Philadelphia Synagogue Goes Superbowl Crazy

And still wants a two-state solution.

Last night at the Reform synagogue I attend, the senior rabbi, Rabbi Jill, made most of her sermon about football. There were clever football metaphors. She ended it with that quote from the Torah, “Go Birds.” The cantor had translated “Fly Eagles Fly” into Hebrew and we sang it in both Hebrew and English. It was weird, but the whole city is Superbowl crazy with our home team playing, so I can go with it.

I had a harder time going with the loud statement from the junior rabbi that, and I paraphrase but not by much, “This congregation and the Reform movement categorically condemn any proposal to remove Gazans from Gaza. We pray for a two-state solution that honors the dignity of Israelis and Palestinians.”

I’d love it if that were possible. There was a ceasefire until October 7, 2023, when Hamas broke that ceasefire, with the enthusiastic cheering and spitting on Israeli corpses by many Gazans.

Now the hostages are being returned, just a few at a time, tortured and humiliated up until the moment they are back in the IDF’s arms. Have you watched the videos of the ceremonies Hamas subjects these hostages to? Here’s the latest.

Read the writing on the background of the stage where the emaciated hostages, who were kept in the dark for sixteen months and barely given food, were paraded. It says, in English, “We’re the flood - The war’s next day.” Are these people who want peace? They are telling you what is coming. They have promised to repeat October 7 again and again. Hamas is still in power. Look at all those starving-not-starving Gazans cheering.

Eli Sharabi comes home to find out that his wife and two teenage daughters were murdered by Hamas terrorists as he was being dragged into Gaza. Yarden Bibas still doesn’t know the fate of his wife and two tiny sons, but we all think they are dead. Or Levy’s wife was killed at the Nova Music Festival. His son has been staying with grandparents because their mom was murdered and their dad was a hostage. Or lost 44 pounds in captivity. These male hostages were kept barefoot, without sunlight, and barely showered since October 7 of 2023.

Gazans are celebrating as they force these tortured men to go on a stage and thank their captors and wave before they are finally set free to go home.

I have friends who are cheering for the terrorists. I wish they would do what President Trump did and watch the video taken by Hamas terrorists of the butchery they committed on October 7. There was a ceasefire on October 6. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. There was plenty of opportunity to turn Gaza into a functional land, even a beautiful, productive one. But no, the Palestinians, beloved of the American Left, spent all that international (and American!) aid money building weapons and tunnels and training their youth from children to hate Israel and kill Jews.

We can all wish things were different. War is terrible, peace is better. But there will never be peace with an enemy that will try to kill you every time it has a chance.

Let’s take the liberal claim that many if not most Palestinians actually do want peace, do not support Hamas (polls say they do but polls are tricky in authoritarian terrorist regimes that murder critics of the regime), and want to take care of their families and live a life without war. Might such peace-wanting people want to get away from Hamas, to a place where they could, in fact, live in peace?

“Ethnic cleansing” is the word of the day in my liberal friends’ Facebook feeds and blogs. Funny… they don’t seem to connect the phrase “River to the Sea” which demands a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, free of Jews, to ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing of Jews = just fine.

My Israeli friend Arnie pointed out that Trump says a lot of things, and it is wiser to watch his actions. I doubt many people think he will putting up Trump Towers in Gaza. He says a lot of crazy things, and not many of them actually come to pass. As many have said before me, the fact that a majority of Americans elected a such an extreme, erratic person to the highest office in the world, is evidence of how badly the Democrats ran their campaign. If the Republicans could scrounge up someone sane, a conservative gentleman or lady, the Dems would be even crispier toast.

Hmmmm… crispy toast. Now I want toast. But I digress.

I agree with my liberal and even progressive friends that there is much to fight in Trump’s agenda here in this country. I believe that people should be able to use whatever pronouns they want (I’m she and all that follows logically from that. I’ve never understood the point of the three slashes enumerating she/her/hers. Like, am I going to be she/her/its?) If people wish to be called “they”, I call them that. As a writer, I am grateful for the gender neutral pronoun that I longed for throughout my childhood and youth. Especially when you can’t tell what gender if any people are trying to present as from looking at them much of the time, and I prefer not to offend. At least not accidentally.

There are many other things on what appears to be the Republican agenda that I am concerned about, disagree with and am frightened of. There are other things that I really hope they will do, that I’m sure no Democrat ever would. Cracking down on domestic terrorists who threaten Jewish students on college campuses is a start. I hope the person who stabbed my friend Sahar Tartak in the eye with a Palestinian flag at Yale is at least expelled and charged with assault and if not an American citizen, I hope they are deported. (Thank you, again, for the ability to use “they” as a pronoun when the gender of the assailant is unknown.")

There was an Israeli family visiting my synagogue last night. I met them when we all shook hands and said “Shabbat shalom” and introduced ourselves at the start of the service. I wonder what they thought of the pronouncements from the rabbis.

I understand being sad when any innocents die or suffer, especially children. What I do not understand is denying the obvious. If Hamas is left in power, they will re-run October 7 again and again. They keep telling us so, and I believe them! More Israelis will disappear as hostages. Those Palestinian criminals who are being set free to get our hostages back will go back and find ways to kill again, just like Sinwar, who received a life saving brain operation courtesy of Israel.

Am I extreme? I don’t think my Israeli friends would say so. Hamas brutally butchered, rapeed, murdered, burned alive, kidnapped, tortured and then paraded around in humiliating fake ceremonies Israelis, many of them the most vulnerable like the elderly and sick. They didn’t attack military targets, they attacked a music festival and peaceful kibbutzim. Those nice lefty Israelis who used to drive Palestinians to Israel for their cancer treatments at advanced Israeli hospitals. Palestinians on work permits to work in Israel gave Hamas maps of their employers’ homes. Maps were found on Hamas militants with notes that said “Kill the dog, kill the cat.” They shot Emily Damari’s dog and then shot two of her fingers off while she tried to comfort her dying pet.

And yet, many very nice, very smart people whom I know, comfortable in America, quite some distance from my crime-ridden inner city neighborhood and very far from Hostage Square or the tunnels of hell in Gaza, seem to put the well-being of those who wish to kill Jews above that of Israelis.

I don’t get it.

I pray for peace, of course. But peace is not possible as long as Israel is under constant attack.

I pray for peace.

I stand with Israel.