From the Rabbi

To set up the new document page for this message, I closed one from the Passover Recipes folder.

Closing the page from Passover brings with it not only concrete activities like putting away the special recipes and kitchenware (and wondering what to do with that unopened box of matzah – again!) but sitting with reflections that arise following an intensive sequence of events that arose in Israel on the eve of the holiday.  

With regret, I’m reflecting on some of the omissions, the silence that prevailed – to which I contributed – about the deaths on the border between Gaza and Israel, and the ongoing issues of pending deportations of African asylum seekers from Israel at the beginning of Pesah 5778. It’s not that I said nothing, did nothing. But still, I spoke softly, acted strategically.

Although I was never directly involved in ACT Up actions, I was deeply involved in AIDS activism during those early days in the 1980s when their shrill slogan was coined: Silence = Death. The fierceness of the sentiment is also conveyed in the oft-shared message from Pastor Martin Niemoller: “…. and then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up.”

Speaking up is what leaders do, is what rabbis do, is what people of conscience do. Even when it holds risks. Especially when it holds risks.

If the much-vaunted “third rail” of Jewish Diaspora discourse – Israel, or Israel/Palestine, or the Arab-Israeli conflict – is destined to be a perpetual feature of Jewish communal and congregational life, it’s past time that I begin speaking, thinking, talking, and “doing” about it - with you.

It’s never far from my consciousness. My mood swings can often be pegged to what is happening along various “seam lines,” borders, fences and walls in that place between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. And I often have to give myself a stern lecture, the kind I might offer to the community about any number of vast, intractable international tragedies: you do not have the luxury of despair.

The movement to which we belong, along with my rabbinic association, offered a statement on April 3:

https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/response-recent-violence-gaza-border

Some of our affiliates have published statements, such as Mishkan Shalom in Philadelphia:

https://mishkan.org/committee/israel

While theirs is a larger community than our own, the range of activities and resources on their “Israel” page might serve as a source of inspiration for us. We have offered programs on Israel in the past, and this week, we’ll take a next step towards identifying ourselves in relation to Israel at 70.

Breaking the Silence is imperative. If Not Now …. when?

- Rabbi Liz