A public “Rabbis Letter” has been issued, signed by 80 “Orthodox rabbis” from various walks of life, attacking aspects of the morality of Israel’s conduct of the war. I am not going to discuss the substance of their incredible defamation of the IDF and, essentially, my people. We Jews know all too well about the outright sickness of Jews whose obsession with left-wing non-Jewish values drives them to attack either Judaism or the Torah or the Jewish country or the freely democratically elected leadership of the Jewish country or some or all.
Just mull a few names that come immediately to mind, and ask yourself: Do any of these fit that description?
George Soros. Alex Soros. Bernie Sanders. Ben & Jerry. The Jews of Code Pink. Jewish Voice for Peace. Jerrold Nadler. Doug Emhoff. Chuck Schumer. Ehud Olmert. Ehud Barak. Ezra Klein. Peter Beinart. David Smith. Glenn Greenwald.
Where do these people come from? What happened in their childhoods with their parents? Were they mistreated by parents who had zero Jewish identification except for donating to Israel, so now they have grown up and it is “payback time,” hitting at the one Jewish thing their parents cared about? Or is it that they covet acceptance in non-Jewish society, want desperately to be treated like everyone else, and so go to lengths to show they are so much like everyone else that they even lead the charge to attacking Israel?
“See? Look at me. I am at the encampment, getting arrested, shouting ‘Free Palestine.’ Now can I join your fraternity or sorority, be invited to your party, be hired by your company? Now will you marry me? What more do I have to do to convince you that, far more than the issue of Israel, I have alienated myself from the Jewish people?”
“If I endorse Mamdani for New York mayor, will you get your associates to promise not to run against me in a primary? Will you allow me to be on the committee in Congress I covet? If I attack Netanyahu, will you allow me to attend your academic conference? To sing at your songfest? To publish my poetry in your journal? Name your price.”
We Jews are used to it. It is a tale as old as time, true as it can be, barely even friends, then the Jew bends, expectedly. Certain as the sun, rising in the east, tune as old as song, finding you can change. Beiruti and the Priest.
It is a sickness, a psychological sickness. It is not about left-wing versus right-wing per se. A sensible proud Jewish conservative easily can step back and say that the right-wing also bears its perils to Jewish survival: Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and others of their ilk are just as bad as Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ocasio, and Mamdani. By contrast, see the woke radical Jews who have broken. They could not bear the social isolation, the political risks to their careers. They had to buy a ticket to the ball by emerging as forceful critics of Israel. And that way they win their prizes, but at the price of their eternity.
If this exists among laity, why would there not be some outlier Jews who attack Israel while also studying for the title “rabbi”? Right now, the entire “denomination” of “Reconstructionist Judaism” is swamped in chaos with so many overtly anti-Zionist rabbis that the whole movement is capsizing. And Reform Judaism is in its own chaos when it comes to Israel. Every time a news item reports that “rabbis attack Israel,” you know the list will be enriched and fortified with Reform rabbis. You may even have friends who complain to you that they attend reform temples because of old friendships, but hate that their rabbis attack Israel every week from their pulpits. Even Reform rabbis who are not even Jewish can get a certificate ordaining them, a pulpit career position, and then join the fray to attack. Even “Conservative Judaism” rabbis, whole slews of them studying for ordination at their seminary. Disgusting.
Typically, Orthodox Judaism is a safe harbor, but a decade and more ago a fake called "Open Orthodoxy" came into being with its own seminaries, one to ordain cisgender male rabbis and one to ordain cisgender female rabbis. They have broken the barriers that Torah erected. They now ordain women rabbis, a forbidden act that mainstream normative Orthodoxy deems not open to debate. Every normative rabbinic and Orthodox Judaism organization has banned the fraud of “women Orthodox rabbis.” Every single one, even the more center-left Modern Orthodox like Rabbinical Council of America and OU, the Orthodox Union. The "Open Orthodox" ordain homosexuals and lesbians. Literally, lesbians living openly and notoriously in lesbian “marriages” get ordained by them. Same with homosexuals who get engaged on a stage in front of hundreds or thousands at a rock concert. They get ordained as rabbis.
I have warned many times that "Open Orthodoxy" is venomous. And it only gets worse. Now, with the UK, France, Canada, Ireland, and some 150 other countries around the world declaring they will “recognize” an independent Arab country in Judea and Samaria (btw — never gonna happen) and accusing Israel falsely of starving Gazans into famine as a matter of strategy and of perpetrating genocide as a national “hobby” and tactic, along come a small handful of pseudo “Orthodox Rabbis” to try crushing the international Jewish fortress around Israel by issuing their own disgusting, self-righteous, virtue-signaling attack on the morality of the Jewish state’s military efforts in protecting from another October 7 recurring, lecturing on a morality that aligns with the anti-Zionist narrative beamed down onto Israel from almost everywhere in the world except for the pro-Irael majority in America, Javier Milei’s Argentina, Kemi Badenoch in England, Pierre Poilievre in Canada, Viktor Orban in Hungary, and Geert Wilders in Holland..
One looks at the names of the signers of the Despicable Letter. Fully half of them, from the outset, are well known as standing outside the pale of normative Orthodoxy. Even if you are not an “insider” in these matters, just look at all the “women rabbis” signed among the 80 “Orthodox rabbis.” No debate there. And then ask yourself: “What kind of serious, bona fide Orthodox rabbi signs a ‘Rabbis’ Letter’ substantially dominated by co-signing women rabbis? And by rabbis who hire women rabbis as their assistant rabbis? And by rabbis who ordain publicly married lesbians and publicly engaged homosexuals?” The other objections and questions can continue, but do they have to? Isn’t that enough?
Some of the rabbis on that list have shared in deepest confidence that they are ashamed and humiliated to have been fooled into signing, having given their names because they were told that someone who once was a rabbinic counsellor at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary was on the list. They were fooled. They did not know his history: supported the Oslo Accords, supported the Disengagement from Gush Katif, pressured by Yeshiva University to resign from a controversial Bet Din (court of Jewish law). They did not know.
And tomorrow another day of attacks on Israel from home and abroad, from outside and from inside.
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