Divisions about Israel among London rabbis

A passionate argument has broken out between leading London Jews about whether it is right to voice public criticism of Israel during the present crisis. In the latest Jewish Chronicle Rabbi Dr Sidney Brichto writes of his "despair" over rabbis who detest the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and "who do not see that this is the time to keep their feelings to themselves".

Foremost among those who feel unable to stifle their dismay about Israeli government policy is Rabbi Dr David Goldberg, who in a recent sermon described Israel as "the last colonial power in the world", a "fact" which has caused "a crisis of conscience for many Jews" and has made their support for Israel "conditional".

This means, he warned, that during the present, "pivotal" crisis, some Jews will find "the gap between Israeli political actions and Jewish ethical teachings will no longer be bridgeable. They will say, 'The time has come to annul this pretend marriage between Jewish nationalism - Zionism - and the Jewish religion.' "

Rabbi Goldberg, senior rabbi at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St John's Wood, this week drove home his warning, telling the Evening Standard that relations between British Jewry and Israel are under increasing, though still often hidden, strain: "People are not willing to articulate it yet, but depending on how the Palestinian problem is resolved, that will determine the attitude of the diaspora Jew towards Israel, because however much we support Israel and support the notion of a Jewish state, dominating another people with no end in sight does not sit easily on a Jewish conscience.

"The ancient rabbis called the Jews merciful ones, children of the All-Merciful, and we've always gloried in that description, and I just hate to see what one liked to think were Jewish characteristics - social justice, concern for peace - become distorted by realpolitik of the most brutal and reactionary kind, which is what colonialism in the 21st century is."

The accusation that Israel is behaving in a "colonialist" way is the one that Rabbi Goldberg says has jarred most with his Jewish critics: "That they hated." But in a sign that British Jews are becoming more willing to accept criticism of Israel, he says the

attacks on him this time have been mild compared to the ferocious abuse and attempts to gag him when he challenged the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980s.

Rabbi Goldberg is entirely unrepentant about the charge of colonialism. He remembers "all hell breaking loose" in 1981 when he quoted a leaked Jewish Agency report which called for 50,000 settlers in the West Bank by the year 2000 - "yet in the year 2001 there's something like 250,000 settlers in the West Bank. If that is not colonialism! The awful thing now is that it's the settlers, the tail who are wagging the Israeli dog, when 100 [settler] families in Hebron take 10,000 soldiers to guard them."

Rabbi Goldberg is not the only one prepared to attack Israeli policy in public. He was among 20 rabbis and a long list of other British Jews, ranging from the playwright Arnold Wesker to Professor Hyam Maccoby, who in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center put their names to an advertisement in the Jewish Chronicle headed: "No to bloodshed, no to occupation; yes to negotiations, yes to peace." The text of this declaration, which warned that without a negotiated peace "we may all be drowned in a sea of mutual hostility", was identical to the "Peace now" call signed some months before by scores of eminent Israelis and Palestinians, including Israeli writer Amos Oz and Palestinian Dr Hanan Ashrawi.

Rabbi Brichto, former director of British Jewry ' s Liberal movement, said yesterday that he had no objection to the declaration's wording, but would certainly not put his name to something signed by Dr Ashrawi, whom he described as "a spokesman for the Intifada" and " two-faced".

The argument between London's Jews is the more intense for being in many instances an argument between friends drawn from the Liberal and Progressive tradition of British Jewry, most of whom would feel much more comfortable if Israel still had a Labour government which was at least purporting to be searching for peace (though Dr Goldberg says he would not have employed the last Labour Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, "to negotiate with my charlady", and points out that the West Bank settlements have grown even faster when Israel has had Labour governments).

Rabbi Brichto agrees that there is widespread disenchantment among British Jews with present Israeli policy: "There's a lot of criticism of Sharon. Sharon is not my favourite person either. But when a nation's at war and the publicity is so bad, [with] killing of children, I think the criticism is widespread, but the number of people who express it is still limited. There is a time when you have to close ranks."

Rabbi Brichto's essential objection to candid friends of Israel such as Rabbi Goldberg is that at a time of crisis they embolden people who want to destroy Israel: "The issue for me is that when leading Jews of distinction start criticising Sharon and the behaviour of the Israeli government as they are doing now, it gives the green light for those who are not friends of Israel to really go much further, and the example was when Gerald Kaufman wrote his anti-Sharon article. A.N. Wilson then says in the Evening Standard, 'Ah, you see, an ardent Zionist attacks Israel,' and then he concludes that Israel has no right to exist. And that's what's so frightening and that is why it is so irresponsible for Jews at this point in the history of Israel to enable this kind of attack against Israel to be unleashed."

Peter Sheldon, president of the United Synagogue, to which the largest proportion of Orthodox synagogues are affiliated, lent very strong support to Rabbi Brichto, saying: "At a time of enormous problems for the Israeli community and Israeli people, and bearing in mind that we have enough people inside Israel to point out the deficiencies of Israeli policy - if any - there is a time to stand together with the people of Israel. Now is that time. Any dissent should be expressed privately.

"Our enemies need no assistance. The small, beleaguered state of Israel needs our support. A lot of our members are deeply distressed by the media misrepresentation of Israel's position. We are a small country surrounded by a vast multitude of those who are our country's enemies. I'm convinced of that. I have to say that Rabbi Goldberg represents a very small minority of the Jewish community in his views of Israel."

It cannot be emphasised too strongly that this is not simply an argument about politics. Although rabbis are willing in their sermons to discuss politics with a freedom and robustness that seem astonishing to anyone brought up as an Anglican, they are essentially religious teachers.

The relatively small number of them who attack the Israeli government for its supposed immorality see themselves as part of a tradition which stretches back to the onslaughts mounted by the Old Testament Prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah on the Kings of Israel and Judah.

Rabbi John Rayner, Rabbi Goldberg's predecessor at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, is a stern critic of Israeli policy and of what he calls "the myth of Jewish blamelessness". He considers that "by its savage reprisals, its collective punishments, its confiscation of Palestinian land, bulldozing of their homes, cutting down of their fruit trees, and expropriation of their water supplies, Israel, even while engaged in peace talks, has done just about everything possible to undermine whatever faith the Palestinians might have had in the peace process, and driven them to desperation".

In a sermon preached on Yom Kippur at the end of September, Rabbi Rayner showed how he thought the teaching of the Prophets applies to Jews now: "The survival of a people observing a distinctive regimen of colourful, exotic rituals may be of absorbing interest to anthropologists but is of total indifference to God unless that people is, by its ethical example, 'a light to the nations' (Isaiah 49:6) ... In relation to the State of Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians ... the predominant mood of the Jewish people - to judge from innumerable propaganda leaflets, solidarity rallies, and letters to the press - is a euphoria of self-pity, self-justification and self-righteousness ...

"The Hebrew Prophets would have been deeply shocked by our people's present mood of selfrighteousness, for they were essentially critics of their own society." Rabbi Rayner then offered his answer to the question of whether Jews "have to choose between loyalty to our people and loyalty to God", saying: "Did not the Prophets love their people? Yet they castigated its leadership. Did anybody ever love the Jewish people more passionately than Jeremiah?

"Yet he condemned their sins - and for that very reason - all the more passionately. So, too, those who are urging Israel to adopt policies that are morally right - policies of restraint, moderation, compromise and respect for the rights of Palestinians, policies conducive to peace - do not love their people less than those who applaud the present sterile, hardline, tit-for-tat policies which lead nowhere except to an endless cycle of more and more violence and counter-violence, and ultimately total disaster: they love their people more, because on the policies they advocate the very survival of the State of Israel and of its people will ultimately depend. They are not worse Zionists: they are better Zionists!"

It is voices like Rabbi Rayner's which for some of us are the strongest reason to maintain our support for Zionism.