Rabbi dares to mention Israel’s ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and donor makes her eat her words
I have high hopes for changing attitudes on Israel in the Jewish community, but this is a story about how reactionary the organized Jewish community still is.
During the Gaza attack last month, the rabbi at a liberal D.C. synagogue gave a sermon in which she expressed love and solidarity for Israel under rocket fire, but also said that Israel had not lived up to our American expectations, because it “categorically dismisses, discriminates, ethnically cleanses” Palestinians.
There was an uproar over her comments for allegedly fostering “antisemitism” by giving antisemites “ammunition,” the Jewish Journal reports. A wealthy board member resigned from the synagogue board; and the rabbi has eaten her words in the most humiliating manner.
Rabbi Shira Stutman, 48, is a dedicated Zionist, who is on J Street’s rabbinic boardand has a national following. On May 14, she gave a sermon to the Sixth and I Synagogue (at minute 31 or so) and spoke with anguish about the “pain” and “loss” the Jewish community is feeling over the Gaza attack.
I have felt this week a sense of ambiguous loss when it comes to Israel– a sense of something that has ruptured and shifted– and I don’t know what to do. This country that I was brought up to believe, that I thought could be different, has not lived up to my expectations to say the very least, my American expectations. So who knows if my expectations are fair. I don’t live there, I live here. But I’m the one who’s feeling the feelings. Maybe you too. This country that I love that I yearn to be in. Many of you in this room we have been in Israel together… This is a country that I love with every — I don’t know– so much of my being.
It’s now also a country in which the government… They’ve had four [elections], and the truth is, the will of the people and many people on the ground is a will that categorically dismisses, discriminates, ethnically cleanses and at its most base, cares little for the basic human rights of millions of people that live under its administration.
Then there’s the loss of my own safety as a Jew. I was brought up to think that we would be safe in Israel. That would be the one place that when the Nazis come again…. not if but when the Nazis come again you’ll be able to go to Israel. Israel is a place which is getting showered indiscriminately, terrorized, day after day after day, and even when the rockets are not falling there is the fear of them falling –and please, I am not interested in hearing from any of you who have never lived under that terror or that fear. It’s something that I would guess most of the people in this room cannot understand, and I would ask us to refrain before we judge too harshly.
Stutman concluded that she no longer feels “claimed” by Israel but she refuses “to give up on the dream of living as a free people in our land” or to give “up on the dream of Palestinian liberation.”
And she said she could trust her Jewish congregation to discuss the subject, because they also feel unmoored from Israel but have love for Israel.
You are an extraordinary group of human groups who are willing to take the risks and sit in a place of curiosity and continue to grow and lead with love. You have a lot to teach the rest of the Jewish world here in America and around the world as well about what it really means to be leaders.
Stutman may have overestimated her congregation. The Jewish Journal reports that despite the adoring words for Israel, the s— hit the fan.
“The sermon, which was streamed live on the synagogue’s Facebook page, immediately drew the ire of some in its virtual audience, who accused the rabbi of disseminating ‘the most despicable untruth’ that would ‘provoke anti-Semites’ and ‘gives them ammunition against Jews, not just in Washington DC, but everywhere.’
The comments on the Sixth and I Facebook include many people thanking Stutman and giving her big hearts. But they also include several angry, vicious responses reminding American Jews of their responsibility to stand up for Israel.
“I am so disappointed in your words” “[D]id I actually hear a Rabbi state that Israel was ethnically cleansing, when there are 5 times as many Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank than when Israel won the territories after being attacked from them?… Does the Sixth and I board and executive director know this vile is spewed from its pulpit?” “Rabbi is a Putz, Shmuck, Kuni leml [a simpleton] What a disgrace.” “As Israelis are running scared and are afraid to live in their homeland…. Now is the time to stand shoulder to shoulder with our Jewish brothers and sisters in the land of Israel. So that in her time of need, our Israeli brothers and sisters don’t feel like they’re on an island by themselves. But that we, in America, have their back.”
That reference to the board was not inconsequential. The Jewish Journal reports:
“Simone Friedman, Head of Philanthropy and Impact Investment at EJF Philanthropies, resigned her position on the synagogue’s Board of Directors after the organization refused to condemn Stutman’s allegations. ‘I value bringing people together. I don’t support speech that inflames and exacerbates tensions within and outside of the Jewish community. My decision to leave Sixth & I’s Board is congruent with my values given their refusal to condemn inflammatory speech from their pulpit which could incite hatred and violence against Jews,’ Friedman told the Jewish Journal.”
Simone Friedman is an official of a family foundation created with the fortune of Emanuel Friedman, a Washington area investor. The foundation is PEP, progressive except for Palestine. It supports classic liberal programs — to “eradicate the racial wealth gap,” to counter climate change and improve animal welfare and protect wildlife. The foundation also supports Jewish religious organizations in the U.S., including many Zionist groups. And it supports both the Jewish Journal and Sixth and I synagogue.
Shira Stutman issued a statement to the Jewish Journal in late May, regretting her comment.
In a sermon to my community last week, I used the term ‘ethnic cleansing,’ by which I meant the forced removal of one ethnic or religious group from their homes in exchange for members of another ethnic or religious group. I am sorry I used that term, rather than just saying exactly what I think: in East Jerusalem, Palestinians are being forced from their homes so as to settle Israeli Jews in the area. Because ‘ethnic cleansing’ is a phrase that can be understood in many ways, using the term shuts down conversations rather than encouraging them.
In that statement, Stutman committed herself to the “Zionist dream.”
“I am a Zionist who believes that the Jews have a right to live in their ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel. I also believe that the Israeli occupation is not only intolerable for Palestinians but also, ultimately, unsustainable for Israelis as well…
Ethnic cleansing is the term that many use to describe Israel’s explicit policy of getting as much land as it can with as few Palestinians on it, and “Judaizing” areas with many Palestinians, such as the Galilee and Area C in the West Bank. During the Nakba when Israel was established, 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their cities and villages, sometimes at gunpoint. After the war during Israel’s creation, these Palestinians were not allowed to return to their homes.
Contrast the rabbi’s retreat with the next generation of Jews. A statement by 100 or so rabbinical students says that American Jewry should be in “spiritual crisis” right now because of Israel’s “racist” violence and “apartheid.”
As American Jews, our institutions tell stories of Israel rooted in hope for what could be, but oblivious to what is. Our tzedakah [charity] money funds a story we wish were true, but perpetuates a reality that is untenable and dangerous. Our political advocacy too often puts forth a narrative of victimization, but supports violent suppression of human rights and enables apartheid in the Palestinian territories, and the threat of annexation.
Stutman didn’t use the word “apartheid.” Liberal Zionists eschew that term, even as Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem say Israel is practicing apartheid.
This is the culture war inside communal Jewish life today. The older generation still believes in Israel as a wondrous project for Jewish safety. It denies the Nakba, the central Palestinian experience of being forced from their land and not allowed to return: ethnically cleansed. PEP donors– liberal on every issue but not this one– control the Jewish leaders.
Even liberal Zionists experience huge pressure to support Israel because of a traditional deal: Israeli Jews are on the front lines exposed to danger, and comfortable American Jews hold the breathing tube of U.S. backing for Israel. This New York rabbi gave a sermon worshipful of his Israeli son’s gun. While Ruth Wisse tells young American Jews they must go into the army for Israel by fighting the information war here.
Young Jews have stopped believing the myth and taking the orders. IfNotNow speaks often of “apartheid” and denounces the Jewish leadership. These young people are brave and ostracized and the only hope for saving the secular Jewish community. (I say as someone who will die with the romance of Jewish civilization in my heart.)
Liberal Zionists are caught in the middle. Sixth and I is a synagogue with J Street connections. These liberal Zionists refuse to acknowledge apartheid, and they support continued military aid to Israel for its bombing of Palestinian apartment houses, but they also — genuinely– align themselves with the progressive “movement” in America. This straddle will surely become more and more difficult as the crisis deepens.
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