy Israeli protesters. No amount of “pilpul” or not-so-clever readings of biblical texts can disguise this fact. (Rabbis should really stop using “The Torah says….” as an excuse to say whatever idiotic thing they feel like saying.)

• Yes it’s Hamas’ fault, with Bibi’s help. Lots of it. Hamas was empowered not by “leftists” but by the government of Bibi Netanyahu who, for 20 years, kept sending funding to Hamas in order to empower them even though he KNEW that Hamas was building tunnels and buying weapons, because he thought that it was the best way to keep the Palestinian Authority from establishing a Palestinian state. There have been dozens of reports about this, including an intensive 3-part documentary that you can find on Youtube. This is not “fake news” and it is not propaganda. It is simply a collection of facts.

• Bibi dropped the ball here. Maybe on purpose. Bibi Netanyahu is also at fault for the October 7 fiasco in that he ignored months of warnings about the impending attack. He had credible intelligence warnings from Egypt, America, Avigdor Liberman, and many of his own security personnel.

• Bibi is also actively sabotaging the hostages. I’ve written about this so many times, and his own people are saying it. It’s not conjecture. It’s fact.

  

• And also sexism. Seriously. Also, the tatzpitaniyot, the 26 (female) lookout soldiers on the Gaza border who were all either killed or taken hostage, had been warning their superiors for months, but were ignored, dismissed, told that their job was to “use their eyes and not their brains”, and other sexist shit, and not even given weapons with which to defend themselves. Because, you know, just girls using their eyes and not their brains. (The tatzpi parents are furious about this….. And that includes me, by the way. My daughter was in tatzpi. Serving on a base NOT on the Gaza border at the time. But I’m still with tatzpi parents.)

• Protests are about integrity, justice, compassion, humanity, and democracy. Not about “disunity”. The purpose of protesting is not to “break” whatever facade of Jewish unity exists in the twisted minds of some self-proclaimed representatives of Jewish thought. The protests are about rooting out the evil that is leading Israel right now and forcing us to engage in this awful war and cause wanton destruction and loss of life and dragging our kids into the frontlines. Flattening everything that protesters are working towards as just an act of “disunity” is obnoxious, dismissive, and extremely unintelligent. Not to mention an act of looking away at things that we need to be looking at.

• Actually, the protests are about protecting Israel! Protesters are heroes! Anyone who cares about the future of Israel should be paying attention to the protests and very actively supporting them. Because Israel is currently on a path of self-destruction as a result of the actions and decision-making of the current evil leadership. Not only of the killed, the injured, the maimed, the displaced, the tens of thousands with PTSD, the families of hostages whose lives are ruined, the families of soldiers whose lives are a mess, the 2 million Palestinians who are experiencing the unspeakable (and are we surprised that recent attacks coming out of Gaza are from “new” terrorists who have been recruited since Oct 7? This war is generating a new cohort of Palestinians who despise us. Can we blame them? Really?) So the people who go out day after day, week after week, begging the government to STOP ALL THIS and arrange a ceasefire and hostage return and rethink the ideological direction of this country — we should all be thanking them profusely. Rabbis should be using their pulpits to say SUPPORT THE PROTESTERS! THEY ARE TRYING TO SAVE OUR FUTURE.…..

• BTW, if you really don’t want protests, there’s a clear solution. If Bibi really cared about ending the protests in order to promote unity, there is a very direct way for him to do that: stop destroying the country. Drop the outrageous plan to overthrow democracy. Stop the war. Prioritize the hostages. And work towards long-term peace. All of that would quiet the protests and also bring an end to violence.

• And what is unity anyway? Yet, we have these rabbis using this language of “unity”. It’s the same jingoist slogan crafted by this corrupt government in an attempt to get us all behind them. “Together we will win.” That sign is everywhere in Israel — on roadsigns (“Traffic slowing on Road 4. Together we will win!”), on billboards, (“Best cellphone deals, 50% off! Together we will win!”), in parking lots (“17 spots left on Level 2. Together we will win!”). Bibi has been pushing this language of unity since his very first speech on October 7, 2023. It’s almost as if the entire purpose of this war is to stop criticism against him. To give him free reign to do whatever he wants without having to answer to anyone.

• “Unity” means, “Anyone not loyal to the leader should be quiet”. It doesn’t mean anything noble. And also, it’s not like there has ever been so-called “unity” in Jewish history. Ever. Like, ever. Yet, people calling for unity always mean just one thing: Everyone should think like me. Imagine, just as a thought experiment, a Reform rabbi telling a bunch of Orthodox rabbis that they should embrace “unity”. What are the chances that the Orthodox rabbis will be like, “Sure, we’ll come towards you, embrace compromise for the purpose of seeing the beauty of your world view.” Never in a million years would that happen, right? Because when Orthodox rabbis say “Unity” they mean that everyone should be closer to thinking like THEM, not the other way around. Same thing with Bibi and his supporters. “Unity” is code for “Support Me”. Or, in the case of the rabbis far from Israel decrying Israeli protesters as the cause of Oct 7 because of their, “disunity”, what they really mean is that Israelis should all follow Bibi blindly, send their kids and spouses to endless army duty, and shut up about it.

• And what do we think of the rabbi calling for unity by delegitimizing half of Israel?? And perhaps the most infuriating of this is that in the name of so-called unity, a rabbi is willing to castigate half of Israel. Create this disgusting narrative that they are the “cause” of Oct 7. How is THAT an example of unity?????????? It’s so twisted. Completely twisted. Like, if you really believed in actual unity, you would say, these protesters are my sisters and brothers, and they are doing God’s work.

They are, by the way, doing God’s work.

That’s it.

I realize we are living in really shitty times in which toxicity and bullying and incessant verbal assaults are normalized and empowered by those with the largest platforms. But we can’t let this stuff slide. We have to talk back to it. We must…. We must…. Even though it’s hard. And heartbreaking. We have to keep at it.

###