For the Sin We, the Jewish People, Have Committed: A Yom Kippur Reckoning With Israel

We defended the war in Gaza, which began a just war and then became something else, but we continued to offer the war our support. Now that a possibility exists to finally end the fighting, will we have the courage to repent for our sin and do what must be done to end the slaughter and the suffering?

Ten times during Yom Kippur prayers, the following words are said: “Ashamnu, Bagadnu, Gazalnu.” In English, “we have trespassed, we have dealt treacherously, we have taken that which is not ours.” Then, we start with Al Het, “For the sin we have committed before Thee.” These prayers are recited one after another.

They are confessions of sin, prompted by the belief that sin distorts and diminishes the divine image in which we were created. The language is blunt, calling on Jews to acknowledge our errors, repair our conduct and change our ways. These prayers do not deal with sin in an abstract or philosophical manner; the sins listed are the stuff of everyday life.

The rabbis were practical people who knew it made no sense to talk about sin unless one concentrated on the specific vices to which we are all so prone: deception, slander, violence and sexual immorality. The best way to deal with these failings is to discuss them openly and confront them directly.

For many of us, Israel plays an important part in our lives, and our actions on Israel, like everything that we do, require careful scrutiny and demand moral accounting. This is difficult, of course, because Israel is a deeply sensitive topic, and our disagreements can be angry and bitter.

Nonetheless, precisely for these reasons, the discussion must be held. Here, I offer a place to begin that discussion, with some additions to the Ashamnu/Al Het prayers for Jews of the left, Jews of the right and then for the entire Jewish people.

FOR JEWS OF THE LEFT:

“Hirshanu. Zadnu.”

“We have done wrong. We have acted presumptuously.”

We have been too ready to believe the worst of Israel, even when her soldiers stand accused of crimes they never committed.

We too often remain silent when the world accuses Israel of genocide, grotesquely equating Israel with the Nazis.

We patronize the Palestinians by not demanding from them the same ethical standards that we expect from all other peoples.

We have neglected our Judaism, too often choosing an identity-shattering universalism rather than a proud liberal Judaism rooted in ritual and text. We have neglected our Zionism, too often playing down the importance of the liberal nation-state, and investing our hopes instead in transnational organizations that liberals love but that always seem to have barely disguised contempt for Jews and Israel.

We allow our concern for Israel to prod us into supporting the current government of Israel, which is a rogue government opposed by nearly every sector of Israeli society. Or at best, we remain silent. Far better that we should raise our voices in protest, offer support not to the government but to demonstrations and civil society institutions, and refer to the Netanyahu government as the criminal government that it is.

We have failed to prioritize the strategic alliance between Israel and the United States, kowtowing instead to the Trumpian juggernaut, and forgetting that an American President who thinks only of his base while alienating a majority of Americans from Israel is no friend of Zionism and the Jews.

And too often we think only of ourselves and our people, forgetting the humanity of the Palestinians who live under Israeli control and ignoring their suffering. We also forget that without dignity for the Palestinians there can be no dignity for Israelis, and that without peace for the Palestinians there can be no peace for Israel.

FOR JEWS OF THE RIGHT:

“Nee’atznu. Tsararnu.”

“We have committed iniquity. We have oppressed.”

We have created, or supported, an insane, unacceptable and unfathomable Israeli status quo, fueled by the most radical right-wing government ever formed in Israel. This government embraces a virulent strain of messianic religious nationalism, the same religious nationalism that put a bullet in former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s head.

We have committed the sin of sycophancy, bowing to every wish and whim of an out-of-touch, self-absorbed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

We have tolerated and even encouraged Jewish fascists and hooligans from the radical right, who have run wild in the West Bank, burning Palestinian property, uprooting Palestinian orchards and attacking and –not infrequently – murdering innocent Palestinians.

We defended the war in Gaza, which began a just war and then became something else. But we continued to offer the war our support. Yet just as no moral person can defend the use of children as human shields, a despicable tactic of Hamas terrorists, so too no moral person can defend the killing and near-starvation of so many defenseless children in Gaza, even if this was never Israel’s intention. Now that a possibility exists to finally end the fighting, will we have the courage to do what must be done to end the slaughter and the suffering?

We have accepted, and even cheered, the collapse of the rule of law in much of Israel and the territories, inevitable once a Kahanist and convicted criminal was given control of the police. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is a terrorist, a racist and an inciter, who has injected his nationalist-racist ideology into every aspect of law enforcement.

And we have accepted too the authority of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the father of illegal outposts and settler violence, who has been handed the keys to Judea and Samaria. And both of these Jewish supremacists, proud leaders of an extremist cult, have been spurred on and celebrated by right-wing politicians in the Netanyahu camp.

We have indulged the ultra-Orthodox parties for far too long; they have engaged in clerical politics, fake coalitions and partisan deals instead of promoting religious values, all the while shamelessly milking the public purse of enormous sums for doubtful purposes.

We have allowed them to act as if the Jewish state were Poland, where evasion and duplicity were necessary to keep Judaism alive. The result is that Judaism is defamed, and Torah is dishonored. They want the privilege of studying Torah instead of serving the people, while other Jews must always serve and never study; but Jewish law applies to all Jews, and all Jews must both study and serve.

And now we tolerate the ultimate abomination; the elementary duty of self-defense – serving in the army – is an absolute requirement of Torah law, exempting only a tiny elite. But the Haredim, with our permission, refuse to serve, abdicating responsibility for their country and their fellow citizens and choosing cowardice over public duty.

As the reservists and their families buckle under the weight of constant call-ups, and as soldiers die, families suffer and businesses fail, the moral squalor of the Haredi world is there for all to see. The only solution is that religious Jews must undertake all civil responsibilities, without exception, that other Israelis who are less devout must undertake.

Finally, and most important, we have been accomplices in the deaths of many hostages held by Hamas, and we may be accomplices in the deaths of 20 more. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is guilty of multiple sins, but none is greater than his decision to prevent a hostage deal and to leave the remaining hostages to rot and die in Gaza’s tunnels.

To be sure, he camouflaged his decision with non-stop, circular rhetoric; he wanted one deal, and then he wanted another deal, and then he wanted to go back to the first deal, and then he insisted on “total victory” before any deal, and then he was considering U.S. President Donald Trump’s deal, and on and on until this week. But in the past, when a hostage deal was on the table, he pushed it off again and again, and often refused to discuss it. And when a deal was particularly promising, he would launch a military attack, making any deal impossible.

The great majority of Israelis want a deal to bring the hostages home, and so does the military leadership. The same goes for diaspora Jewry. Why then, Israelis wonder, did Netanyahu exchange 1,027 terrorists for a single IDF solder (Gilad Shalit) and yet refuse to close a deal for many more soldiers now? The answer is not clear.