Rabbis for Human Rights

*THIS WEEK ON THE PLURALIST PODCAST*
In the latest episode of The Pluralist Podcast, Rabbi Josh Weinberg and I speak with Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie—an Israeli-born rabbi, storyteller, q***r Jewish leader, and co-founding spiritual leader of Lab/Shul in New York. Raised in one of Israel’s most prominent Orthodox rabbinic families, Amichai became the first openly q***r rabbi in 39 generations of his family. His journey is also at the center of the award-winning documentary Sabbath Queen.

This is a conversation about Pride and prejudice, progress and backlash, and what it means to refuse the choice between q***r identity, Jewish tradition, and a deep connection to Israel.

Watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and share to keep this conversation going.

🔗Link in bio!

A small victory that is actually a huge one.

For two months, a closed military zone choked the rural communities around Duma, in the occupied West Bank. It strangled the village of Marajim and opened the door to the violent expulsion of Bedouin families in eastern Duma. The order was meant to last a full year.

Yesterday, after we pressed the matter again through the Palestinian coordination office, that zone was cancelled. Whole communities are breathing easier today. And the army has now approved the repair of the road between Duma and Marajim, one that settlers tore apart with a tractor nearly two months ago.

Pitted against a wayward justice system, we keep asking questions, making calls, and keep showing up, because the dignity of these families is not negotiable. This is what it looks like when persistence pays off.

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"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God He made man." (Genesis 9:6)
The chain of bloodshed of recent days cannot be disconnected from one another. The murderous attack this morning in Kochav Yair, the violent and criminal pogrom carried out by Jewish rioters in Huwara on Shabbat, and the killing of the seven-month-old Palestinian infant in Hebron: these are all links in the same lethal cycle of terror. A cycle driven by extremists who have lost the capacity to see the divine image in another human being.
The time has come to speak a hard truth. We must fulfill the commandment of "you shall surely rebuke your neighbor": Jewish terror in Huwara is one of the gravest acts of chilul Hashem (desecration of God's name) imaginable. Those who go out masked to set homes ablaze, to spread fear, and to harm innocent people are not defending the Torah. They are desecrating it. A society that permits such terror to exist, that normalizes it or grants it political backing, has lost its moral compass.

Our concern does not end with the rioters themselves. It extends to the question of how we arrived at a situation in which Jewish terror is expanding on the ground, while the state and the IDF are sometimes perceived as having lost either the capacity or the will to stop it. A state that allows extremist groups to terrorize civilians and operate above the law endangers not only Palestinians, but Israeli democracy and the foundations of Jewish morality itself.

Palestinian terror, as brutal as the attack this morning in Kochav Yair, does not operate in a vacuum either. It feeds on hatred and generates more hatred. This is a lethal transaction in which extremists on both sides fuel one another and drown us all in blood. Each provides the justification for the next attack; each provides the pretext for the next pogrom.
The hypocrisy that applauds "our" violence while expressing outrage only at the violence of the other is a moral and religious sin. The Torah demands one law and one standard. Whoever cannot condemn Jewish terror with the same resolve with which they condemn Palestinian terror, and whoever cannot condemn Palestinian terror with the same clarity with which they condemn Jewish terror, is a partner in the blindness that is destroying this land.

As our sages taught: "Whoever destroys a single soul, it is as though they have destroyed an entire world." These days, we are watching entire worlds being destroyed in the name of fanatical nationalism, blind messianism, and hatred of the other. Our Jewish and moral obligation is to stop this cycle of bloodshed before it claims still more innocent lives.

Photo: Fahd Abu Haikal holds up an image of his son Sam, seven months old, who was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier.