What does it mean to me to say "I Stand With Israel" at this time?

Author: Rabbi Debora S. Gordon
Date: October 11, 2023

What does it mean to me to say "I stand with Israel" at this time?

It means that I am only one degree of separation away from people who were murdered or kidnapped by Hamas, people whose fate is even now unknown and hangs in the balance.  I am connected by personal relationship to people who are terrified about their fate and people grieving for their deaths.

It means that my local community is traumatized, horrified, afraid and angry, and I am feeling all of that too.

It means that I condemn the Hamas attacks as outside the bounds of human decency and against every religious moral code, including that of Islam.

It means that I have actually read the most recent (2017) Hamas charter.

It means that I reject the theological or political view that Israel has no right to exist.  Israel isn't going away, any more than the US is.  

It means that I am grateful to know that a unity government has been formed (for however long it lasts) and that reservists are showing up (despite serious protests earlier this year around internal politics re: the judiciary).

It means that I want to help heal the wounded, free the captives, provide mental health and trauma counseling, keep the vulnerable safe, and combat hate speech and incitement.  Among other things.

It means that my stomach is knotted with the knowledge that war is imminent; that people I know may die in it; that people I do not know will die in it; and that trauma and moral injury will multiply.

It means I cannot look away (though I have to keep looking away, for my own mental health.  But I keep getting drawn back in.)

It means that I am walking a tightrope of love and support for Israel, my own community and my Jewish people, while always keeping myself open to the greatest of Jewish values:  That all human beings are created /B'tselem Elohim/, in the image of God; that all human beings are of infinite worth; that whoever saves one human life has saved a world, and whoever destroys one human life has destroyed a world.

It means that ultimately, I believe that peace and coexistence are the only possible future security for Israel, and so I strive -- in the middle of the automatic polarization brought about by horror, terror, and war -- to keep on recognizing the humanity of all the human beings caught up in it.

That, too, is standing with Israel.

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