Rabbi's Chayva's Chat

On Saturday night, I checked my phone, and I almost couldn’t believe the news that six Israeli hostages had been killed by Hamas. I checked social media, but it was still too soon - no one was talking about it yet. Could it, in some way, maybe not be true?

Its truth broke my heart, and soon enough it seemed that it was all anyone could talk about. I thought about reaching out immediately to all of you, to see how you were doing. Because it’s already too tragic that Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, and Carmel Gat were killed, but it was almost too much to hold that Hersh Goldberg-Polin was the sixth. Hersh, who was born in Berkeley, whose parents spoke at the Democratic National Convention just a week before he was killed, whose smile warmed our hearts and who felt like someone we knew…

Why does this loss land differently than the many that came before? And why is the collective grief for Hersh so visceral, even among liberal American Jews who believe that no life is worth more than any other? Put another way, how do we respond to accusations that Israelis - and by extension, global Jews who support Israel - value Jewish lives more highly than Palestinian lives?

Rabbi Yehuda Kurtzer, President of the Shalom Hartman Institute, wrestles with all of this in his podcast, Identity/Crisis. Kurtzer points out that it is natural to care more for members of our own community. “Maybe the easiest way to say it is that I can love different humans differently while striving to never make any of them expendable.”

Those are words that I can live by. Furthermore, those words - especially the thought of lives made expendable - explain for me why the collective grief has been accompanied by a howl of rage. The Times of Israel estimated that 500,000 people participated in protests across the country, which is approximately one twentieth of the populace. In the U.S., this would be proportionally equivalent to over 17 million people protesting - similar numbers to the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.

Why so much rage? Because the day before the six hostages were killed, reports emerged that Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu said to his ministers that he prioritized keeping Israeli troops on the border between Gaza and Egypt (the Philadelphi Corridor) above saving the lives of the hostages. The next day, Hersh was killed by his Hamas captors. Bibi did not kill the hostages, but it seems that he has other priorities.

I am not an expert on military leadership and the ethics of war. The weight of making such decisions must be horrific, and I feel for those who shoulder that burden. However, I know that as a leader, one must care for the members of one’s community and they must trust that care to be true. I am sorry to say that I have lost trust that Netanyahu loves the community of Israel as much as he loves his position in governing it.

So I stand with Israelis, in grief and in anger. I pray that Hersh’s memory reminds us that we are part of a big, complicated, deeply connected Jewish family. I hope that we can find solace in not being alone. And I pray that the Source of Peace, Adon haShalom, and the Liberator of the bound, Matir Asurim, might free all those who suffer in narrow spaces of body and of mind. May next week and the week after bring us better news, and may we see the day when war and bloodshed cease. Ken yehi ratzon, may it be so.