A group of more than 20 Maryland-based rabbis recently issued a statement condemning violence in the West Bank committed by Jewish settlers against Palestinians, as well as against Netanyahu government policies.
The July 21 statement comes in the wake of the killing of Sayfollah “Saif” Musallet, 20, a Florida-born Palestinian-American who was allegedly beaten to death on July 11 by settlers in the West Bank.
According to his family and the Palestinian Health Ministry, Musallet came from his hometown of Port Charlotte, Florida, to the town of al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya to visit relatives. Killed in the same attack was Musallet’s friend, Hussein Al-Shalabi, 23, a Palestinian.
The killings came as tensions among settlers, Palestinians and Israel Defense Forces in the West Bank have escalated in recent weeks.
Mike Huckabee, U.S. ambassador to Israel, has called on Israel to “aggressively investigate the murder” of Musallet.
In their statement, the local rabbis wrote, “For those of us who are life-long lovers of Israel, for those of us who are eternal believers in the dream of the Jewish people returning to our homeland, it is impossible to fathom and countenance the most recent pronouncements of the Netanyahu administration and the settler behavior on the West Bank. We are duty-bound to speak up. The dream of modern Israel, as professed in its Declaration of Independence, would ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or gender. The founders also imagined the reality of two peoples in two nations living in peace side by side. That is a vision many of us still hold today.
“Which is why, we, whose ancestors and relatives have known so much suffering, and who have been victim to the worst of humanity’s barbarisms, are astonished at hearing the unimaginable proposal coming from Yisrael Katz, Israel’s Defense Minister: that Israel will build ‘humanitarian cities’ in which Palestinians will be corralled and detained, unable to leave, except to emigrate to other countries. These cities will be created for the safety of the Palestinians, the Israeli administration argues. These cities will prevent the Palestinians from being harmed by Hamas, they argue. They will even be given Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. This rhetoric fools no one. Given the traumas the Jewish people have endured over the past century, it is impossible to imagine a Jewish state, and its Jewish leaders, ever suggesting such a thing.
“It is unclear what the objectives of this movement of people would be, except for the unacceptable. Israel dare not do that. It is time to end this war and find a way to peace. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis, reservists, military leaders are calling for the war to end. It is costing not only the unnecessary death of too many Palestinians, but the unnecessary death of Israel’s youth and the delay of the end of the nightmare of any hostages who might still, by some miracle, be alive.
“What Israel is doing is causing Jews all over the world to be less safe. We should not continually hear, day after day, of more people in Gaza being shot and killed as they make a pilgrimage for food and water. We should not continually hear of Israeli settlers destroying Palestinian homes and harassing West Bank Palestinians with impunity. That too must be stopped. This makes no one safer.
“A recent New York Times article confirmed what many of us here in the Diaspora as well as in Israel imagined, that the hostages could have returned home and this war could have ended months ago but for Netanyahu’s obsession to remain in power.”
The statement recognizes that Hamas, which perpetrated the Oct. 7th terrorist attacks, is “an enemy that must be contained. But it has been brought to its knees over these past 20 months, And yes, IDF has strategically reduced the threats from Hezbollah and from Iran. But there were windows of opportunity to stop the violence which Netanyahu failed to pursue for fear his fragile coalition would fall and he would no longer be able to defer the criminal proceedings against him.”
The letter concludes, “We who love Israel join with others who say this war must end now. The settler violence must stop and the guilty brought to trial. We dare not allow Netanyahu to destroy the dream we have waited two thousand years to realize, that of a homeland for the Jewish people that can serve as a light to the nations. Our strength lies in the purity of our aspirations and the rightness of our deeds.”
The signatories of the statement include Rabbi Melanie Aron, Rabbi Geoffrey Basik, Rabbi Donald Berlin, Rabbi Stephanie Bernstein, Rabbi Seth Bernstein, Rabbi Gustav Buchdahl, Rabbi Faith Cantor, Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin, Rabbi Tova Dodi, Rabbi Tyler Dratch, Rabbi Gordon Fuller, Rabbi Andy Gordon, Rabbi Susan Grossman, Rabbi Marc Gruber, Rabbi Floyd Herman, Rabbi Bruce Kahn, Rabbi Jack Luxemburg, Rabbi Fred Reiner, Rabbi Avram Israel Reisner, Rabbi Jacke Schroeder, Rabbi Gerry Serotta, Rabbi Ruth Smith, Rabbi Michael Hess Webber and Rabbi Naomi Zaslow.
Led by local Israel-American cellist Amit Peled, the Mount Vernon Virtuosi aims to inspire people beyond musical enjoyment.
A former college campus activist, Veksler will speak at Chizuk Amuno on June 8 at the Ruth and Jay Lenrow Visiting Scholar-in-Residence for Combating Antisemitism.
A lifelong Baltimorean, Judge Rosenberg served as a U.S. magistrate judge from 1973 to 1998.
A former resident of Baltimore and central Florida, Ritt was active in the Soviet Jewry movement of the 1970s and 1980s.