How striking the hypocrisy in this statement by the JCRC in this morning's Boston Globe.
The statement, issued by the Jewish Community Relations
Council on behalf of 17 organizations, said Jews have a religious obligation to
help “the stranger,” beginning with their experience in ancient times as slaves
in Egypt. “Why should you not hate the stranger? — asks the Torah,” the
statement said, quoting Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of Britain. “Because
you once stood where the stranger stands now.”
Well, of course, the definition of “stranger” for the JCRC
apparently does not include Palestinians or else the JCRC would not have filed the unconstitutional, undemocratic, un-American pro-apartheid anti-BDS bill that would punish anyone who supports a movement that DOES believe that
a core value of Judaism is set forth in Exodus 22:20-21 “You shall not wrong a
stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Be careful not to point this out to a lawyer supporter of
the JCRC. He or she would likely say that the Palestinians are not strangers.
We know them quite well and they are all terrorists..
More on the JCRC from my last Memorandum
JCRC IS ON THE WRONG SIDE OF JUDAISM
I read the following statements of the Jewish Community
Relations Council (JCRC) the organization responsible for pushing this proposed
law:
November 4 “Our commitment to justice and equality in our
nation remain steadfast”;
On the election of Donald Trump “We ..remain vigilant in
promoting our nation’s commitment to civil liberties, equality under the law,
and social justice, the mighty pillars on which our nation stands” and
Regarding the Trump nominee for Ambassador to Israel
“Whether President-Elect Trump supports a two-state solution, or believes that
an ambassador who does not share his commitment to same can still carry out
U.S. policy, is a matter of vital concern.”
O, Hypocrisy, where is thy sting?
Have I shared with you some of the other violations of the
core values of Judaism the JCRC condones when they file the unconstitutional,
undemocratic, un-American pro-apartheid anti-BDS bill?
VIOLATION OF CORE VALUE OF JUDAISM I
The Government of Israel, its military, its civil authority
and Jewish squatters have, for close to half a century, regularly violated not
only UN actions, international civil and human rights and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights but also many of the fundamental and core values of
Judaism:
Israel has violated one of the 10 Commandments, You Shall
Not Steal, by transferring Jewish Israelis into occupied territory, by stealing
the land of Palestinians in the West Bank, and by taking a myriad of actions
aimed at making life so miserable for Palestinians that they
VIOLATION OF CORE VALUE OF JUDAISM II
Israel has violated Exodus 22:20-21 - You shall not wrong a
stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” by
demolishing Palestinian homes and structures and by the building of the wall.
VIOLATION OF CORE VALUES OF JUDAISM III
Israel has violated Deuteronomy 20:19 “When you besiege a
city … you shall not destroy its (fruit) trees .. for you may eat from them,
and you shall not cut them down”.
VIOLATION OF CORE VALUE OF JUDAISM IV
Israel has violated Exodus 12:49 saying there shall be one
law for the citizen and for the stranger who dwells among you by meting out
justice unfairly and more harshly for Palestinians than for squatters, by often arbitrarily restricting movement for
Palestinians but not for squatters, by creating separate and unequal legal
systems including apartheid roads in the West Bank, by grossly unequal
distribution of water and also by killing those “suspected” but not charged
with crimes by assassination when capital punishment is banned in Israel.
VIOLATION OF CORE VALUE OF JUDAISM V
Israel has violated Micah.6:8 “He has told you, O man, Only
to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God” by
allowing the daily restrictions on movement and by allowing limited access to
water and electricity provided amply to Jewish settlements.
VIOLATION OF CORE VALUE OF JUDAISM VI
Israel has violated Isaiah 1:17,27 “Learn to do well – seek
justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow ..
Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and they that return of her with
righteousness” by arbitrarily arresting over the years thousands of
Palestinians and holding them in administrative detention often for more than a
year without being charged or brought to trial for any crime.
VIOLATION OF CORE VALUE OF JUDAISM VII
Israel has violated the basic definition of Judaism “What is
hateful unto you, do not do unto your neighbor” through its 48 year brutal
oppression and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza;
One might wonder what Jewish people who attend Yom Kippur
services at Temples and Synagogues think when they read this Haftarah called
Acharey Mos which includes the following from Ezekiel XXII, 3-8
“O city that sheddest blood in the midst of thee, that thy
time may come and that makest idols unto thyself to defile thee. …therefore have
I made thee a reproach unto the nations, and a mocking to all the
countries. Those that are near and those
that are far from thee, shall mock thee, thou defiled of name and full of
tumult. Behold the princes of Israel, every one according to his might, have
been in thee to shed blood. In thee have they made light of father and
mother; in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger;
in thee have they wronged the fatherless and the widow… thou hast greedily
gained of thy neighbors by oppression, and hast forgotten Me, saith the Lord
God… And I will scatter thee among the nations, and disperse thee through the
countries; and I will consume thy filthiness out of three. And thou shalt be
profaned in thyself in the sight of the nations and thou shalt know that I am
the Lord.”
VIOLATION OF THE FUNDAMENTAL VALUE OF JUDAISM
Taken together the illegal, immoral, demonizing,
dehumanizing, racist, humiliating actions of the Government of Israel and those
acting on its behalf can best be summarized as a gross violation of perhaps the
most fundamental value of Judaism
Deuteronomy 16:20 “Justice, Justice shall you pursue, that
thou may live and inherit the land which the Lord has given you.
Here are excerpts from the extensive footnoted material to
this section in Pentateuch & Haftorahs, edited by J.H. Hertz, The Soncino
Press, Second Edition, 1980:
Justice is not the only ethical quality in God and man, nor
is it the highest quality; but it is the bases for all the others. Where there
is no justice, no proper and practical appreciation of the human rights of
every human being as sons of the one and only God of righteousness – there we
have a negation of religion. The oppressor, the man who tramples on others, and
especially on those like the orphan and the stranger who are too weak to defend
themselves, is throughout Scripture held forth as the enemy of God and man.
Nor is justice limited to the relation between
individuals. It extends to the relation
between group and group, and it asserts the claims of the poor upon the rich,
of the helpless upon them who possess the means to help. And even as there is
social justice, prescribing the duties of class to class, so there is
international justice, which demands respect for the personality of each and
every national group, and proclaims that no people can of right be robbed of
its national life or territory, its language or spiritual heritage. The pure
administration of justice is thus one of the conditions of Israel’s existence
as a nation. Our teachers, from the first of them to the last, brand the
perversion of the course of justice as the most alarming sign of national
decay.
