For those paying attention to the horrors unfolding in Gaza, the past months have been filled with tremendous anguish.
It is hard not to feel consumed by despair. As we grapple with this horrific reality, Jews across the diaspora are also grappling with fundamental questions about Jewish identity, belonging and morality. And while so many local, national and international Jews are demanding a permanent cease-fire and shouting “not in our name,” Jewish legacy institutions are not with us. Instead, organizations like the American Jewish Committee, the Union for Reform Judaism and the Jewish Federations of North America are calling on us to stand by Israel as it commits ethnic cleansing, even as they remind us of our obligation of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world).
As Jewish parents, this is not how we want our children to experience Judaism. We had each hoped to find a Jewish home in a local synagogue, where our children would learn the history and teachings of Judaism, cultivate their Jewish identity and learn how to put the Jewish values that guide our lives into practice.
Midrash Genesis Rabbah 24:7 reminds us “that [we] shall not say: “Since I have been disparaged, let someone else be disparaged along with me; since I was cursed, let someone else be cursed along with me;” we must fight for the oppressed as for ourselves, even when the oppressor is Jewish.
So how are we to respond when our institutions acknowledge the disproportionate loss of Palestinian lives while also denouncing as inherently antisemitic any claims that Israel is committing genocide or ethnic cleansing? Or when local synagogues and Jewish organizations echo national calls to make conditional any cease-fire on unrealistic terms that put the onus on Palestinians to end the terror being inflicted on them by the Israeli state?
These messages are intellectually dishonest, morally abhorrent and spiritually bankrupt; they will be a heavy burden for the next generation of Jews who will struggle to reconcile their identity with their religious institutions’ complicity in one of the worst human atrocities in our lifetimes.
We cannot in good faith call these institutions home, for ourselves or our children. We grieve this loss, that we cannot turn to our religious leaders at a moment when we are grappling with profound spiritual questions pertaining to justice, bearing witness and what it means to be human in the midst of suffering. These questions – part of the legacy of Jewish spiritual and intellectual wrestling – are meant to be addressed in community.
As Jewish parents who fully oppose the terror Israel has been enacting, we are left wondering: Where are our leaders and our community? Where is the community that is worthy of our children’s inheritance, spiritually, culturally and morally?
For now, we are called to create this community on our own. We hold onto hope that our institutions and leaders will find their moral clarity, acknowledge the magnitude of the atrocities Israel is committing, disavow the idealized version of a Jewish homeland that has gripped their collective spiritual imagination and reckon with the meaning of Jewish safety. They must acknowledge that the Israeli government is using our collective loyalty to commit atrocities in our name, and that their unconditional support for Israel is fueling, not fighting, antisemitism.
If our institutions are able to recognize these painful truths, perhaps they will grieve for the role that they have played in perpetuating this atrocity. Perhaps they will grieve for the community they have estranged. If they do, we will meet them in that grief; grief, too, is a communal ritual. Until then, we’ll take solace in the community we have found with each other, our families, and the many thousands of Jews across the U.S. who are in solidarity with Palestinians’ struggle for freedom.
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