ASK THE (REFORM) RABBI - A Review of 'Reading Reform Responsa'

Reading Reform Responsa: Jewish Tradition, Reform Rabbis, and Today's Issues by Rabbi Mark Washofsky (CCAR Press, 2024)

This book could open your eyes to a Reform Judaism you may not have realized existed – faithful to tradition, Jewishly learned, and in its own way connected to Halacha. For there is an inclination – at least in my neck of the woods – to denigrate the Reform as the stream that makes it up as they go along.

Since its inception in 1873 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise in Cincinnati, American Reform has gone through massive changes, for instance, from anti-Zionist to non-Zionist to staunchly pro-Zionist. Likewise, in matters of ritual and observance. Reform has proceeded from willfully anti-Orthodox – from davka not kosher, davka not Shabbat observant, and davka universalism over Yiddishkeit to something else entirely.

Today's Reform takes a measured approach to kashrut. Many Reform Jews avoid overtly treif food; the movement strongly encourages observing Shabbat, including candle lighting, and it is explicitly committed to Jewish peoplehood, Israel, and Zionism.

Politically, as the most assimilated of the three remaining branches of organized US Judaism, Reform has been buffeted by the winds of woke, and its idea of pro-Israelism is stretchy. But my impression is that post-October 7th – and in the wake of the tsunami of anti-Israelism and antisemitism that has swept America – Reform Jews, though still progressive at the DNA level, may be rethinking some of their woke conceits.

I don't think anyone knows how many Reform pulpit rabbis are pro-Zionists (probably most) and how many recently ordained are unabashedly in the Palestinian Arab camp. Lately, there were headlines connecting Rabbis for a Ceasefire to the Reform movement.  Yes, these business-class clerical activists include Reform rabbis, but the driving force behind what is a Jewish Voice for Peace front group are holy women associated with the Reconstructionists. 

It is undeniable that Reform and Conservative rabbis are active with J Street, whose raison d'etre is an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice Lines. This group brands itself as pro-Israel but has been working to limit military aid to Israel and endorses House Members who oppose funding the Iron Dome. Not long ago, J Street was shamed into pulling its endorsement of Jamaal Bowman. But it continues to collaborate with a cadre of other House members even as they work to undercut support for Israel in Congress.

In fairness, Orthodoxy, too, began in opposition to Zionism. Nowadays, the mainstream ultra-Orthodox in America are mostly non-Zionist, not anti-Zionist. The responsa of the Orthodox sage Rabbi Moshe Feinstein showed him to be less than keen on Zionism. For instance, he opposed displaying an Israeli flag in synagogues. That said, today's Agudah Israel of America (with which Feinstein was associated) is staunchly pro-Israel even as it remains ideologically non-Zionist. Reb Moshe died in 1986, and as far as I know, he never visited Israel. It is hard to predict how his thinking might have evolved.

In Reading Reform Responsa, Rabbi Mark Washofsky, the Solomon B. Freehof Professor of Jewish Law and Practice at Hebrew Union College, makes the case that Reform is engaged with Halacha – to be understood as the laws and guidelines for Jewish living – and that it is futile to debate whether Reform is a "halachic" movement. For in the process of developing their decisions, Washofsky and other Reform rabbis engage with Halacha. And they have been doing so since the earliest days of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the movement's rabbinical body. Washofsky explains that the "word [Halacha] is likely derived from the Hebrew root ה-ל-ך, hei-lamed-chaf, 'to walk,' as in 'the way that one should walk, the path that one should follow.'"

Washofsky is plainly on to something when he explains that "responsa, like all texts, are products of a particular time and place, displaying the influence of the social, political, and cultural environment in which they are written."

For this book, he has selected a dozen or so responsa, "a representative sample," which he uses to explain what responsa is and how Reform and Orthodox responsa differ. He does not have much to say about Conservative responsa. Parenthetically, the US Conservative Rabbinical Assembly ruled in 2023 that "Use of an electric car per se is not a violation of Shabbat as long as the driving is not for non-Shabbat purposes."

All responsa are "questions about Jewish religious practice" that individuals and communities submit as inquiries to a rabbi or, in this instance, to the Central Conference of American Rabbis. These tend not to be easy problems, for if they had an obviously correct halachic answer, they would have been resolved at the pulpit level. What makes the responsa Reform in particular is that the replies are "composed by Reform rabbis for an audience of progressive Jewish readers" who share the same religious, social, and aesthetic sensibilities.

The responsa Washofsky selected reads like a cross between tightly argued legal briefs and literary essays. The authors' goal – and I think this is true across denominations – is to persuade, not dictate. We may think of Reform as institutionally hierarchical, but it is theologically decentralized. "The responsum is an 'opinion,' but it is almost always an advisory opinion," Washofsky writes.

Rabbi Solomon Freehof (1892-1990) anchored modern Reform in the responsa tradition. He chaired the movement's responsa committee (in effect serving as Reform's posek) and collated its work. Washofsky lauds him as a pathbreaker, even if he doesn't always agree with Freehof's conclusions.

For the Orthodox, Washofsky explains, "the meaning of the Torah does not evolve but is eternal and unchanging: the meaning of the text lies objectively (if implicitly) there, between its lines, and our task as students of Torah is to 'turn the Torah over and over again' (Mishnah Avot 5:22) until we discover it.'" 

Take, for instance, whether it is permissible to ride an elevator on Shabbat and under what circumstances. For the Orthodox, the answer would have been hovering about in the holy texts even before electricity had been harnessed. The Halacha turns out to be…less than clear-cut. Some Shabbat lifts meet the guidelines set by some Orthodox decisors. Others do not. 

In contradistinction, Washofsky writes: "We Reform Jews do not consider ourselves bound to the authority of Jewish law, a corpus of writings mostly composed by an all-male ancient and medieval scholarly elite who did not share the modern and progressive commitments that define our religious outlook." That said, "the practice of Reform, the way we have lived out Judaism on a daily, weekly, and seasonal basis, remains firmly rooted in the Rabbinic (that is to say the halachic) tradition." Washofsky allows that "This sweeping insight may be surprising to many readers."

I came away from reading this book with the sense that Reform rabbis in the Washofsky mold care very much that their Judaism rings authentic. They have moved light years from the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform, which staked out a combatively anti-Orthodox stance. That may have catalyzed Orthodoxy in a more reactionary direction. It stirred the Chatam Sofer (Rabbi Moshe Sofer) to declare, "Everything new is forbidden by the Torah." I attended an elementary school on the Lower East Side jointly named after him and Rabbi Shlomo Kluger, who was a proponent of insularity in the face of modernity. And here I am blogging about Reform responsa!

In any case, successive Reform platforms Columbus (1937), San Francisco (1976), and Pittsburgh II (1999) have made Reform more traditional and conventionally observant while American Orthodoxy has arguably, though not uniformly, moved in a more inward-looking and ultra-Orthodox direction.

In October 1983, CCAR made an irreparable break with convention by embracing patrilineal descent. I get why they did it – rampant out-marriage and a new generation that understood its Jewish identity as a matter of choice and lifestyle. Yet the consequences have been as shattering as when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. Whatever the technical, historical, or sociological justifications of the patrilineal descent determination, it undermined the peoplehood that Jewish civilization needs to embrace. Washofsky doesn't address this controversial and uncomfortable decision in Reading Reform Responsa.

Instead, the book synthesizes more recent responsa. The appendix contains the full text of all the responsa and a helpful glossary. The issues here include: May the Torah portion be read on a Friday night if there is no minyan on Shabbat? May an Orthodox minyan be granted space in a Reform synagogue? Does one honor a parent's request for cremation? Is it permissible for a bar or bat mitzvah to read from a defective and irreparable Holocaust-era Torah Scroll for its important symbolism? How should we understand what constitutes Sabbath observance and Sabbath desecration? Should congregations display Israeli and or American flags on the Bimah? May they sing Hatikvah? Can a Reform Jew mark Valentine's Day and other secular holidays? Has Christmas become an essentially secular holiday? May one withhold medical information in a job interview? Is it permissible to employ non-union labor in renovating a Reform Temple? May hunger-striking Islamist prisoners in Guantanamo Bay be force-fed?

More than the answers, Washofsky is interested in showing us the process of Reform responsa. Bear in mind that while Reform Judaism is not bound by Jewish law, it does not willy-nilly disregard it. Take the question of honoring a parent's request for cremation. "Reform Judaism does not regard cremation as a violation of Jewish law," writes Washofsky. Classical rabbinic sources were not explicit on the issue, perhaps because cremation wasn't an issue. After the Shoah, cremation became associated with the Nazis. Reform theologians have historically come down on both sides of the issue. The responsa here decides that children are "entitled to uphold their own religious standards against their father's request" to be cremated.

Reform responsa often cites the kind of sources you'd find in Orthodox responsa – Torah, Talmud, Rambam's Mishneh Torah, Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Dei-ah), and 20^th-century decisors like Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (for example on displaying the Israeli flag). Citing is not following, but it is contextualizing and acknowledging.

Take Shabbat. Unlike the Orthodox, Reform Jews are not constrained on Shabbat from carrying an umbrella on a rainy morning, ripping toilet tissue, or taking a shower. Washofsky reminds us, "We [Reform] have found it more useful to concentrate upon the positive, ritual elements of Shabbat that do strike us as meaningful rather than upon the negative ones that are devoid of significance to us."

What does that mean in practice? For one, the synagogue gift shop should be closed on Shabbat. An already delayed Brit milah should not be held on Shabbat. One responsum found: "The fact that Shabbat' conflicts' with another mitzvah or worthy cause does not mean that it is Shabbat that must give way. Indeed, the reverse is often the case." The Reform rabbis recognize that beyond abstaining from work on Shabbat, there is also a positive obligation to rest. In the final analysis, Reform rabbis like Washofsky want their Shabbat to share commonalities with the Shabbes of other observant Jews. "What does sh'mirat Shabbat even mean in our Reform context?" The answer begins with creating a "Sabbath mood."

This accessible book's principle idea is that Reform responsa are halachic texts. They strive with precedents even if they do not hesitate to overturn them (in how to define "work" on Shabbat, for instance). Their starting premise and aesthetic are non-Orthodox. And they are "Reform" because they are drafted by Reform clergy and aimed at a Reform audience.

If, like me, you are interested in what still binds our tribal people together, you will enjoy - as much as I did - reading this erudite introduction to the place of Halacha in Reform Judaism.

 

BOOK BLOG: Yair Ettinger's Frayed: The Disputes Unraveling Religious Zionists

 

It is all connected. Mizrachi (merkaz rehani) was founded in 1902 in Vilnius, Lithuania, as a religious faction in the World Zionist Organization. In Palestine, the movement spearheaded the establishment of a Rabbinate under Rabbi Abraham Issac Kook. In 1952, after dissolving its relationship with the non-Zionist Orthodox parties, Mizrachi and Ha-Po'el ha-Mizrachi created the National Religious Party and a daily newspaper, Hazofeh. Ha-Kibbutz ha-Dati is Mizrachi's kibbutz movement. Mekor Rishon subsumed the newspaper, and the NRP went defunct in 2003. Followers of Religious Zionism are known as Dati Leumi, though many have turned haredi-leumi or Hardal.

Religious Zionism is a stream of Orthodoxy with a pronounced political ideology. How is it connected to Modern Orthodoxy in the Diaspora? That is one of the questions I was thinking about as I read journalist Yair Ettinger's Frayed: The Disputes Unraveling Religious Zionists (278 pages, Toby Press, $29.95). Ettinger, a kipa-sruga wearer, has perceptively covered the religion beat in Israel for Haaretz and Kan (Israel Broadcasting Authority), so he is well-positioned to launch readers into exploring the various shades of Religious Zionism.

Religious Zionism is rooted in a triad: the Land of Israel, the People of Israel, and the Torah of Israel, as Ettinger explains. For literate Jews, regardless of religiosity and ideology, the Covenant that anchors Jewish civilization is the connection between the land and the people as described in the Torah – Ettinger's triad. Whether you take this literally as Religious Zionists do or as a sacred foundational myth, Jewish civilization is rooted in the land. The attachment to the land manifested by other ancient civilizations, such as the American Indian tribes, the Aboriginals of Australia, Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and the South American Incas, is also an attribute of our civilization.

All that Theodor Herzl and his modern political Zionism did was revive this element of our civilization. A short while later, the teachings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook gave Orthodox Judaism its roadmap into political Zionism. After 1967, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook provided Gush Emunim's settlement movement with its messianic marching orders, and its energy consumed religious Zionism.

Ettinger's book identifies disputes that divide Israel's Dati Leumi world. These no longer involve settlements over the Green Line. Gush Emunim's triumph resolved the issue, making settling Judea, Samaria, and Gaza the First Imperative. Nowadays, to my knowledge, no national religious figure who can draw a crowd opposes the primacy of the settlement enterprise.

What's left to unravel? Plenty. For instance, the role of women in the synagogue and the IDF, the reception of male homosexuals in the synagogue, and whether to shake off the influence of the patronage-laden state-funded Rabbinate (which today has only a thin Zionist veneer), including over marriage and kashrut. Should Religious Zionists commit to building the Third Temple? 75% of them support Temple Mount pilgrimages, though the Kooks (father and son) were opposed. And how should Religious Zionists relate to the non-Jewish world?

Take the issue of women in the IDF. Rabbis Zvi Yehuda Kook and Shlomo Goren were not thrilled with the idea, Ettinger tells us. Yet Zionist Religious girls did go into the army in numbers. Today's Hardal position, as enunciated by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, is uncompromising. "A girl who enlists in the IDF claiming that she wants to contribute is indeed contributing – she is contributing to the destruction of the state." Other rabbis add that women who go into the army are potentially compromising their "modesty" and are likely to emerge "damaged." The rabbis also do not want their boys distracted and, therefore, oppose gender integration in combat units. Only the Religious Kibbutz movement representing the non-Hardal remains of the Mizrachi stream takes pride in sending its girls to the army, according to Ettinger. My impression is that only a minority of national religious women now do IDF service. Some girls do other forms of national service, but since the goal is to maintain "modesty," the alternatives can be pretty parve. 

In a parallel universe, a minority camp within Religious Zionism is pushing the envelope on egalitarianism for women. Some have pressed for partnership minyans, which give women a role in conducting the services. Should women give homilies during davening from the women's side of the partition dividing all Orthodox synagogues? Should they serve in top synagogical leadership roles? Since many women are Torah scholars, and some qualify as Yoetzet Halacha (essentially unordained rabbis), what weight should their legal rulings have?

Women can push the envelope only so far, partly for cultural and aesthetic reasons but primarily because of Halacha and the stare decisis approach male Orthodox rabbis take toward interpreting Jewish religious law.

Going back to politics. The ill-fated 1993 Oslo Accords with the PLO and Israel's 2005 unilateral disengagement from Gaza solidified the Hardal political ascendency within Religious Zionism. Hardal is ultra-Orthodox in religion and hyper-nationalist in politics. Under its influence, young men are sporting knee-length tzitzit, extra large skullcaps, and payot. Women are dressing more and more in the hyper-modest ultra-Orthodox fashion, albeit with color. Those who identify as Hardal would also lean conservative regarding women's participation in the synagogue. Further, Hardal folks desire to rebuild the Temple on Mount Moriah where the Dome of the Rock now stands, disregarding the prospect of an apocalyptic confrontation with the Muslim world, which also considers the site holy. Ettinger offers a rosier scenario in the "exceptionalism" of Yehuda Glick, who thinks rebuilding the Temple while leaving the present Al-Aksa Mosque in place would be possible and pave the way for a "religious utopia."

The role of the clergy is another point of contention within the Religious Zionist stream. In the non-Zionist Haredi world, which is ultra-Orthodox and insular from non-Jewish society, grand rabbis are held to be oracles, and their guidance is sought on matters ranging from medical procedures to voting in elections. Hardal Religious Zionists also relate to their clerics as sainted. When Naftali Bennett challenged this attitude, Ettinger writes, things did not end well for him.

Ettinger chooses not to use the term Hardal in his book. He does refer to today's leading Hardal politicians, Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the Kahane-lite Otzma Yehudit Party, and Bezalel Smotrich, the National Union/Tkuma Party leader. Before the most recent elections held in November 2022, Likud Party chief and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was adamant that Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and Avi Maoz of the Noam Party run under a single rubric to unite the entire Hardal and dati leumi camp. It worked. The bloc won 14 Knesset seats, briefly becoming the third-largest faction. Once sworn in, Ben-Gvir and Maoz broke away from Smotrich (though they have no fundamental differences) and returned to their respective parties. At the same time, Smotrich rebranded his as the National Religious Party.

About 22 percent of Israelis identify as Religious Zionists of all hues, according to  Ettinger. He says he can't predict whether a politically and theologically moderate NRP/Mafdal-like religious Zionist party will rise again. Its agenda was heavily weighed on education and social issues. As far as I know, today, national religious Israelis who are not Hardal must seek political expression through one of the non-parochial parties such as Benny Ganz's National Unity. There are not enough of them to form their own religious party. The last attempt was made in 1988 by rabbis Yehuda Amital and Michael Melchior.

Ettinger writes that the Mizrachi Party dominated dati leumi politics back in the day. The NRP was the dominant political institution alongside just a few religious-cultural gatekeepers, such as Mercaz Harav. His thesis is that today, there are no gatekeepers or controlling agenda-setters. Along with the ascendency of the settlement movement and political Hardalism, many contending yeshivot, rabbis, and powerbrokers have emerged. So, Religious Zionists can revel in not having a magisterium and in decentralized decision-making. Ettinger terms this state of play "privatization." Non-Hardal Religious Zionists mostly follow their consciences. Those in the Hardal camp are pressed to "listen to their rabbis." Lots of different rabbis.

Especially since October 7, 2023, the already complicated attitude of Religious Zionists toward non-Zionist Haredim who refuse to do any form of national service or send their sons to the army has only become more fraught. The two share an Orthodox theology; their prayer services are practically interchangeable. Yet, Religious Zionists have made disproportionate sacrifices for Israeli security. Meantime, haredi youth are now on their pre-Passover recess, fumfing around as if the country had not just buried over 600 soldiers. The Haredi alibi of insularity is wearing a wee thin.

Yet the dominant Hardal wing of Religious Zionism is well-disposed toward Haredi society. They share an aesthetic for close-mindedness. To the chagrin of haredi rabbis – twitchy haredi adolescents or shababnikim feel drawn to Ben-Gvir's religious chauvinism tinged with political extremism. If I am right that for some of their constituents, Haredi draft-dodging is becoming intolerable, Ben Gvir and Smotsrich will have to "do a Netanyahu" to maintain the alliance. They will need to obfuscate the haredi refusal to serve or, at the very least, kick the issue down the road. The best way to change the subject would be to channel the wrath of their electorate at the "leftists" who have, undeniably, been calling for ending the October 7 War at any price.

How does all this look from 6,000 miles away? A difference between Diaspora Modern Orthodoxy and Israeli Religious Zionism is the latter's ongoing commitment to the Land and IDF service (including nowadays relentless stints of reserve duty). At the same time, non-Hardal Religious Zionists and Modern Orthodox Diaspora Jews may be drawing inspiration from one another on the role of women and other social issues. Non-Hardal Religious Zionists are finding workarounds to the Haredi-dominated Rabbinate when they want to marry. Against the wishes of Hardal clerics like Dov Lior and Zvi Thau, they are turning to national religious Tzohar rabbis who are of a tolerant bent. They are also looking to bypass the Rabbinate on conversion and kashrut. America's Modern Orthodox manage to marry and eat kosher without a tax-payer-funded Rabbinate, so why shouldn't dati leumi Israelis enjoy the same privilege?

The two communities are not identical. A difference between the Diaspora and Israel is that Religious Zionists are more willing to think independently about the place of religion in society. They are keen to explore artistic, literary, and cultural expression and to stake out religious boundaries. Whereas in the Diaspora, centrist-leaning Modern Orthodox feel constrained to live within normative parameters, or so say academic observers such as sociologist Shlomo Fischer, who is cited in Yehuda Mirsky's introduction to the Ettinger book.

I confess to finding the nomenclature of Modern Orthodoxy misleading. The "modern" in Modern Orthodoxy should not connote leading anything less than a Halachic lifestyle. One of the characteristics of Orthodoxy is perforce insularity from the non-Jewish world – in terms of food, culture, friendships, and other non-utilitarian relations. Each sub-group within Orthodoxy finds its place along the insularity continuum from fully acculturated to completely inward-looking.

Whatever their intramural differences, Religious Zionists of all stripes and Modern Orthodox in the Diaspora appear united in opposing concessions to non-Orthodox streams of Judaism, including at the Western Wall Plaza, according to Ettinger.

I sense that Ettinger is not downhearted about any unraveling within religious Zionism, seeing the disputes as a sign of vibrancy. He assesses liberal Religious Zionism as alive and well, perhaps because he identifies with this more moderate wing. Maybe there is a dichotomy in Religious Zionism: politically monochromatic while synagogically kaleidoscopic.

Based on years of field reporting, Ettinger's strength in this book is his mastery of the subject. With Shmuel Rosner and, more lately, Yair Cherki, Ettinger helps render the multifaceted Orthodox world to Israel's non-Orthodox majority. Here, I feel he shies away from taking positions that could lead him into controversial territory, except when he blames Bennett for fragmenting Religious Zionism's Big Tent. Yet by the time Bennett reinvented himself to appeal beyond the Religious Zionist world and, in May 2021, as head of the Yamina Party, joined a unity government with Yair Lapid, the bulk of Religious Zionists were already in the Hardal Camp. Benett was simply giving the camp's non-Hardal remnant a soft landing.  

Frayed: The Disputes Unraveling Religious Zionists has been expertly translated by Eylon Levy and Mitch Ginsburg, making it a smooth and accessible read. There are not a lot of sparks here, and no new analytical ground is unearthed, but this is a solid primer on the struggles and place of Religious Zionism in Israel.

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A Half a Year of War and a Fateful Week to Come

Israel is a country on edge. We are waiting for an Iranian retaliatory attack. Our northern and southern communities continued to come under enemy fire over the weekend. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been dislocated from their homes for the past 184 days. A barbaric enemy is holding some 130 of our men, women, and children hostage in Gaza. We have suffered 1,490 confirmed killed soldiers and civilians since October 7, 2023. Many wounded soldiers have life-changing injuries, from burns to lost limbs.

The historically bloody month of Ramadan is not over. Eid-al-Fitr, which marks its conclusion, will be on Tuesday evening, April 10. Last night, Arab youths slept in tents near the Aksa mosque atop the Temple Mount, hoping to instigate a violent response from Israeli police.

In synagogues of almost all hues throughout the country, the liturgy of daily and Shabbat prayer services have been amended to include High Holy Day-like pleas for salvation.

Today's morning news brought more heartbreak. Four IDF commandos were ambushed by Hamas guerrillas overnight in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Terror attacks up and down the land of Israel incited by influencers on Palestinian social media continue unabated.

We seem to be treading water in Gaza with no implementable strategy on how to defang Hamas. An assault on Rafiah, where Hamas has its last major stronghold, has been kicked down the road.

We irrationally acquiesced to Gaza's humanitarian and public health crisis, which has so demonstrably sabotaged our overall mission. What did we think would happen if we allowed anarchy, hunger, and pestilence to reign? Pointing out correctly that the fault lies with Hamas does not offset images of ruin and suffering beamed across the globe and reverberated on social media – pictures that practically shout, "Blame Israel!"

Yes, the world is hypocritical. We knew that. In conducting the war, Israel is being held to standards imposed on no other country. The US might accidentally blow up a wedding party in Afghanistan. UK soldiers may have executed unarmed detainees. France may have committed war crimes in the Central African Republic. Russia has demonstrated a complete disregard for the rules of war in Ukraine. Chinese crimes against human rights are undisputed. All these render some brief chagrin, and then the pages are turned.

Not so with Israel. Granted, the IDF has made mistakes that have cost innocent lives, sometimes out of reckless disregard. Yet only Israel has been so unanimously pilloried and held in collective opprobrium as if our crimes were one of a kind in 21^st-century warfare. We, of all people, are charged with genocide when Hamas is explicitly committed in writing to genocide against us.

***

 "Together we will Win" public transportation announcements notwithstanding, Israelis are fragmenting back to our October 6 lines. Last night, we witnessed big rallies against the Netanyahu government, the largest in Tel Aviv, insisting that he meet whatever demands Hamas is making to bring home our captives. In effect, such self-inflicted pressure calls for our unconditional surrender. Why would Hamas negotiate when all it needs to do is sit back and watch Israelis join the "international community" in demanding the Islamists get their way?

My desire to see Netanyahu go is second to none, but not at any price. Last night, an enraged Tel Aviv driver (a Bibi supporter?) apparently caught up in the anti-Netanyahu protest plowed into some of the demonstrators, leaving several people injured and at least one requiring hospitalization. Like, we need to start killing each other now...

Netanyahu has always been a master at the illusion of momentum, sometimes by talking tough (on Iran and Hamas, for example) while procrastinating on hard decisions.

He took the country to the brink before October 7 with a judicial putsch mainly designed to keep him out of prison and deconstruct the system that first put him at legal risk. So, yes, he can conflate his interests with Israel's. Likewise, regrettably, the world also thinks of Bibi and Israel as one.

His management of the war has been ham-fisted. Neither his bloated cabinet nor inner war cabinet seems to be operating systematically. From the outside, it looks like he and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are making all critical decisions. And that Benny Ganz gets to know about them at some stage. I imagine Ron Dermer probably plays the role of Netanyahu's Freudian peripheral id). The fact that Netanyahu, Gallant, and Ganz struggle to be civil with each other does not instill confidence in the essence of their decision-making process.

Plainly, we need a new government led by a different prime minister. But Netanyahu won't go, and his ruling Likud Party (the only mechanism for getting rid of him without new elections) is a hollow shell with no one left to stand up to him and certainly no one of a caliber capable of replacing him.

We do need elections even in wartime – America held elections, including for president, during WWII.

However, raucous rallies against Netanyahu in wartime have melded disparate issues: opposition to Haredi draft-dodging, support for caving into Hamas on a terrorists-for-hostages exchange and demanding new elections. All this while the country is literally under enemy fire. It is confusing, divisive, and counter-productive. 

If Benny Ganz wants new elections, he should withdraw from the government. 

For now, disorderly anti-Netanyahu rallies have only solidified support for him, maybe because they are transparently not spontaneous. Granted, neither were the anti-putsch rallies before October 7, but then I figured the ends justified the means.

Not coincidentally, the New Israel Fund is spending heavily (including on a booklet distributed in the weekend papers by its latest front group, "The Israeli Initiative") to use this war to push for a Palestinian state. The problem is that polls show that the Palestinian Arabs have no interest in a demilitarized state alongside Israel and no desire to recognize the right of the Jewish people for a national homeland.

Haaretz, the post-Zionist newspaper that punches way above the weight of its minuscule circulation, carried a valuable article this weekend by Shlomi Eldar. The piece was full of color and insights into the Palestinian mindset. He traveled to Cairo to interview Gazan elites who found refuge in Egypt's capital after October 7. About a week before the war broke out, rumors were circulating in Gaza that something big was afoot. Israeli intelligence would have picked these up, too, but likely discounted their import since they ran contrary to the accepted idea that Hamas did not want war. A few Hamas-connected Palestinians got out of harm's way just in time. Those who had no advance warning (mainly Fatah people who maintained a transactional relationship with Sinwar) but still made their way to Cairo (a costly and challenging feat) are understandably embittered at Israel. But what is revelatory is what they told Eldar about Yahya Sinwar: If he emerges from this war in a position to fight again – he will organize another October 7 because a messianic apocalyptic vision drives Sinwar. In other words, if a stake is not driven through this devil's heart, many more will yet die.

If you are marching for a unilateral and unconditional Israeli ceasefire, your interests and his are strangely aligned.

***

Israel is basically alone, divided, and at war. Our fair-weather allies have deserted us. Lord Cameron, the British Foreign Minister, let it be known that UK support for Israel is not unconditional, a risible statement coming from Whitehall, which, if I'm not mistaken, has not voted with Israel at the UN in the Securiy Council since the war began.

The Biden administration is struggling with itself. Its "progressive" elements, backed by Democratic Party leftists, are chomping at the bit to throw Israel under the bus. I sense that the president and Secretary of State Anthony Blinkin understand that America will be the big loser on the international stage if Israel can't defend itself – if Iran and Hamas can reasonably claim victory in the war that began October 7. Still, this is an election year. It is easier to jump on the Hamas pickup truck and make "Netanyahu's Israel" your scapegoat than do some soul-searching about your own policies. I am thinking about the open border with Mexico.  

Also in Washington, "Pro-peace and Pro-Israel" (LOL)  J Street, which consistently toes the PLO line, has helped to orchestrate Jewish support for an arms embargo on Israel. The New York Times and Washington Post are serving as J Street's enablers with breathless revelations presenting America's arms "pipeline" to Israel.

In the face of all this, much of the pro-Israel American Jewish community, save for the modern Orthodox vanguard, is hunkering down. US Jews seem bewildered by what they read in the media outlets they trust (foremost the NYT) and bedeviled by the tsunami of anti-Israelism and antisemitism that has swept through American cities and campuses. It is easy to blame Netanyahu, everyone's bogeyman. While he may be blameworthy for vandalizing Israel's image, his essential decision to take away Hamas's capability to attack us again enjoys broad support in Israel. 

So, after half a year of war and with a fateful week ahead of us, Israel is on edge. As ominous as the week ahead looks, this much I grasp: No Israeli wants it to end with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran seen to have won the war.

 

 

 

 

Casualties of War

Until a few hours ago I had not heard of World Central Kitchen. From what little I now know about WCK, it seems its staffers are genuine humanitarians, not pretenders hiding behind a charitable label. And they have played an essential role in distributing aid to Gazans.

Last night, seven of its workers who were part of an aid convoy leaving a Deir el-Balah warehouse located in the center of Gaza were killed in an unintentional airstrike carried out by the Israel Defense Forces. It is early hours in the investigation. The IDF has expressed regret and said it was committed to discovering what happened and how.

Understandably, WCK has suspended its work. Other aid groups may follow suit.

The “international community” is tripping over itself to condemn Israel. As if the IDF, which gave its (plainly uncoordinated) support to the WCK, would have purposely killed the aid workers, as if horrible mistakes don’t happen in the fog of war.

The nighttime attack on the logoed car carrying the aid workers caused not only a dreadful loss of life but also a blow to Israeli morale – or at least the morale of this Israeli. On the one hand, we can pinpoint and take out a lot of bad guys in a military compound in the heart of Damascus, but we can’t locate over 100 Israeli hostages within driving distance of Tel Aviv. And now, it appears human error has led to us blowing up a marked aid vehicle.

Our killing of real innocents saps our capacity for resilience, especially because it comes days after the 600^th IDF soldier killed in action was buried and with hundreds still hospitalized with life-changing war wounds.

The entire situation is heartbreaking.

With no scruples, our enemies use medical centers and ambulances as instruments of war. Al-Shifa Hospital was destroyed by Hamas – yet Israel will be vilified. Hamas exploits their civilian population as cannon fodder. As the Islamists see it, martyred Palestinian noncombatants, particularly babies and women, are essential soft power components in the strategy to destroy Israel. That is why civilians were kept out of the vast Hamas underground network below Gaza, where they might have been safe from Israeli bombardment of above-ground Hamas structures.

Hamas launched this war. So far, frustratingly, the polls I have seen show that its onslaught continues to enjoy widespread support among average Palestinians. A war that has claimed untold lives, shattered peace of mind, blasted buildings and dislocated thousands on all sides from Gaza and its borders to the West Bank and from Bab el-Mandeb to Lebanon and its borders. Yet, seemingly, if they could begin October 7, 2023, all over again, they would change nothing. From the Palestinian point of view, did they not with wanton abandon pillage, torture, rape, and butcher? Did they not capture and hold stretches of “occupied Palestine” for days? How intoxicating those first days after October 7 were. What good bloodsport!  

And didn’t the war unleash a tsunami of anti-Israelism? Look how it mobilized the world against the Jews – marching every Saturday in the millions in NY and London and Madrid, indeed everywhere TikTok and Instagram can reach, where a vacuous zoomer mind can be manipulated. And has it not created an axis against the Zionists comprised of wokes, socialists, Muslims, “people of color,” and ultra-right-wingers? Has it not shown the Democratic Party to be a weak reed of support for Israel? Has it not been revealed (as if that were necessary) that the mercurial transactional Donald Trump is a potential problem when (as may be expected) he regains the White House?

October 7 has made campuses treacherous places for pro-Israel Jews – really any Jew who won’t throw a keffiyeh around their neck. Quisling Jews have joined the jackals. Suburban communities – the latest being Teaneck, NJ –are subjected to neo-Hamas demonstrations. Major American highways and train stations are shut down. Campaigners have mobilized a worldwide – from the River to the Sea – intifada campaign to destroy the Zionist enterprise. 

Hamas has already exploited the deaths of the seven innocent aid workers to further its nefarious goals. And Western politicians and legacy media can be expected to jump on the Hamas pick-up truck.

So, yes, this Israeli is exasperated. I am saddled with Binyamin Netanyahu, who has ruined Israel’s brand. He fragmented the country to stay out of prison even before the war. His tally of domestic and international blunders is more than any politician has a right to accrue.

He never had the guts to tell Israelis that “bringing the hostages home” can’t be the goal of the war, for the only way to guarantee the safety of our captives is by opening the floodgates of hell – of releasing killers who make Yahya Sinwar seem like an obnoxious boy scout. That there was no way to cut a deal with Hamas without losing to Hamas.

Yet, in all his duplicity, Netanyahu has held firm in this one thing. Yes, he has mismanaged the war to keep his cabinet together, so no "day after" plans for Gaza. But at least he is not repeating the mistake he made in the Gilad Schalit episode.

He has to go, but I am not joining the protests against him because the protests are a complete mishmash – against the draft-dodging Haredim and for early elections – but also a prisoner-for-hostage exchange.

How can the image of tens of thousands of Israelis protesting the government not give Hamas succor?

And by the way, the polls are now hinting that the Great Charlatan is recapturing some of his old luster  –  that Chuckie Schumer and other international bigwigs’ efforts to pressure Israelis to dump Bibi may be having the reverse effect.

See why I am frustrated?

Israel-Gaza War: Day 163 - Q&A

 

Before October 7, you participated in anti-Netanyahu protests over his judicial putsch, which intended to concentrate power in his own hands. Are you taking part in the renewed anti-government protests such as the one last night?

No.

Presently, there are two streams of protest. One calls for early elections intended to end Binyamin Netanyahu's government. The other is to pressure his government to concede to Hamas's demands for a hostage deal.

The two streams have melded into one.

And since I am against any hostage deal that releases busloads of terrorists, I will not demonstrate against the government. Moreover, I am not comfortable protesting in the streets against Netanyahu in wartime.

A core group of demonstrators has been trying to provoke the police by illegally blocking traffic. It is as if we are not at war, as if the police are not working long hours, as if we are not in Ramadan.

Protesters are being manipulated. Many have not thought out the consequences of a mass prisoner release. They don't know that today's Hamas leaders in Turkey, Qatar, and Gaza are primarily alumni of Israel's prisons whom Netanyahu or one of his predecessors released in previous hostage-taking deals.

As much as I want Netanyahu to leave the political stage, I will not lend a hand to strengthening the enemy in wartime. Besides, he can only be removed if elements in Likud are willing to take him down. However, he has largely purged his party of internal opponents. Yaov Gallant, the defense minister, is the only one who has openly challenged him. And Gallant is culpable for October 7 no less than Netanyahu since he – ultimately – did not quit after publicly warning that Netanyahu had undermined our deterrence with his judicial putsch. When push came to shove – Gallant caved.

Netanyahu could be dislodged if the Hardal messianic parties (of Ben Gvir and Smotsrich) and the non-Zionist Haredi ultra-Orthodox parties essential to his coalition pulled their support. These two camps could fall out over Haredi draft dodging. For now, they have no interest in bringing Netanyahu down.  

You voted for Yair Lapid in recent elections. How does his support for releasing terrorists from Israel's prisons in a hostage deal sit with you?

Badly. Lapid has been clear. He wants to trade some of the most notorious terrorists in Israeli prisons, many serving multiple life terms, for the hostages, living or dead. He says, "No deal will be an easy deal, but a deal that will bring the kidnapped home is worth the price…There is no victory without them returning. We can't move forward without them being home."

So, I would find it hard to back him when Yesh Atid runs next. I think the alpha and omega of victory is defanging Hamas and making sure it can't govern the Strip or take over the West Bank. We can't overcome the Hamas Idea because it is embedded in what it means to be Palestinian, but we can keep Hamas (and the other armed groups) from posing a military threat. And doing so would send an unmistakable signal to Hezbollah.

Western governments and the prestige media profess to support Israel's right of self-defense. On Day 163 of the October 7 War, do you believe them?

Leaders and editorialists have convinced themselves that Israel can supernaturally overcome Hamas and Islamic Jihad without harm to Palestinian non-combatants (who are the group's primary backers, cannon fodder, and human shields). Israel can somehow win, goes fabulist thinking, by declaring a unilateral ceasefire and pulling out of Gaza, by turning the Strip over to a PLO 2.0, and by enabling the creation of an armed sovereign Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank that a bridge or tunnel would link.

This is delusional. We need to be far more creative than a PLO 2.0. I favor a trusteeship for Palestine funded by the Gulf States. One that would build Palestinian political institutions and develop a new Palestinian political culture.  

I ask myself why the West and Big Media oppose Israeli defensive measures like building a buffer zone between Gaza and Israel. They oppose cutting off Rafiah from Egypt (the point where all the tunnels cross into the Sinai); they oppose, in short, anything that would actually secure Israel from further attack.

At best, they are lying to themselves.

Should Israel be doing a better job in humanitarian aid?

Israel is constantly held to a double standard not applied to other member states of the UN. Hamas is responsible for the people of Gaza, not Israel.

Yet, Israel continues to allow the flow of food and fuel to the Strip even though this undermines our effort for regime change in Gaza. We do this to abate enemy suffering. We know if the situation were reversed, they would starve those they had not butchered.

Hamas and other Gazan actors either hijack humanitarian deliveries or engineer them into confrontations with Israel. International aid intended for free distribution is being sold. Palestinian society has little history of self-help because that would undermine its culture of victimization. And since the UN is barred from permanently resettling Palestinian refugees even within Palestine, the Sisyphean cycle of aiding the Palestinians never ends.

I have little doubt that sea-borne aid from UNICEF will also wind up being sold or controlled by clans or Hamas.

The best way to help Gazans is to help Israel overcome Hamas so that food, fuel, and material can once again flow in from Israel as they did before October 7.

So, instead of conspiring with Iran behind the scenes and leaning on Israel, which the Biden administration has been doing in secret talks in Oman – it should be sending a clear message that the US supports Israel's efforts to defang Hamas.

Ideally, Jerusalem should have a plan in place for who runs Gaza after we leave. But that would be too much to expect from Netanyahu, who habitually kicks complex problems down the road.

Finally, what did you make of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's call on Netanyahu to resign? And his claim that the good Palestinians and good Israelis want peace but that Hamas and Bibi and the settlers are in the way.

I was chagrined that Schumer pretended he doesn't get that the Palestinians don't want a state alongside Israel. He is right that Netanyahu should go, but his intervention's impact will be counterproductive. It helps Netanyahu stay. Some settlers are fanatics, and some settlements are genuinely problematic but in the final analysis, the crux of the problem is Palestinian intransigence.

Isn't it curious that Schumer's call on Mahmud Abbas to resign got no attention? That's because everyone understood his critique of the Palestinians was just a cover for his attack on Netanyahu.

Why Schumer (who is unarguably a friend of Israel) played along with the psychological warfare orchestrated by the Biden WH is anyone's guess – perhaps fear that the Democrats will further hemorrhage Muslim, woke, and African American voters, constituencies that surveys show have an antipathy toward the Zionist enterprise. If the  Biden-Harris ticket loses to Trump, it will be because Joe Biden abandoned the border with Mexico, led from the left, and having failed to inspire confidence, did not have the courage to step aside, giving a moderate Democratic governor a chance to lead the party against Trump. 

Biden showed courage and decency in backing Israel at the start of the war, and Israelis are grateful for that. He was a profile in courage. He just did not have the stamina to go the distance.