Imagine you’re out shopping in Tel Aviv and the sirens suddenly sound indicating incoming missiles from Iran. Within moments, millions of Israelis rush to find shelters as air defense systems ACTivate across the country. Families grab their children; drivers pull over and run for cover. Immediately you stop what you’re doing and frantically try to find a miklat (bomb shelter) or a mamad (reinforced room). You have—get this—between 15 seconds and 3 minutes to reach shelter. 15 seconds! Can you imagine?
Yes, Israel is at war again. For the last month, we, in the diaspora, have watched news alerts day and night. Those of us that have news alert notifications on our phones, when we now hear it, we may glance at our phones and go right back to what we were doing like it was normal. But such alerts are Not normal!
Here in America, we will never receive such an alert. We don’t have bomb shelters or reinforced safe rooms in our homes. Our children don’t grow up practicing how quickly they can reach a shelter. We don’t interrupt dinner, school, minyan, or sleep to run for our lives. We don’t calculate if we have time between sirens for basic things like taking a shower. We live with a level of security that we mostly take for granted.
Yes, there are miracles happening every day for us in this war, and, Baruch Hashem, we no longer need to pray now for the safety of hostages. But that doesn’t mean this isn’t an incredibly dangerous moment for the Jewish people. Mine and Cheryl’s niece, Michelle, lives in Rishon Letziyon. When we speak, sometimes you can hear the terror in her voice. Last June a missile hit down her street and blew out some windows in her building. Can you begin to imagine?
Michelle’s husband Dani—a major in the IDF—is working feverishly along with so many heroic Israeli soldiers, to defend the nation across multiple fronts: in the skies over Iran, in Lebanon, in Gaza, and in Syria.
At the same time antisemitism is increasing at an alarming rate—on our campuses, and on the blogs of the likes of Tucker Carlson and Candice Owens. What is most alarming it how some Jews have joined the chorus. Let me read you this recent letter to the NY Times: Israel’s characterization of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s cancellation of his predecessor’s acceptance of the International Holocaust definition of antisemitism as “antisemitic gasoline on an open fire” raises the question: Who started the fire?
The increase of “antisemitic” incidents around the world is a direct result of Israel’s destruction of Gaza. A straight line leads from Gaza to the massacre in Sydney. It is beyond ironic, therefore, for Israel to blame Mr. Mamdani for a fire that Israel started and continues to feed by its actions. Signed: Dov Taylor, Woodstock, NY. And then under his name written in parentheses: (The writer is a Reform Rabbi)!
Are you as repulsed by these words as I am? Yes, there are those who blame the Jews for anything and everything that is going wrong in this world. But for a Jew—for a rabbi—to feel so strongly against his people that he had to tell the world, “Israel started the fire,” that’s disgusting!
Israel started the fire? What about Oct 7th and the 1200 Israelis that Hamas slaughtered and then celebrated on that day? What about the Jewish babies who were killed in their mother’s arms? The women who were raped? The grandparents who were tortured and shot? The hundreds of Israelis who were taken hostage and held for 2 years? Israel started the fire?
My colleague, Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg, asks Rabbi Taylor: So, you tell me … if it wasn’t Israel, but America … if the enemy wasn’t coming from Gaza, but from Mexico into our country … how would we have responded?
The IDF, before the retaliating attacks in Gaza … made phone calls and text messages to Gaza civilians letting them know which buildings were designated for attack—ignoring the risk of telegraphing its next move to the enemy. And all the while Hamas was protecting its fighters underground in tunnels and leaving Gaza’s men, women and children vulnerable to attack. And along comes a rabbi to tell the word: Israel started the fire?
Unfortunately, Rabbi Taylor is not alone. There are a lot of Jews who think like him: like Peter Beinart, Noam Chomsky, Bernie Sander, many Jewish college students. Who can blame our college students when it is their own rabbis who are leading them astray?
Unfortunately, there were always Jews who were quick to blame our misfortunes on the Jews themselves. It all goes back to ancient Egypt. In the middle of the Haggadah, there’s an analysis of 4 verses from the Torah that describe our Egyptian bondage. One of the verses says: Va-yareyu otanu haMitzrim. The literal translation seems to be: “And the Egyptians were bad to us,” or “they mistreated us.”
The problem is that the Torah (Ex. 1:10) tells us that Pharaoh told his advisors to enslave the Jews by saying, Havah nitchakma lo (Come let us deal cunningly with them). But what was so “cunning,” so smart about treating the Jews badly—that would make them less productive as slaves?
The Sfas Emes comments that we should translate these words that the Egyptians made us think that WE were bad! One by one, each Jew began to think that it was something that we did that made the Egyptians hate us. Perhaps we should have assimilated more into Egyptian society; perhaps we shouldn’t have had so many children. It’s all our fault! That, says the Sfas Emes, is the greatest form of slavery … when one is made to think that their terrible plight is all their own fault—they had it coming.
And this continued throughout Jewish history:
-After the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70, Josephus wrote that Jewish rebels brought ruin upon the nation. Jewish suffering by the Romans is framed as self-inflicted.
-During the Inquisition, some Jews argued that Jewish distinctiveness CAused Christian hatred. If Jews assimilated more fully, persecution would end.
-In the 18th–19th centuries, many Jews believed the Emancipation required Jews to earn acceptance. If only Jews were more enlightened, antisemitism would fade.
-Before the Holocaust, some German Jews argued that Zionism, Jewish nationalism, or Jewish solidarity provoked antisemitism. The Association of German National Jews loudly proclaiming their loyalty to Germany and distanced themselves from Zionists, leftists, and Eastern European Jews, hoping to convince Hitler that “good” assimilated German Jews were not his enemy. Of look where that got them!
Today, the argument is renewed in updated language: Antisemitism is caused by Israel’s actions.” This is the same ancient mistake with new vocabulary. Don’t get me wrong! Criticizing Israel is legitimate. You should see my long list of criticisms. But when we blame ourselves, we cross a red line … we aid and abet the enemy, when in fact it is NOT OUR FAULT!
After all the insults and forced conversions and expulsions, after the Holocaust, after THE Oct 7th massacre … they didn’t happen because of anything WE did. As the Haggadah reminds us: Sheb’chol dor vador omdim aleynu l’chaloteynu (In every generation they rise up to destroy us). It doesn’t matter much what we do or do NOT do to deserve our fate.
No, Rabbi Taylor, as Bill Joel put it, “We didn’t light the fire.” The only fire we stand by is right above us: the Ner Tamid—the Eternal Light. As historian, Paul Johnson, put it: “Without the Jews the world might have been a much emptier place.” We Jews have filled the world with light. What kind of light? A Ner Tamid—an Eternal Light. May our light continue to shine ever brightly forever and ever, and may we soon merit a life without the need for bombshelters. To that let us say, Amen!
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