We have now, through Aya’s good efforts, established a blog space on the website for me to use. It has been difficult, however, despite the model provided by my wife, to feel motivated to share my every passing thought. Why should people care about my pedestrian prattle? But as we prepare for our adventure in Harvard Yard, this strikes me as a perfect time to bite the bullet, and hopefully to use this vehicle to remain in touch during the no doubt cold months ahead. (Blizzard spared us this time, not so Boston).

David Edwin began this particular speculation. David sends me, among his several contacts, articles that he finds of interest, generally of Judaic import. Last week he sent notice that Seattle’s King County Metro Transit had accepted ads for their downtown buses, depicting forlorn kids amid destruction in Gaza, and the tagline: Israeli War Crimes: your tax dollars at work. Ugly. Untimely. Utterly preposterous. The ads were to be sponsored by the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign to mark the second anniversary (!) of the Gaza campaign. Given all that goes on in the world on a daily basis, that this should merit an anniversary only testifies to the active animus in which Israel and we are still held. For their part, KCMT justified their selling the ad space as a matter of free speech, whereby they only prohibit ads for “pornography, alcohol or tobacco.” David suggested that the ads should be banned as hate speech, a category at least as heinous as alcohol, and, indeed, in the event the Seattle Federation lobbied KCMT successfully, and the ads will not run, based on a provision in their charter to prohibit ads that might lead to violence. My question: What causes this sort of animus that goes so far beyond any grounding in reality?

This tidbit was followed closely by report of a Greek, Greek-Orthodox Bishop (that is he serves the Greek-Orthodox faith and is in Greece), Seraphim, Metropolitan of Piraeus, who apparently gave an interview to a European television station last week in which he offered the opinion that Hitler was part of a plot by the Zionists to drive Jews out of Europe, thus aiding the founding of the State of Israel. I and of itself, the statement was not the occasion for the spread of this particular piece of news. Rather it was his response, on line, to objections to his interview. He wrote (translated from Greek, as reported in the NYT): “The things I said during my television appearance… are strictly my personal views… which I have repeatedly expressed… I respect, revere and love the Jewish people… My public vehement opposition against International Zionism refers to the organ that is the successor to the “Sanhedrin” which altered the faith of the Patriarchs… into Satanism, and always strives vigorously toward an economic empire set up throughout the world.” My question again: What causes this sort of animus?

But to be fair, animus is not all of one side. Several months ago, though for some reason it was only recently reported, the government appointed rabbi in Tsfat in Israel circulated a letter, and sought and got other signatories including many official representatives of the state funded Rabbinate and major Israeli ultra-Orthodox authorities, advocating the refusal by Jews to rent or sell homes and apartments to non-Jews (with the focus clearly being the Israeli Arabs who are a large demographic factor in the Galilee), and going on to couch this in the form of a rabbinic prohibition, complete with the provision that "The neighbors and acquaintances [of a Jew who sells or rents to a gentile] must distance themselves from the Jew, refrain from doing business with him, deny him the right to read from the Torah, and similarly [ostracize] him until he goes back on this harmful deed." This is but one more affront sealing the eventual collapse of the rabbinate in Israel that proves itself time and again to be chauvinist and self-aggrandizing, and unaware or unconcerned with any ethical standard or even with Israel’s welfare. 

[The following bracketed paragraph is a short halakhic review and may be skipped by those who are not interested therein.

This was not, I regret to say, a position without substantial textual grounding, but it was wrong-headed nonetheless. Deuteronomy 7:1-2 reads: “When the Lord Your God brings you to the land that you are to invade and occupy and He dislodges…seven nations much larger than you… you must doom them to destruction, grant them no terms and give them no quarter.” The translation is clearly idiomatic (give them no quarter). That term is “lo t’chonem.” The more literal Aramaic suggests, “show them no mercy.” But the Talmud interprets broadly, based on a slightly different root, “give them no parking in the land.” That is the basis for this ruling, despite the fact that the Shulchan Arukh (Yoreh Deah 151:8) rules based on this verse only that one may not sell homes in the land of Israel to non-Jews but that one may rent to them. Still, this position is not the legally dominant one. As you will have noted, the verse is very specifically about the seven nations that Israel supplanted in the days of Joshua, and with regard to the mitzvah of driving out the seven nations it is a settled legal matter that the seven nations no longer exist and mitzvot that relate to them are no longer functional. Thus when Mayer Kahane tried, in the eighties, to claim the Torah’s mantle for his program to drive out the Palestinians, he was broadly rebuked. Yet others would neutralize this passage by understanding that it deals only with idolators, because of the fear that their foreign worship will taint Israel’s faith in God, and does not apply to Muslims and Christians who, again as a settled matter, are not considered idolators. Absent either of those settled precedents, it would still be the case that the State of Israel is bound by a democratic constitution which bars such discrimination, and the principle “dina d’malkhuta dina” that the law of the land is the law is itself a settled halakhic principle (though this would require adjudicating the not-trivial question of whether this was a divine command that overrides the authority of the state).]  

Thankfully, in our community there was an immediate and credible response offered by R. David Golinkin, President of the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem (you can find it at   www.schechter.edu the current “responsa in a moment.”). More importantly, a member of the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate was moved to respond -- R. Yehudah Gilad, the rabbi of Kibbutz Lavi and head of Yeshivat Maaleh Gilboa in the Galilee. Because it is so important that push back come from within that community, and as a sign of hope, I cite his letter in full.

“Ani Mitbayeish” [I am ashamed] by Rav Yehuda Gilad

There have been a few rare instances in my life where I have felt ashamed to be a believing Jew committed to Halakhah, and to bear the title Rabbi. Seeing the recent rabbinic ruling that categorically prohibits selling or renting a home to a non-Jew in the land of Israel was one of these moments. This ruling is a perversion of halakhah and ethically repugnant.  Moreover, it is a public desecration of God’s name.
 
Anyone even remotely familiar with the world of Halakhah knows that it is possible to quote Biblical verses, Talmudic statements and Halakhic precedents to support almost any position. There is in the vast treasure of our Torah, statements of law and lore that give expression to diverse and contradictory trends of thought for different times and changing circumstances. So, too, in relation to Gentiles, on the one hand, we find statements that reflect the mainstream of Jewish tradition such as "beloved is all mankind, created in the Divine image" and the like.  On the other hand, the statement, “kill even the best of the Gentiles” (which apparently was uttered in extreme circumstances when we were under the brutal reign of the Romans) appears in our sources. The wisdom of the rabbis and leaders of every generation was to issue Halakhic rulings that were appropriate to their time and place in a manner that did justice to the tradition while simultaneously sanctifying God’s name.
 
Regarding the sale and renting of homes in Israel to non-Jews, outstanding rabbis of recent generations, led by Rabbi Herzog, first Chief Rabbi of Israel, ruled that the prohibition "you shall not show them favor" (Deut. 7:2) written in the Torah and part of the cannon of Halakhah, is not relevant to the reality of a Jewish democratic state -- a member of the family of nations, which promised before the entire world to grant equality to its citizens regardless of religion, race or sex. As a resident of the Galilee, I cannot ignore a real problem that exists in certain places and requires solutions on a national level. Maintaining the Jewish character of Israel is a real concern, especially in light of internal and external voices questioning our right to a Jewish national home. However, we should remember the country's Jewish character is measured first and foremost through moral parameters. Dozens of times the Torah abjures us to love the stranger. "You shall love the stranger because you were strangers in Egypt." As a people who suffered over the generations discrimination and racism, we bear a responsibility to be a paragon of decency to the minorities that live among us. This is the way of Torah and Halakhah from time immemorial.

 

As the Rambam writes in another context: "the Torah’s laws are not to bring revenge into the world, rather they are to bring mercy and grace and peace into the world." Anyone for whom the Torah of Israel is dear, must rise up and protest against this perverse ruling. For just these types of circumstances it was said, "where there is a desecration of God, one pays no honor to the Rabbis."
 

Hurray for such push back against this all-too prevalent spirit of animus. It is worthwhile to look to our own souls, too, in our efforts to stamp it out.

Avram