Tuesday, December 03, 2024
Report on Beth Israel vigil 11-30-24
The Only Game in Town? Really!??
Witness for Peace has long claimed to be the only synagogue protest on the planet. “Not So Fast!” says the quiet Vigiler C from the Chicago (Illinois) burbs. Like other activists interested in convincing their City Councils to pass a cease-fire resolution, he attended meetings in Evanston in hopes that they, too, would join other Councils in passing such resolutions.
But he was dismayed by the response of speakers identifying as members of Temple Beth Emet, aka “the Free [speech] Synagogue”, who unified in opposition to a cease-fire. His first step in response was to write a letter to the Evanston Round Table, which to his surprise, they published. Read it here.
His second response was to take to the streets:
He asks, pertinently: “Are all lives equally valuable or are some superior to others? Israel is a state devoted to some being superior and entitled to kill the natives who resist. “
Vigiler C participated in our Ann Arbor Vigils many years ago, so it was a natural step for C to also address Beth Emet. He wrote a letter to its Rabbi to join him in his protest, understanding that Rabbi London supports justice. From the synagogue’s website: “Social justice activism is integral to Rabbi London’s work, and she has received widespread recognition for her leadership on issues ranging from Jewish-Muslim and Black-Jewish relations to peace and justice in Israel/Palestine. “
Andrea London, Rabbi, Temple Beth Emet
We’ve reprinted his invitation to her below signature, and hope she joins him soon. We wish Vigiler C success on his new adventure.
Scorecard
Date/For-Against
16-Nov 29-15
23-Nov 36-16
30-Nov 4-4
Henry Herskovitz
Witness for Peace
Jews Out of Palestine
Comments?
#
Rabbi London,
I wish you and your congregation a happy Thanksgiving.
As I have stood on the corner by the Beth Emet sign, I have thought of how there is no reason that you and your congregation could not come out and stand with me. My two signs are in no way offensive, saying that Palestinian lives matter and that Zionism is not Judaism. Your prominent Black Lives Matter banner expresses the same thing. The Palestinian flag I have stands for a people being exterminated just as the Star of David stood for the Jews who perished in the holocaust.
Cornel West has said that one has a choice. One can believe that all human lives are equally valuable or one can refuse to believe that. Thus, one can be moral or not. There is no in between, no elevation of one group or another. The great majority of Israelis don’t believe all lives are equally valuable, evidence of it daily in the articles published in Ha’aretz.
Judaism and Christianity, as you know, profess loving one another and, as you also know, both have had adherents who have not followed that. Christianity has a long and terrible history of such and Judaism shows it with Zionism.
You and your congregation are testimony that the US is the promised land for Jews as it is for all of us who are not Jews but share in liberty and justice for all. The same is shown by the Arab population of Michigan, the many Jews in Congress and the sole Palestinian there, Rashida Tlaib.
As I stand on the corner I am rewarded every day I am there with heartfelt appreciation shown by thank you being said from open windows and even people parking their cars and coming up to thank me in person. That is very gratifying, to think that I am doing something to represent, as so few are allowed to
do here in the US where campus protests have been shut down, a people being slaughtered with no end in sight, suffering from might making right since 1948.
As I observe the attractive outside of Beth Emet, I cannot believe the congregation would stand with ethnic supremacy and the horror it has demonstrated for so many decades to those whose crime has been living on their native land of Palestine. Ethnic cleansing was wrong when the US did it to the
Indians, wrong when the Nazis did it to the Jews and wrong when the Israelis/US are doing it to the Palestinians. There is no free pass o any group for atrocity.
If anyone would like to come out and join me as Americans who believe in liberty and justice for all as I do, I would welcome them and that includes you. Warm clothing is advised!
Sincerely,
C
