NEWS SIDEBAR: On the Fringe, One Rabbi’s Efforts For Mutual Understanding

c. 2000 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ At a time when human life seems to have become cheaper and mobs on both sides have intensified their cries for enemy blood, Rabbi Arik Asherman is one figure still fighting for compassion, seeking to sensitize Jews and Arabs to the pain of the “other” side. Over the […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ At a time when human life seems to have become cheaper and mobs on both sides have intensified their cries for enemy blood, Rabbi Arik Asherman is one figure still fighting for compassion, seeking to sensitize Jews and Arabs to the pain of the “other” side.

Over the past week, as disturbances continued around Israel and the West Bank, Asherman, chairman of the tiny Rabbis for Human Rights, led a small group of Jews to northern Israel to visit both Arab and Jewish wounded, victims of riots in Haifa, Nazareth and elsewhere in Galilee.


“Jewish tradition tells us that everyone is created in the image of God, and since we all are descended from one human being, to destroy life is like destroying the world,” observes Asherman, founder of a group that includes about a dozen left-leaning rabbis. “But unfortunately right now, we’re in a situation where nobody is very capable of opening their hearts to the other, or empathizing with their pain in a basic human way.

“There are hair-raising stories of excessive Jewish use of force,” added Asherman, whose group remains on the left-wing fringe of Israeli society. “And yet, the Palestinian use of violence, however justified their anger might be, has pushed even many moderate and progressive Israelis into the war camp. Thursday’s lynch in Ramallah (when a Palestinian mob killed two Israeli reserve soldiers who had stumbled into the city) was just the icing on the cake.”

Asherman’s efforts are unusual in that he is a religious Jew. Throughout the Arab-Israeli conflict, secular figures have generally been the most outspoken in denouncing the excesses of violence, and in calling for dialogue. Religious Muslim and Jewish religious figures, meanwhile, have either fanned the flames or remained silent.

That pattern has been even more evident in the recent round of unrest, which Palestinians have dubbed the “Al Aksa Intifada” after the Jerusalem mosque where the disturbances began two weeks ago.

Calls for religious revenge have multiplied, along with the number of deaths on each side.

“The Jews are criminals,” said Sheikh Ahmed Youssef Abu Sabir, in a sermon Friday (Oct. 13) from a mosque in Gaza, which was broadcast prominently over Palestinian television. “They have turned our women into widows and our children into orphans.”

Israel’s leading rabbis have done little, on their part, to rein in the violence, beyond one terse statement urging restraint after a Jewish mob attacked Arabs in Israeli Nazareth on Oct. 8, on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.


Religious politicians, meanwhile, have taken center stage, in cries to avenge Jewish deaths, particularly after Thursday’s lynching of the two Jewish soldiers.

“The reprisals that were taken were welcome. There should be more of them,” declared Health Minister Shlomo Ben Ezri, himself an ordained rabbi.

Meanwhile, another Jewish settler figure, Pinchas Wallerstein, complained that Israel’s raids on empty cars and buildings weren’t sufficiently aggressive.

In Asherman’s view, Israel bears responsibility for many of the underlying tensions that helped trigger the initial outbreak. But he also says that the Palestinians deliberately escalated the violence, rather than reining it in.

“Israel talked peace but continued with house demolitions, land expropriations and human rights violations,” observes Asherman. “But at the same time, the Palestinian leadership misread the map and played a game of brinkmanship. It’s a back-and-forth kind of dialectic, and the war drums are beating.”

KRE END FLETCHER

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!