Published: 29 April 2025
Last updated: 29 April 2025
I am a Jew because our ancestors were the first to see that the world is driven by a moral purpose, that reality is not a ceaseless war of the elements, to be worshipped as gods, nor history in a battle in which might is right and power is to be appeased. The Judaic tradition shaped the moral civilisation of the West, teaching for the first time that human life is sacred, that the individual may not be sacrificed for the mass, and that rich and poor, great and small, are all equal before God.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Radical Then, Radical Now (London 2000).
Many of Jonathan Sacks’s admirers in Britain easily quote from his insightful teachings but remain silent when it comes to the war in Gaza – now approaching 600 days of hostilities. They telescope fidelity to the state of Israel with lack of comment about its government.
In a recent radio interview on Galei Israel, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich commented that “we need to say the truth: Bringing the hostages home is not the most important goal.” He placed the priority of destroying Hamas before enabling the release of the remaining hostages from the tunnels of Gaza. At least Smotrich was being transparently honest in lauding the aims of the war – an issue which Netanyahu’s rhetoric has studiously circumvented.
Jonathan Sacks, his predecessor Immanuel Jakobovits and his successor, Ephraim Mirvis, were far more perceptive than their flock in understanding how to handle the relationship with successive Israeli governments. Jakobovits was privately critical of Menahem Begin and his policies during the 1980s. Mirvis recently withdrew from an international conference on antisemitism, organised by the Israeli ministry of the Diaspora because European far Right organisations – not noted historically for their love of Jews – were invited. Sacks himself was associated with figures in the religious peace movement prior to his appointment as Chief Rabbi.
Comments4
Len Frankel12 June at 08:11 am
Comments such as Jeremy Brown’s, below, make me despair for a solution.
I will not cheer on the extermination of other human beings, supposedly in my name and for my benefit. That is the fact of what Israel is doing.
Mr Brown appears to be making the same mistakes I once did, conflating Palestinians with Hamas and Jews with Israel. He is certainly conflating criticism with hatred.
Israel’s mass murder of civilians – and that is what it is – is not necessary for Jewish safety and security. In their attacks on Gaza, the IDF ignore the fact that the Palestinians *themselves* are hostages of Hamas.
It is all too easy to regard opinions such as mine as treasonous. In fact, I’ve done so myself in the past.
I call on Mr Brown and those like him (indeed, as I once was) to acknowledge that, at the very least, criticism is not the same thing as hatred. I happen to believe we all have a moral imperative to speak up when we see a wrong. Mr Brown clearly does as well, or he would not have expressed his own views, that criticising Israel is wrong. Ought we to interpret his criticism as hatred? Certainly not.
But speaking up also means you have to be willing to accept that you might be wrong yourself. None of this is easy. But we’re not going to get anywhere by silencing criticism.
Jeremy Brown30 April at 04:30 am
Colin, you bring some very worthwhile strands together. When it comes to historical fact, I bow to your wisdom and knowledge.
However you ask a very worthy question …” If demography in Israel itself consistently indicates that a majority of its citizens indicate opposition to the reignition of conflict in Gaza – why shouldn’t British or Australian Jews reflect that view?”
And therein lies the rub ! Israelis ‘can’ but the diaspora should not !
Denis Prager of Prager U advocates, that when you live in the diaspora, you support Israel whether it has a right or left wing government. That doesn’t mean one can not have a view or opinion of what that government is doing.
There is enough Jew hate out there, that diaspora Jews do not need to add to it.
Today’s world sees the likes of the UN, UNWRA, ICC, ICJ, NGOs, twisted governments & pro pally marches, all adding to the anti Jewish sentiment throughout mainstream media. With that in mind, the 36 signatories to the FT letter plus the other 40, have provided greater traction for Jew hate, as the anti Israel world media repeats the views of the FT letter.
It would have been just as treacherous if 36 BoD members had spoken out with pro right / pro Gvir / pro Judea and Samaria views, without the issue having been agreed by the BoD majority.
Hamas, together with Qatar and all the other anti Israel bods are relishing how Israel and the Jewish people, both in Israel and the diaspora, are having so much in fighting.
Steven Scheiner29 April at 08:34 am
Most Israelis disagree with this government’s policies regarding Gaza. One of the main tenents of the IDF is that you never leave a man in the field. However, Ben Gvir who never served and Smotrich whose service was spent in the accountancy section of the IDF, may not even be aware of this. However Nethanyahu served and knows this practice, but chooses to ignore it
Robert Richter KC29 April at 08:00 am
We thank the Lamed Vavniks on the UK Board of Deputies for their endorsement of Hillel’s Golden Rule – Don’t do unto others that which you will not find acceptable to you – and for your article which exposes the real “Kapos” namely Ben Gvir and Smotrich among other fascists. We find it odd that instead of indicting them at the ICC for their clear crimes of Incitement to, and /or complicity in, Genocide, the worm has turned. These people have inverted the meaning of honourable Jews, who stand for the only universal Golden Rule, into Nazi collaborators! They dissociate themselves from what it means to be a Jew by effectively defining dissenting Jews as non-Jews and thus excommunicating the most moral Jews and re-casting them as antisemites! Goebbles would have been proud of Kahane and his murderous millenarian acolytes like Baruch Goldstein and the hill top “youth” not to mention the greed of seekers of theocratic power like BB, Levin, Rothman, Herzog etc.