We have a religious duty to speak out against extremism in Israel

In this week’s sidrah Ki Tetzei, we read the commandment lo tuchal, l’hit’alem, that when you see your brother’s livestock wandering aimlessly, “you shall not hide yourself”.

The commentator Rashi explains that, “You must not cover your eyes, pretending not to see it.” In other words, we are commanded not to hide from our obligations as if they are not our problem.

Last week The Times newspaper reported yet another accusation against a member of the Israeli coalition. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister and ultra-nationalist head of the Jewish Power party, was accused of “fostering a culture of police brutality” in cracking down on anti-government protests.

This was, sadly, not surprising. Minister of finance Bezalel Smotrich has made several troubling statements (some of which were later retracted), most notably calling for the wiping out of the Arab village of Huwara.

Alongside incitement to violence have come numerous other extremist measures including new legislation facilitating corruption, an increase in religious coercion and discrimination (for example by abolishing the committee for the advancement of the status of women).

Together with hundreds of thousands in Israel and around the world, I feel a deep discomfort at the dissonance between these actions and my Jewish values.

Whereas in the past adverse national UK coverage would trigger a kneejerk Anglo-Jewish response, it is no longer straightforward to claim the moral high ground. For the first time, extremism has become entrenched at the heart of government.

King Solomon, the author of Mishlei (Proverbs), famously described the Torah as deracheha darchei noam vechol netivoteha shalom, “Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its pathways are peace.” This principle has numerous applications but each lead us away from interpretations of Torah that celebrate violence, revenge and extremist ideologies.

As an educator and leader of an organisation seeking to teach inclusive and relevant Torah that trains and develops teachers to engage our young people across the community’s Jewish schools, I am committed to inculcating our children with a love of Israel. But our children deserve to be part of an honest conversation.

We are already presiding over a crisis in Israel education. Despite the excellent work of UJIA and the spectrum of youth movements sending record numbers to Israel for trips and tours, there are record numbers disengaging, struggling to communicate a modern Zionist narrative.

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Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on May 21, 2023. (Photo: Twitter)

Gen Z is values driven; where our values are attacked, Gen Z expects us to stand up, to speak out. If we stay silent, we will lose credibility. While I am profoundly fearful of lending even the slightest support to those who question Israel’s legitimacy, I believe that in the current crisis, it is right and necessary to speak out against extremism.

We in the diaspora have traditionally been reluctant to criticise Israel. We are not frontline stakeholders — we don’t send our children to the Israeli army, we don’t experience sirens on a regular basis and we don’t get to vote in Israel — but we are stakeholders nonetheless.

Israel has in recent years engaged with the diaspora as partners. Israel is investing in diaspora education. President Herzog has started an initiative called Voice of the People to engage global Jewish leaders and establish real dialogue. We are co-dependent.

Our government, as well as the United States and others play a crucial role in Israel’s continued security. As diaspora Jews, we must engage in order to ultimately support what is the most significant Jewish project of the last 2,000 years.

Israel is the realisation of the arc of Jewish history, our destinies are intertwined. It is perhaps not fitting for UK Jews to speak out against Israeli tax policy, but it is appropriate on issues that define the very character of the state and affect us all.

Rav Yehuda Amital (former cabinet member and head of Yeshivat Har Etzion) related this idea to the talmudic principle that when God’s name is desecrated, one must respond even where that involves criticising a Torah scholar (in Brachot 19b).

He wrote: “So long as I believe that I am able to diminish the desecration of God’s name, to increase the glory of heaven to bring individuals closer, to save Jews from bloodshed or to save something of Eretz Yisrael, I have not refrained from speaking out.” (Commitment and Complexity: Jewish Wisdom in an Age of Upheaval, 2008).

Jewish unity must be prioritised. Sinat chinam (baseless hatred) and ultimately Jew lifting up hand against Jew is to be avoided at all costs. And yet the extremist voices in Israel’s government have now become a source of this very hatred. They threaten our religious values, the security of our state and the connection of our young people to it.

We must not underestimate the existential risk extremism poses not only to Israel but to Jewish continuity in the diaspora and the ability of our teachers to connect the next generation to Israel. We need to express our love for every Jew and still oppose the views of those who subvert Jewish values.

Joanne Greenaway is chief executive of the London School of Jewish Studies

Topics:

Israel-diaspora relations

Israeli Politics