Israeli Vengeance Violating Torah law and International Law

Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor Tikkun and chair of the (interfaith religious and secular-humanist) Network of Spiritual Progressives.
July 6, 2014

Editor’s Note: “Thou Shall NOT Take Vengeance” is a key law of Torah, but it is being ignored in Israel today both by the government and by significant parts of the people of the State of Israel (read Chemi Shalev’s article below and Gideon Levi’s article).

We at Tikkun (who condemned the kidnapping of three Israeli teens several weeks ago, and rejected the suggestion by some on the Left and some in the Palestinian world that this act had to be contextualized to the Occupation–and insisted that acts of kidnapping and then subsequently of murder of teenagers was ethically wrong and should not be minimized or morally excused on the grounds that just before those kidnappings Israeli occupying forces had killed several Palestinians in nearby Hebron) now watch in horror as Israelis march through the streets of Jerusalem and many other cities calling for vengeance, some Israelis kidnap and murder a Palestinian teen in East Jerusalem, the Israeli Army blows up dozens of homes of “suspected terrorists” without the slightest attempt to give them an opportunity to defend themselves against this charge, and IDF engages in bombings of Gaza though there is no evidence that the Israeli teens were killed by order of anyone in Hamas.

This, of course, is not fundamentally different from what the U.S. did after 9/11, or what China did after the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square or what many other countries do. But it is particularly vexing to ethically conscious Jews for the following reason: Israel claims to be “the Jewish state,” and yet its Occupation policies and the violence that flows from those policies have a devastating impact on the ethical claims of the Jewish people, defame God’s name, and leave a historical memory that for thousands of years will plague our people in the eyes of others and in the relationship that ethical Jews will have to our traditions. Please read all the articles below, including the one about racism in Israeli schools–it’s so very painful to those of us who still care about Judaism, the Jewish people, and the future survival of Israel!

We Jews have to save Judaism from its identification with the policies of the State of Israel. A first step in that direction is taken in the articles below reprinted from Ha’aretz newspaper, particularly that by Rabbi Daniel Landes, the director of Pardes (a widely respected Jewish studies center in Jerusalem). His references to Price Tag refer to a group of settlers who have taken acts of violence against Israeli and West Bank Palestinians and even fellow Jews who wish to end the Occupation. His reference to Israeli rabbis is to those who have publicly called for acts of discrimination against Palestinians and/or acts of vengeance. Rabbi Landes is one of those who will be remembered by history as a rare voice of religious sanity and Jewish ethics at a time when the best of Judaism is being violated in Israel today. His article is a true Kedushat Hashem (sanctification of God’s name). His article is also a living refutation of the claim that ALL orthodox Jews are right-wing fanatics (though it is certainly disappointing to me that most rabbis in the Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Renewal and Orthodox Jewish worlds have not yet uttered strong words of rebuke (tochecha) about what is going on in Israel today, or joining Rabbi Landes in his courageous statement).

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ENDS

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