Rabbi's Blog

Shema Yisrael: Listen Israel…

For over 660 days, the soundtrack of Israel has been playing in my house. That’s because my Israeli husband has been listening non-stop to the Hebrew language news from Israel.

It started with the shock and horror of October 7, 2023, broadcast in real time, a litany of terror, atrocities, murders and kidnapping by Hamas, the brutal terrorist organization that rules Gaza. But it didn’t stop there. 

          Over nearly 2 years, over breakfast and lunch, I’ve heard stories of  heroism on October 7, followed by almost daily sobbing eulogies of families who have lost beloved sons and daughters during the ensuing war. I have heard the sounds of sirens and exploding munitions with the iron dome, sending people rushing to bomb shelters. I’ve heard anti-government chants at huge rallies and the desperate pleas of the hostage families to make a deal that gets their loved ones home, as well as the occasional joyful reunions when some were returned. I’ve listened to interviews with people whose lives and livelihoods have been upended, and I’ve heard about suicides by soldiers overcome by the PTSD and moral injury of the war.

Many of the things that I’ve heard have drawn me closer to Israel, our ancient Jewish homeland, the country where half the world’s Jewish population lives, and the place where we have many extended family members and friends. The words and sounds that I have heard have cracked my heart open and bonded me even more with my people as they struggled not only with the terror regime of Hamas, but with attacks on multiple fronts.

          And…there is one thing that I haven’t heard much in that endless soundtrack of war, and it really bothers me. I haven’t heard many words of concern or compassion for civilians in Gaza. Indeed, until recently, I barely heard any Hebrew language reports on the conditions those civilians are facing. I’ve heard how their homes and schools and hospitals were commandeered by Hamas (true), and I’ve heard people contend that the Gazans are all Hamas (not true). Sadly, I’ve even heard their dire situation analyzed as a public relations problem rather than a humanitarian crisis.

It wasn’t always this way. In times past, I used to hear a lot more from Israel about empathy, caring about the other, and the struggle for peace. As Rabbi Jill Jacobs points out (and I vividly remember), Israelis formerly spoke out and demonstrated en masse for the lives and welfare of Palestinians. Personally, I can understand why Israelis find it hard to empathize, not only after October 7, but after failed peace initiatives and violence. Nonetheless, I am sad about it.

Thankfully, my Israeli news marathon has included some powerful interviews with Israelis with military, legal, and educational credentials who not only pleaded for the hostages but also raised concerns for Gazan suffering. Yet after they speak, I frequently hear responses that make me shake my head. For example, the president of Tel Aviv University (my Alma Mater), was recently interviewed after he and several other university presidents sent an open letter to the Prime Minister stating that Jewish values and historical experiences should make us sensitive to the suffering in Gaza and make its alleviation a priority. The two men interviewing him insisted that the hunger in Gaza wasn’t Israel’s fault and even implied that his letter was demoralizing, blaming, and harmful. Perhaps they weren’t really listening.

While I’m hearing all these things in Hebrew, people around the world are seeing photographs of the rubble in Gaza, families weeping for their dead or clamoring for food, and most recently emaciated children. Most Israelis only see this in the foreign press or the left-wing Haaretz (available in both Hebrew and English). But it is starting to bubble up in the mainstream Israeli press. David Horowitz, editor of the middle-of-the-road (English language) Times of Israel, wrote a recent editorial in which he concluded, “A war that began because of the absolute imperative to destroy Hamas’s military machine and get back the hostages has metastasized into an Israeli military takeover of most of Gaza, overseen by a government dependent on the support of would-be permanent occupiers of Gaza, with some 45 soldiers killed since the last ceasefire collapsed, and hundreds of Gazans dying in search of food.” He writes that the Israeli government has refused to confront the future governance of Gaza by non-Hamas Palestinians, and has therefore, “made itself responsible for Gaza, and all the death, hunger, and destruction there.”

There was a time when I sat with Jews and Palestinians as we listened to one another’s stories, when our dialogue group brought Palestinian peace activists to a large conference of Jewish educators who listened to them with rapt attention. Even then, during the second intifada, it was hard. But in this current era of polarization and extremes, liberal Zionists like me feel stuck between those who insist that Israel can do no wrong and those who shout that the very idea of Israel is all wrong. It’s hard to criticize Israel’s actions when our friends and family are going through the war while I’m just hearing the soundtrack. It’s challenging to point out the suffering on the other side when anti-Israel sentiment is growing and sometimes spilling over into anti-Semitic acts. But that’s no excuse to wallow in the sounds of silence. It is not only a Torah imperative to speak up now for innocent children and families in Gaza; I believe that it’s a mitzvah to start talking about a better way forward for all our children and generations to come.

As we approach Tisha B’Av, the fast day that marks the destruction of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem along with all of the exile and hardship that followed, it’s time to expand our circle of concern to the families on the “other side” who, to paraphrase the book of Lamentations, “get their bread at the peril of their lives, because of the sword in the wilderness, whose skin glows like an oven with the fever of famine.”

After Tisha B’Av comes Shabbat Nachamu, with its prophetic vision of comfort and redemption. Can we allow ourselves to dream again that our people who exhibit vast courage and ingenuity in war can rediscover the courage and creativity to pursue peace? Yes, it’s not all up to us – but it is also up to us. On Shabbat Nachamu, we read the Shema from the Torah: “Listen Israel, Adonai is Our God, Adonai is One.” Our first Jewish call is to listen. For nearly two years, I’ve been listening to the sound track of war and suffering. I pray that we can all learn to listen better, to stop shouting past one another and to hear one another’s stories, until eventually we hear the shofar call for peace.

Image: Prayers tucked into the Western Wall, the physical remnant of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.