In Israel and Gaza, Wrong is Wrong

As a child, I attended Hebrew school not from a commitment to faith, but because (in my father’s words), “If there is another Holocaust, you will be considered Jewish regardless, so you should know something about the religion.”

The suburban Reform synagogue I attended focused on a cultural indoctrination into a mindset of persecution and resistance: Moses against Pharaoh, the Maccabees against Antiochus, and - above all else - the Holocaust. Too young, I saw documentaries on concentration camps, with corpses tumbling on conveyor belts and living eyes in walking skeletons. 

Partnered with these searingly, indelibly horrifying lessons was a utopian view of Israel, the homeland that promised “never again.” These history lessons did not mention the Palestinians, except as stereotypically backwards and sometimes evil characters.

During adolescence, I began to realize that the Jews of the Shoah who emigrated to Palestine did not come to an empty desert. On one occasion, I was nearly thrown out of the house after showing my uncle a paper I had written about the Palestinian side of the story.  

(Today, many synagogues do encourage nuanced discussions of Israel. But I can only speak to my own experience.)

In my 20’s, I settled into a comfortable atheism. In my 30’s, I began a spiritual journey during a season of despair, ultimately coming to rest in the beliefs and practice of Christianity. But during those years of exploration, I learned more about the Jewish faith than I had in childhood.       

And while I do not hold any expertise on the Middle East, I find myself needing to say, “What the State of Israel is doing is wrong. Religiously, politically, and practically.”    

The lives that the terrorists took on October 7, the lives of the hostages who have died, and the lives of the hostages who still survive, were and are of incalculable value. The same is true for every individual who has died during Israel’s current military campaign. From the Jerusalem Talmud comes the saying, “Whosoever destroys one soul, it is as though he had destroyed the entire world. And whosoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the entire world.” The primacy of human life is fundamental to Jewish law. Even the most Orthodox Jews agree that any commandment can be disregarded in order to save a life. This is the principle of pikuach nefesh. 

Politically, it’s one thing for terrorists to commit atrocities. It’s something altogether different for a government to wage war with utter disregard for innocent civilian lives. For the promise “never again” to be  truly, morally Jewish, it must mean “Never again will we forget how precious each and every human life is.” 

Our country’s position is wrong. We turn a blind eye to the daily injustices suffered by ordinary Palestinians. We conflate support for the Palestinian people and concern for their human rights with anti-semitism, even though there are many Jewish people protesting against the Israeli government’s actions and upholding the Torah’s repeated instructions to “love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Too many reflexively dismiss the charges of genocide that have been brought against Israel at the International Court of Justice, rationalizing that a people who were victims of genocide could definitionally not  commit genocide themselves.  

In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 horrors, we could have counseled Israel that wholesale vengeance only gives the terrorists fertile ground in anguished hearts to grow a bitter harvest of hatred. Instead, it is complicated. Any long-term solution will depend on visionary leadership and on ordinary people choosing to show extraordinary grace. But this is possible. There are role models around the world, in countries where people who have suffered heart-rendering pain have worked to find a path out of hatred. 

As individuals, in this moment, we can agitate for our government to join the many other governments around the world who are calling for an immediate and  full-out cease-fire and for an outpouring of humanitarian aid. We should not remain silent during this slaughter of innocents, nor turn away while parents powerlessly watch their children and grandchildren starve. Not in our name. As Elie Wiesel said, “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

I speak now as an individual, as a parent, and as a grandparent who lives in the luxury of peace and safety. I say today, as a person of faith, “Wrong is wrong.”    

Deborah Griesbach is a writer, mother and grandmother.