A reader rounds out our coverage:
In your most recent post, you cite Freddie deBoer in noting a double standard in the American media, wherein Palestinians are blamed collectively for such acts of violence while Israelis face no such censure for atrocities carried out by their government. You cited Jonathan Tobin’s pushback, who cited Palestinian “political culture in which religious symbols such as the imagined peril to the mosques on the Mount have been employed by generations of Palestinian leaders to whip up hatred for Jews.”
I think a comparison to the religious reactions to mutual atrocities is very instructive. Calls for revenge, vicious anti-Semitic and/or anti-Israel political cartoons are all part and parcel of the Palestinian reaction. But the purpose of the email is that I dearly want to point out to you the Jewish Orthodox reaction to the four murders. You won’t see calls for revenge.
(Yes, you might see it in right-wing politicians, but not among the Jewish Orthodox whom you routinely label as fundamentalist). The bottom line of these reactions are the same: we have our own choices on how to act, and that the best way to fight against darkness is to increase the light; the best way to fight against hate is to increase love. The Jewish “fundamentalist” response to tragedy, throughout history, codified almost 900 years ago by Maimonides, is always the same: start with introspection.
You can start with a letter written by Rebbetzin Tzippora Heller, who’s 12-year-old grandson fled for his life from the massacre, but whose son-in-law was seriously injured and needs multiple surgeries. In her first letter (published here), the harshest thing she can say about the attackers is:
Please continue praying for my son-in-law … and the other victims. Pray that God gives strength to the five new widows and 24 new orphans. Thank God that we are not like our enemies.
In her second letter, she reminded all that our reaction to the events are our choice. She closed with:
You can choose light. You can choose learning. You can choose acts of kindness. You can choose closeness to the wounded by continuing to pray …. You can transcend your limitations and your attachment to materialism by giving charity.
Even more impressive was the reaction of the four new widows. They released a letter just two days after burying their husbands. In it, the grieving widows urged: “accept upon ourselves to increase the love and affection for each other, whether between a person and his fellow, whether between distinct communities within the Jewish people.”
In the article, “In Har Nof, introspection, but no religious war“, the writer summarized her findings: “In shadow of Tuesday’s terrorist attack, congregants dismiss the notion that Temple Mount tensions drove rampage, say they need to ‘be stronger, pray harder’” She noted: A poster with a photo of a bloodied prayer shawl screams out “End the hatred!”
At site of Jerusalem terror attack, no calls for revenge, just grief, the Ha’aretz writer quoted an 18-year-old girl at the funeral:
We live our lives according to God’s commandments. That is why most of us have returned to our regular duties – because our regular day is a way of praising God. In other places when this happens, there are calls for revenge, but not here, not in our neighborhood.
Quite the fundamenalists, eh? The differences are stark and obvious.
Another adds regarding the first post in the thread:
Israel should never have released those types of photographs for publication. I do not have a problem whatsoever with you publishing them, as they were provided by the government of Israel, but Israel can more than make its case without distributing those types of photographs. Let Hamas engage in that type of gamesmanship. The rabbis should be remembered for their scholarship and how they lived, not by how they died. Those photographs rob the rabbis of their dignity.
The Dish 