Hear, O Israel!: An Open Address to the Jewish Mainstream
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
In a cry from the heart, prompted by an orthodox Rabbi friend, Brian Klug reflects on events in Gaza through the words of Primo Levi in his post-Auschwitz poem, Shema.
This short post first appeared on the Contending Modernities website under the heading Retrieving Humanity in Palestine/Israel.
Thanks to Brian Klug for permission to repost.
RK
This article was originally published by Contending Modernities on Wed 10 Jan 2024. Read the original here.
Hear, O Israel!: An Open Address to the Jewish Mainstream
Retrieving Humanity in Palestine/Israel
In this brief post, Brian Klug draws on Primo Levi’s poem “Shema” to challenge the moral complacency he sees in mainstream Jewish discourse concerning the war being waged by Israel in Gaza.
Loading article text…
This chimes with my schoolfriend’s father, Reuber Rizner, who called himself Richard Ross, Jewsh himself but married to a Gentile, a cultured gentle person, typical perhaps of many British Jews. What happened to those qualities in a land that had a Jewish population for centuries, alongside Muslims and Christians?
I am an atheist with an interest in Buddhism born 76 yrs ago into a vaguely Christian family.
It’s really a question- I’m assuming Brian Klug is describing the mainstream (?) Jewish reaction to the genocide …of Jews in the UK living in warm comfortable houses?
From what I have heard and read about Jewish reaction to the genocide in Israel itself – a very high percentage actually applaud the genocide and want the job finished?
I’m just wondering how this knowledge is received, and processed. by the various Jewish groupings in the UK?
In response to Jean’s question: I won’t attempt to answer it because it’s so very hard to generalize, and particularly about people’s opinions on things that we are desperately trying not to be aware of and not to know. But I can say that far too many Jews are indeed defending Israel and its war of vengeance by saying “Israel has to defend itself — if they leave Hamas intact they will attack again.” Others are expressing doubts, but I suspect that most are either suppressing their doubts or keeping their minds intentionally blank because it’s too painful to do anything else. I’ve been surprised by people who I thought were reasonably politically aware, appearing fairly clueless about the whole situation.
To describe the reactions of “the various Jewish groupings” would be infinitely tedious and would make these comments so much longer than Brian Klug’s admirably concise article.
If my child were to be kidnapped, raped, murdered, I would want to kill in revenge. However, the law is in place that will punish. I’m bound by law not to exact revenge. As are governments, states and their armies. The lawbreakers must be stopped. Their lawbreaking needs to be punished. No state, no person may take the law into their own hands. Revenge is not justice.