Rabbi Portnoy on Standing With Israel

My son in Tel Aviv has been targeted by missiles this week, so it's hard to be objective. Nor am I ever really objective about Israel. Ever since my first year of study there (1971-1972), and certainly after my dear friend, Shmuel Levi, was killed on the Golan in the 1973 Yom Kippur war, it's been very personal. I am very protective of the homeland of the Jewish people, and I resist all attempts to deligitimize the right of Jews to live there in peace and security.

But I don't live there, even though a piece of my heart always has, and now a member of my family actually does. I never make political pronouncements about what Israel should or shouldn't do, whether governed by Labor or Likud. I do not directly live with the consequences, and therefore I do not decide on the details. I am often equally aggravated by the self-righteousness of American Jews on the right and the left who know what needs to be done, and when and by whom. And then they return to the comforts of their homes in Chevy Chase or elsewhere, and complain that they haven't been listened to.

So I've been watching the news obsessively (mostly in Hebrew), and hoping that the news will get better, although I'm unsure what "good news" would be. No peace is simple (as much as we yearn for it), and every political decision has consequences. I am grateful for the "Kippat HaBarzel" ("the Iron Dome", Israel's anti-missile defense system, more literally translated as the "Iron Kippah") and our American government's support of it. I do not envy Israel's political leaders for the decisions they have to make.

According to polls, 90% of Israeli citizens support the current action in Gaza. Many fewer support a ground expansion of the "Mivtza Amud Anan" (which, by the way, does not mean "Pillar of Defense", but rather "Pillar of cloud", referring to the presence of God during the Israelites' wandering in the wilderness after the Exodus). I am with them, but they will be the ones who decide.

So, as our tradition teaches us, pray for the peace of Jerusalem....and Tel Aviv...and Sderot...and Ofakim...and Ashdod....and....all the inhabitants of the land.

Rabbi Mindy Avra Portnoy