An orthodox Jew speaks out
JVL Introduction
Michal Suissa lives in London with her family. In the past she has taught cheder students in the UK, given Bar and Bat Mitzvah lessons in America, and is devoted to Jewish communal life.
She supports initiatives like Partnership Minyans and hopes to be able to bridge living a Halakhically guided life with Palestinian Solidarity.
Thanks for permission to repost.
RK
I am an orthodox Jew and I am incredibly disappointed in the UK Jewish community for its almost unequivocal support of the war in Gaza. Opinions like mine are deeply unpopular and being censored through various outlets in my community, and because of my views I face ostracism. In fact, despite the rabbis of my synagogue having both given sermons in support of the war, when I asked to submit a letter, to my synagogue’s newsletter, questioning the support for the war, I was chastised for trying to use the shul newsletter for “political motives”. Rather than evaluate what the possible outcome of this war might be, the Britsh Jewish community has instead used the attacks on October 7th to justify the killing of innocent people who had no hand in the violent and ruthless bloodshed.
The Board of Deputies, an organisation supposed to represent the interests of Jewish people in the UK, has asked synagogues across the country to “adopt” a hostage as a campaign to raise awareness for the hostages trapped in Gaza. But the Board of Deputies’ unequivocal support of Israeli military action in Gaza and its vociferous opposition to calls for immediate ceasefire are contradictory to their stated aims of bringing the Israeli hostages home safely.
These actions show the hostages are being used as a mere justification for supporting unsustainable and cruel military policy, or worse yet, a distraction from the implications or effects of such a policy. If Gaza is being bombed, how are the hostages any safer than civilians? A total of 32 hostages have been reported as killed in Hamas captivity. Even if they didn’t die at the hands of Israeli weapons, as in the case of the three hostages that were killed by IDF troops in December, Israel’s ongoing siege and bombing of Gaza has almost certainly contributed to their deaths.
Israel has continuously bombed hospitals, ambulances, and medical facilities under the conevenient excuse that Hamas, the government that runs Gaza and thus its medical facilites, is operating out of them. However, these actions have endangered the hostages as well. Mia Shem, a released hostage, described in her testimony the poor medical treatment she received. But the medical system in Gaza has been overwhelmed and sabotaged since the start of this war. Mia’s recount of her poor medical treatment is similar to what tens thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza have or are experiencing. Israel has sabotaged the medical system in Gaza since the start of this war, and doctors and nurses simply do not have the capability to provide basic treatment.
The war, from the beginning, has endangered the hostages, and now it’s endangering Israeli conscripts too. It’s turned Gaza into an uninhabitable landscape for those who live there and created catastrophes of health, access to food, clean water, and shelter for millions of innocent people. As of January, 65,000 tonnes of bombs have been dropped on Gaza. For scale, 35,000 tonnes of bombs were dropped on the UK during WWII. The Israeli government has been promising to destroy Hamas for the past 20 years and hasn’t done so in any military operation yet. In fact Israel has been propping Hamas up for decades, and even supported their inception in the first intifada as a counterweight to the PLO. I, personally, struggle to believe that in the wake of the massive IDF failure on October 7th to protect against Hamas’s attack, that Israel’s military action will now, suddenly, be able to destroy Hamas after 20 years of “attempts”. Especially when considering the decades-long collaborative history the two groups have. Contrarily to its stated aims, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza will most-likely have the effect of ramping up support for Hamas. The innocent people being caught in the bombardment will find the liberal Zionist rhetorical claim that Israel is saving the Gazans from Hamas hard to believe when it isn’t Hamas displacing them, turning their cities to rubble, and killing their loved ones. For those who fear the antisemitism of Hamas, perhaps this isn’t the best way to fight that antisemitism.
Moreover, the Jewish community is using accusations of antisemitism to avoid having to think critically about what is happening. To British Jews, I want to ask what more could fan the flames of hate for the Jewish people than incredibly public facing Jews, such as the Chief Rabbi, supporting a military campaign that, according to even the Israeli government, has killed at least 15,000 innocent people, including children and babies? The sages of the Talmud taught us to teach the next generation through modeling good behaviour. What is British Jewry teaching children, Jewish and gentile alike, when we support these actions?
In my life, I have seen nothing that confirms sunk cost fallacy tendencies and status quo bias more than the support for this war. The Israeli economy is taking a huge hit from the financial impact of this war. Israeli soldiers are dying in Gaza – fathers, sons, brothers, and uncles – never to return again to their families. While this pales in comparison to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, it does beg the question – who exactly is winning here?
One thing is for certain – this war will perpetuate and escalate the cycle of violence. Every Passover, we sing a warning against this when we sing Chad Gadya at the end of the seder. Have we ignored the warnings of our forefathers?
The Chief Rabbi, the Board of Deputies, and even the Progressive Sects of the Jewish faith such as Masorti, Reform, and Liberal movements have failed to adequately criticise Israel.
And finally, I ask British Jews to think about how our communal support for this war is giving license to Israel to keep ending innocent lives in Gaza, to send IDF soldiers to their deaths, and to fail their responsibility to the hostages and their families who are being sidelined, ignored and used as political pawns by Netanyahu and his government.
Thanks to Michal for her courage in speaking out, in spite of the costs to herself (and perhaps others whom she cares about and who care for her).
Being the “lone voice crying in the wilderness” is acutely painful and isolating. I hope Michal has – or is creating – a network of people around her for close mutual support in these very dark times.
If Michal’s one of the “Jewish Bloc” on the “ceasefire” marches then everyone on that march (of any faith or none) is potentially part of her support network … and she of their’s. Perhaps they can reach out – prudently – to each other?
Bravo. Finally: a strong Orthodox voice of condemnation in the moral wilderness that many British Jews of similar disposition find themselves.
As Ramadan and Passover and Easter approach: self-sacrifice, spritual renewal, and learning from the past are all close to Abrahamic faiths – and those of no faith.
What a world we live in that after centuries of war, Genocides and pogroms, people still cannot coexist without with the entrenched ideology of domination and slavery.
Maybe that tide is about to turn, but why should Palestinians pay that price for the rest of us to learn it?.
No Shabbas in my house until ceasefire and no true rest until Palestine is free for all its peoples.
My respect to MICHAL SUISSA for writing this.
I feel upset that Judaism is being abused by Zionisim & used for Malicious purposes increasing the appalling Antisemitism & Islamophobia !
Very well put, thank you. i was particularly struck by this phrase – ” the Jewish community is using accusations of antisemitism to avoid having to think critically about what is happening.”
Thank you Michal for speaking out. Your experience is similar to mine in so many ways. I also teach cheder, attend shul regularly and do various other voluntary roles in the community. Last Yom Ha-atzma’ut, I wrote a very gently questioning article for the newsletter of the Representative Council, and was rebuked for “turning it into a political rag”. Being thick-skinned, I still go to shul and maintain friendly relations with the rabbi and fellow congregants, but like you, I have been disappointed beyond all words by the failure of rabbis and communal leaders to abide by the most basic Jewish values of respect for life and for justice. I wasn’t totally surprised when the Chabad rabbi in our area tried to justify Israel’s position as self-defence early on in the conflict. I was more perturbed to find Reform rabbis, who formerly laid claim to the moral high ground, flocking into the pro-Netanyahu camp or failing to offer any meaningful criticism of it. I never thought I would be ashamed to be Jewish, but the way that our community is being portrayed as a unanimous body of support for Israel’s crimes makes me very worried, angry and deeply conflcited.
Despite all this, I do sense some stirrings of change. It’s difficult to prove this, since the internal censorship has been so frantically enforced, but I suspect that increasing numbers of Jews feel uncomfortable about defending the indefensible. Some will respond by cutting all ties with the Jewish world — and I can’t say I blame them. Others try to defend their self-image as decent people by denying the reality of what they and the whole world see every day. And I suspect that many are keeping quiet because they can’t face the ostracism and hostility that you report. It’s up to us to keep campaigning and explaining, in the hope that enough of our fellow-Jews will stand up for life, peace and human rights before it’s too late.
Splendid, brave woman!