The Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran might be a military success but the deteriorating plight of the Palestinians may well produce more future conflict
Thank you, Rabbi for this thoughtful and "forward looking" sermon. And thank you Bernie for publishing it here.
Nevertheless I remain pessimistic about the entire situation. It is not my place to tell either community what to do.
I don't know how a nation can handle the traumatic anxiety that drives them to extreme and even irrational security measures.
I don't know how a community handles the inter-generational traumatic grief and self harm to which they seem addicted. The "Masada Myth" vs. the Nakba.
The healing of trauma and the shame that powerlessness can cause is difficult to accomplish in individuals--- impossible for nations and communities. Overweening pride and self harm are both strategies to cope with shame.
Thank you for the text Rabbi Holzman. It is very important with self-reflection and analysis. I wish more people in both Israel and other parts of the region were able to think as you.
Rabbi Holzman, thank you for your essay. That said, I was struck—and frankly dismayed—by a glaring absence in your sermon: a clear and direct acknowledgment of the massive Palestinian suffering caused by this war. You speak movingly about Israeli soldiers and their bravery, about Birthright camp trips being cancelled and rescheduled, and even about “the ingenuity and courage of the soldiers in the Jewish state.” But where is the recognition of the horror imposed upon Palestinians by these soldiers?
Tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them children, have been killed, entire neighborhoods erased, families decimated. That this goes unnamed in a religious reflection about a never ending war that is approaching two years is troubling. As someone who writes from a moral and spiritual position, surely you must see the dissonance in writing thousands of words without directly acknowledging the wilful, large-scale killing of civilians by a state you ask God to bless “in every moment, in every hour.”
What deepens this moral gap is the celebratory tone in parts of your reflection: the pride in the IDF, the sense of victory and resilience, the readiness to move towards “the future” while the ashes of Gaza still smolder. It comes across as a victory lap for a war well-fought.
Importantly, the plight of the Palestinians is framed as a pragmatic dilemma, not a spiritual imperative. That framing stands in stark contrast to how the rest of the world is increasingly seeing this war: not as a complex tragedy with “both sides” at fault, but as a one-sided campaign of destruction.
This is a fair critique and follows the less polite comment by Mohit Satyanand. What you suggest is a lament, a form with deep theological roots. There is so much to lament; however, if you start pulling that thread you end up in a tit-for-tat that stretches into the Ottoman Empire. That is the point of the Hamas/Netanyahu (unspoken) conspiracy. Keep ever more horror going to keep people traumatized and make brute force (i.e. Israel) the perpetual winner for Jews and the courageous martyr (i.e. Hamas) the perpetual hero for Palestinians.
This sermon was an introduction to our regular prayer for peace. It was entirely forward facing. Not a lament sermon. Yes I could have relayed the horrific consequences of that violence, but it would have distracted from the message looking ahead and triggered a bunch of "What about?" responses (see above). I just wanted to shout "Enough Victory; Enough Martyrdom!" Instead I asked "What about Peace?" I'm sure the sermon could have been clearer on that point.
In this moment I sense a return to a familiar emotional dynamic. For a century Jews have celebrated and Palestinians have ignored Israel's repeated tactical successes, while both sides have villianized the other. That is just fact.
This sermon was a warning to Jews not to let celebration of victory obscure the priority of peace (which I'll define as preventing the next round of suffering). This sermon speaks to the deeply ingrained and justified pride Jews feel at having the ability to fight and deter those who wish us harm (and say so clearly). This sermon seeks to distinguish a legitimate military victory from a legitimate strategy for peace.
Although it is not my place or job to preach to Palestinians, I could write a semon warning Palestinians not to let grievance obscure the priority of preventing the next round of suffering. That sermon would speak to the deeply ingrained and justified anger and resentment Palestinians feel for lost land, lives, families. But that sermon would need to distinguish a legitimate grievance from a legitimate strategy for peace (btw, most Jews wonder if Palestinians do indeed want peace--see the comments calling me naive--or just exile of Jews).
It's two sides of the same sermon. The goal is not to justify Jewish pride or Palestinian grief and rage, rather to get both sides to think about and pray for a different future.
(A small correction: the words you re-quoted precede the Jewish state by centuries, it's a prayer for the people of Israel, not the state. I was questioning precisely how we as a people can pray for peace when the state we formed and need is so fundamentally dependent on violence.)
Allow me to also point out Yeetus and Mohit that a litany of Israel's very real atrocities would also require a recounting of Hamas' atrocities (children and babies were also slaughtered on Oct 7). Michael omitted those too for the reason he notes, he was trying to abstract from the horrors that have already unfolded and look forward. But this was a powerful statement that really didn't pull any punches: "The Bibi political machine will do everything it can to stoke acts of Palestinian violence as a way to justify the oppression. Land will continue being stolen. Roving Jewish mobs will continue their pogroms in the West Bank, once a source of outrage, now common. And the Palestinians will comply by lending support to their own extremists, even when alternatives might exist."
Israel must be a refuge for Jews (returning from Exile), as a pluralist, liberal democracy (where "self determination" is recognized as an INDIVIDUAL right) -- not as a "Jewish State." Meanwhile, the (unacceptable) raison d'etre for "Palestine" has always been "Jews not welcome here" (since anti-Jewish riots in the 1920s, long before any "Nakba").
Segregation (i.e., partition) is no "solution"; it's merely a means of perpetuating (& entrenching) the problem. This is a civil war, from the river to the sea -- and Israel needs a Lincoln.
Nationalism is a problem regardless of the prefix. Even civic nationalists limit their solidarity and loyalty to nations since they are not willing or interested in identifying as global citizens for the world and humanity in general. I would say that Israel needs more than Lincoln, it needs people as Einstein.
"Both Machine-Chian and Holzman’s essays are in keeping with The UnPopulist’s bedrock belief that the polarization and conflict that marks our times will subside when each side stops pointing fingers—and guns—at the other, and turns to minding its own."
An Iranian surgeon with whom I occasionally worked once sardonically commented "God forgives. Persians never forget." While it was a thinly veiled threat, it also was an astute observation. People, once offended, never forget. Some Serbian nationalists still bitterly recall The Field of Blackbirds. That was the battle between Serbs and the Ottomans which occurred in 1389. There are other even older conflicts which live on today as festering wounds. Humanity seems to keep repeating its inhumane past. Doomed to repeating history, we never seem to learn.
For a so-called man of religion to write a thousand words without once mentioning the wilful slaughter of thousands of Palestinian babies by his co-religionists is an abomination.
This is a partisan tract, by a man for whom finding co-existence with the Palestinians is a pragmatic task, rather than a spiritual one, of asking the Jews of Israel to eschew the blood-lust which now characterizes the organs of their state.
There appears to be no one in the region seriously committed to peace, including Israel. I will always consider myself a Zionist and I will never forget or forgive Hamas’s atrocities on Oct 7. But the slaughter and torture unleashed on the Palestinians by the Israeli military — at the behest the state’s reprehensible far-right leaders — have possibly broken my connection to Israeli society as I know it. I want no part in Israel’s war crimes. This war has long since abandoned its original, stated goals of self-defense and hostage rescue.
The thing is that one can support Israel as a country even without Zionism. Israel is a political reality but it can be developed without Zionism. Instead, it can be improved as through universal values and regional integration
Both things you mentioned — universal values and regional integration — are compatible with Zionism. It would be unimaginative and narrow-minded for us to insist otherwise.
I am not sure what you mean by compatible? Nationalism is also about having a special loyalty to a nation, including when it comes to values, while universal values are about having the same values for all humans and the planet in general.
That is why Zionism or any other nationalism cannot create a global level of solidarity, unity, and empathy. For the Middle East to integrate, it would mean that everyone needs to abandon nationalism in favor of universal principles. Which of course it is easier said than done.
One side can't make peace on its own. It takes both sides to do that. As Golda Meir was supposed to have said, We'll have peace when the Palestinians love their children more than they hate ours.
That’s a psycho quote. The implication is that Israelis are forced to kill Palestinian children, because of Palestinian resistance to the Israeli project. But no one is forced to do anything, and Israel isn’t forced to kill Palestinian children or adults.
Iran and its proxies, including Hamas, condemn the “Palestinians” to all the travails that have plagued them since 1948. They are responsible for all the pain, suffering, and death on both sides of the conflict.
Thank you, Rabbi for this thoughtful and "forward looking" sermon. And thank you Bernie for publishing it here.
Nevertheless I remain pessimistic about the entire situation. It is not my place to tell either community what to do.
I don't know how a nation can handle the traumatic anxiety that drives them to extreme and even irrational security measures.
I don't know how a community handles the inter-generational traumatic grief and self harm to which they seem addicted. The "Masada Myth" vs. the Nakba.
The healing of trauma and the shame that powerlessness can cause is difficult to accomplish in individuals--- impossible for nations and communities. Overweening pride and self harm are both strategies to cope with shame.
Are you also active in Rabbis for Human Rights?
Thank you for the text Rabbi Holzman. It is very important with self-reflection and analysis. I wish more people in both Israel and other parts of the region were able to think as you.
I recommend you this text for inspiration and thoughts: https://www.mkgandhi.org/voiceoftruth/unityofallreligions.php
Rabbi Holzman, thank you for your essay. That said, I was struck—and frankly dismayed—by a glaring absence in your sermon: a clear and direct acknowledgment of the massive Palestinian suffering caused by this war. You speak movingly about Israeli soldiers and their bravery, about Birthright camp trips being cancelled and rescheduled, and even about “the ingenuity and courage of the soldiers in the Jewish state.” But where is the recognition of the horror imposed upon Palestinians by these soldiers?
Tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them children, have been killed, entire neighborhoods erased, families decimated. That this goes unnamed in a religious reflection about a never ending war that is approaching two years is troubling. As someone who writes from a moral and spiritual position, surely you must see the dissonance in writing thousands of words without directly acknowledging the wilful, large-scale killing of civilians by a state you ask God to bless “in every moment, in every hour.”
What deepens this moral gap is the celebratory tone in parts of your reflection: the pride in the IDF, the sense of victory and resilience, the readiness to move towards “the future” while the ashes of Gaza still smolder. It comes across as a victory lap for a war well-fought.
Importantly, the plight of the Palestinians is framed as a pragmatic dilemma, not a spiritual imperative. That framing stands in stark contrast to how the rest of the world is increasingly seeing this war: not as a complex tragedy with “both sides” at fault, but as a one-sided campaign of destruction.
This is a fair critique and follows the less polite comment by Mohit Satyanand. What you suggest is a lament, a form with deep theological roots. There is so much to lament; however, if you start pulling that thread you end up in a tit-for-tat that stretches into the Ottoman Empire. That is the point of the Hamas/Netanyahu (unspoken) conspiracy. Keep ever more horror going to keep people traumatized and make brute force (i.e. Israel) the perpetual winner for Jews and the courageous martyr (i.e. Hamas) the perpetual hero for Palestinians.
This sermon was an introduction to our regular prayer for peace. It was entirely forward facing. Not a lament sermon. Yes I could have relayed the horrific consequences of that violence, but it would have distracted from the message looking ahead and triggered a bunch of "What about?" responses (see above). I just wanted to shout "Enough Victory; Enough Martyrdom!" Instead I asked "What about Peace?" I'm sure the sermon could have been clearer on that point.
In this moment I sense a return to a familiar emotional dynamic. For a century Jews have celebrated and Palestinians have ignored Israel's repeated tactical successes, while both sides have villianized the other. That is just fact.
This sermon was a warning to Jews not to let celebration of victory obscure the priority of peace (which I'll define as preventing the next round of suffering). This sermon speaks to the deeply ingrained and justified pride Jews feel at having the ability to fight and deter those who wish us harm (and say so clearly). This sermon seeks to distinguish a legitimate military victory from a legitimate strategy for peace.
Although it is not my place or job to preach to Palestinians, I could write a semon warning Palestinians not to let grievance obscure the priority of preventing the next round of suffering. That sermon would speak to the deeply ingrained and justified anger and resentment Palestinians feel for lost land, lives, families. But that sermon would need to distinguish a legitimate grievance from a legitimate strategy for peace (btw, most Jews wonder if Palestinians do indeed want peace--see the comments calling me naive--or just exile of Jews).
It's two sides of the same sermon. The goal is not to justify Jewish pride or Palestinian grief and rage, rather to get both sides to think about and pray for a different future.
(A small correction: the words you re-quoted precede the Jewish state by centuries, it's a prayer for the people of Israel, not the state. I was questioning precisely how we as a people can pray for peace when the state we formed and need is so fundamentally dependent on violence.)
Allow me to also point out Yeetus and Mohit that a litany of Israel's very real atrocities would also require a recounting of Hamas' atrocities (children and babies were also slaughtered on Oct 7). Michael omitted those too for the reason he notes, he was trying to abstract from the horrors that have already unfolded and look forward. But this was a powerful statement that really didn't pull any punches: "The Bibi political machine will do everything it can to stoke acts of Palestinian violence as a way to justify the oppression. Land will continue being stolen. Roving Jewish mobs will continue their pogroms in the West Bank, once a source of outrage, now common. And the Palestinians will comply by lending support to their own extremists, even when alternatives might exist."
The problem is ethno-nationalism, on both sides!
Israel must be a refuge for Jews (returning from Exile), as a pluralist, liberal democracy (where "self determination" is recognized as an INDIVIDUAL right) -- not as a "Jewish State." Meanwhile, the (unacceptable) raison d'etre for "Palestine" has always been "Jews not welcome here" (since anti-Jewish riots in the 1920s, long before any "Nakba").
Segregation (i.e., partition) is no "solution"; it's merely a means of perpetuating (& entrenching) the problem. This is a civil war, from the river to the sea -- and Israel needs a Lincoln.
Nationalism is a problem regardless of the prefix. Even civic nationalists limit their solidarity and loyalty to nations since they are not willing or interested in identifying as global citizens for the world and humanity in general. I would say that Israel needs more than Lincoln, it needs people as Einstein.
"Both Machine-Chian and Holzman’s essays are in keeping with The UnPopulist’s bedrock belief that the polarization and conflict that marks our times will subside when each side stops pointing fingers—and guns—at the other, and turns to minding its own."
Nice thought but profoundly naive.
An Iranian surgeon with whom I occasionally worked once sardonically commented "God forgives. Persians never forget." While it was a thinly veiled threat, it also was an astute observation. People, once offended, never forget. Some Serbian nationalists still bitterly recall The Field of Blackbirds. That was the battle between Serbs and the Ottomans which occurred in 1389. There are other even older conflicts which live on today as festering wounds. Humanity seems to keep repeating its inhumane past. Doomed to repeating history, we never seem to learn.
It is less about repeating history but more about repeating human stupidity. I recommend the book "Open" by Johan Norberg regarding history of civilisations and human behaviour https://www.opulens.se/global/globalisation-is-dead-long-live-the-globalisation/
Interesting. Thanks.
For a so-called man of religion to write a thousand words without once mentioning the wilful slaughter of thousands of Palestinian babies by his co-religionists is an abomination.
This is a partisan tract, by a man for whom finding co-existence with the Palestinians is a pragmatic task, rather than a spiritual one, of asking the Jews of Israel to eschew the blood-lust which now characterizes the organs of their state.
There appears to be no one in the region seriously committed to peace, including Israel. I will always consider myself a Zionist and I will never forget or forgive Hamas’s atrocities on Oct 7. But the slaughter and torture unleashed on the Palestinians by the Israeli military — at the behest the state’s reprehensible far-right leaders — have possibly broken my connection to Israeli society as I know it. I want no part in Israel’s war crimes. This war has long since abandoned its original, stated goals of self-defense and hostage rescue.
The thing is that one can support Israel as a country even without Zionism. Israel is a political reality but it can be developed without Zionism. Instead, it can be improved as through universal values and regional integration
Both things you mentioned — universal values and regional integration — are compatible with Zionism. It would be unimaginative and narrow-minded for us to insist otherwise.
I am not sure what you mean by compatible? Nationalism is also about having a special loyalty to a nation, including when it comes to values, while universal values are about having the same values for all humans and the planet in general.
That is why Zionism or any other nationalism cannot create a global level of solidarity, unity, and empathy. For the Middle East to integrate, it would mean that everyone needs to abandon nationalism in favor of universal principles. Which of course it is easier said than done.
I have a text about the difference between nationalism and patriotism in universal sense, even regarding civic nationalism vs civic patriotism . https://glibe.substack.com/p/liberalism-nationalism-europe-reflections
Jews will never know true peace. It’s a trap to think making a deal with “Palestinians” will ever pacify them.
What do you mean?
I think it’s fairly self explanatory.
Que?
Not as long as the parties of God are in control of both sides of the conflict.
One side can't make peace on its own. It takes both sides to do that. As Golda Meir was supposed to have said, We'll have peace when the Palestinians love their children more than they hate ours.
Not both sides but all sides. There are different sides within Israel and Palestine
That’s a psycho quote. The implication is that Israelis are forced to kill Palestinian children, because of Palestinian resistance to the Israeli project. But no one is forced to do anything, and Israel isn’t forced to kill Palestinian children or adults.
Iran and its proxies, including Hamas, condemn the “Palestinians” to all the travails that have plagued them since 1948. They are responsible for all the pain, suffering, and death on both sides of the conflict.