Dear Judge Goldstone

As rabbis from diverse traditions and locations, we

want to extend our warmest mazel tov to you as an elder in our community upon the bar

mitzvah of your grandson. Bar and Bat Mitzvah is a call to conscience,

a call to be responsible for the welfare of others, a call to fulfill

the covenant of peace and justice articulated in our tradition.

 As rabbis, we note the religious implications of the

report you authored. We are reminded of Shimon Ben Gamliel’s quote,

“The world stands on three things: justice, truth, and peace as it

says ‘Execute the judgment of truth, and justice and peace will be

established in your gates’ (Zekharya 8:16).”  We affirm the truth of

the report that bears your name.

We are deeply saddened by the controversy that has

grown up around the issuing of the report. We affirm your findings and

believe you set up an impeccable standard that provides strong evidence

that Israel is currently engaged in war crimes during the assault on Gaza that

reveal a pattern of continuous and systematic assault against

Palestinian people and land that has very little to do with Israel’s

claim of security. Your report made clear the intentional targeting of

civilian infrastructures such as hospitals, schools, agricultural

properties, water and sewage treatment centers and civilians

themselves with deadly weapons that are illegal when used in civilian

centers.

This is the ugly truth that is so hard for many Jewish

people to face. Anyone who spends a day in Palestinian territories

sees this truth immediately.

Judge Goldstone, we want to offer you our deepest

thanks for upholding the principles of justice, compassion and truth that are the heart of

Jewish religion and without which our claims to Jewishness are empty

of meaning. We regret that your findings have led to controversy and

caused you not to feel welcome at your own grandson’s Bar Mitzvah. We

believe your report is a clarion call to Israel and the Jewish people

to awaken from the slumber of denial and return to the path of peace.

    Rabbi Everett Gendler

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb 

Rabbi Brant Rosen  

Rabbi Brian Walt 

Rabbi Haim Beliak     

Rabbi Michael Lerner   

Rabbi Arthur Waskow    

Rabbi Michael Feinberg

Rabbi  Shai Gluskin

       Rabbi David Shneyer

Rabbi David Mivassair

Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman

Rabbi Douglas Krantz

Rabbi Margaret Holub

         Rabbi Rebecca Alpert

Rabbi Mordecai Liebling

Rabbi Phyllis Berman

Rabbi Zev-Hayyim Feyer

   Rabbi Eyal Levinson    Rabbi Lorraine Chaskalson

Rabbi Doron Isaacs

GAZA — The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Tuesday barred Rajmohan Gandhi, the grandson of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, from entering Gaza Strip.

Gandhi expressed absolute sorrow for not being able to visit Gaza, adding that he was deeply depressed over the scenes of repression he witnessed in the Palestinian lands.

He said that the Israeli talk about a Palestinian state in light of
those de facto conditions was “meaningless”, adding that the separation wall, settlements and bypass roads were more horrific than what he imagined before visiting Palestine.

Gandhi said that the Israeli government was treating Palestinians as
second class citizens and was robbing their land.

He said he was deeply touched over the story of prisoner Fakhri
Al-Barghouthi who had been held in jail for 33 years and could not meet his two sons, whom he left as little children, until they were
detained by the IOF soldiers.

Gandhi said that he would publicize the Palestinian suffering in
India, the USA and any place he visits, adding that he would also exert efforts for the release of Palestinian prisoners.

._,___

By Jonathan Ben-Artzi / April 1, 2010

Providence, R.I.

More than 20 years ago, many Americans decided they could no longer watch as racial segregation divided South Africa. Compelled by an injustice thousands of miles away, they demanded that their communities, their colleges, their municipalities, and their government take a stand.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Today, a similar discussion is taking place on campuses across the United States. Increasingly, students are questioning the morality of the ties US institutions have with the unjust practices being carried out in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories. Students are seeing that these practices are often more than merely “unjust.” They are racist. Humiliating. Inhumane. Savage.

Sometimes it takes a good friend to tell you when enough is enough. As they did with South Africa two decades ago, concerned citizens across the US can make a difference by encouraging Washington to get the message to Israel that this cannot continue.

A legitimate question is, Why should I care? Americans are heavily involved in the conflict: from funding (the US provides Israel with roughly $3 billion annually in military aid) to corporate investments (Microsoft has one of its major facilities in Israel) to diplomatic support (the US has vetoed 32 United Nations Security Council resolutions unsavory to Israel between 1982 and 2006).

Why do I care? I am an Israeli. Both my parents were born in Israel. Both my grandmothers were born in Palestine (when there was no “Israel” yet). In fact, I am a ninth-generation native of Palestine. My ancestors were among the founders of today’s modern Jerusalem.

Both my grandfathers fled the Nazis and came to Palestine. Both were subsequently injured in the 1948 Arab-Israli War. My mother’s only brother was a paratrooper killed in combat in 1968. All of my relatives served in the Israeli military for extensive periods of time, some of them in units most people don’t even know exist.

In Israel, military service for both men and women is compulsory. When my time to serve came, I refused, because I realized I was obliged to do something about these acts of segregation. I was denied conscientious objector status, like the majority of 18-year-old males who seek this status. Because I refused to serve, I spent a year and a half in military prison.

Some of the acts of segregation that I saw while growing up in Israel include towns for Jews only, immigration laws that allow Jews from around the world to immigrate but deny displaced indigenous Palestinians that same right, and national healthcare and school systems that receive significantly more funding in Jewish towns than in Arab towns.

As former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in 2008: “We have not yet overcome the barrier of discrimination, which is a deliberate discrimination and the gap is insufferable…. Governments have denied [Arab Israelis] their rights to improve their quality of life.”

The situation in the occupied territories is even worse. Nearly 4 million Palestinians have been living under Israeli occupation for over 40 years without the most basic human and civil rights.

One example is segregation on roads in the West Bank, where settlers travel on roads that are for Jews only, while Palestinians are stopped at checkpoints, and a 10-mile commute might take seven hours.

Another example is discrimination in water supply: Israel pumps drinking water from occupied territory (in violation of international law). Israelis use as much as four times more water than Palestinians, while Palestinians are not allowed to dig their own wells and must rely on Israeli supply.

Civil freedom is no better: In an effort to break the spirit of Palestinians, Israel conducts sporadic arrests and detentions with no judicial supervision. According to one prisoner support and human rights association, roughly 4 in 10 Palestinian males have spent some time in Israeli prisons. That’s 40 percent of all Palestinian males!

And finally, perhaps one of the greatest injustices takes place in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is collectively punishing more than 1.5 million Palestinians by sealing them off in the largest open-air prison on earth.

Because of the US’s relationship with Israel, it is important for all Americans to educate themselves about the realities of the conflict. When they do, they will realize that just as much as support for South Africa decades ago was mostly damaging for South Africa itself, contemporary blind support for Israel hurts us Israelis.

We must lift the ruthless siege of Gaza, which only breeds more anger and frustration among Gazans, who respond by hurling primitive, homemade rockets at Israeli towns.

We must remove travel restrictions from West Bank Palestinians. How can we live in peace with a population where most children cannot visit their grandparents living in the neighboring village, without being stopped and harassed at military checkpoints for hours?

Finally, we must give equal rights to all. Regardless of what the final resolution will be – the so-called “one state solution,” the “two state solution,” or any other form of governance.

Israel governs the lives of 5.5 million Israeli Jews, 1.5 million Israeli Palestinians, and 4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. As long as Israel is responsible for all of these people, it must ensure that all have equal rights, the same access to resources, and the same opportunities in education and healthcare. Only through such a platform of basic human rights for all humans can a resolution come to the region.

If Americans truly are our friends, they should shake us up and take away the keys, because right now we are driving drunk, and without this wake-up call, we will soon find ourselves in the ditch of an undemocratic, doomed state.

Jonathan Ben-Artzi was one of the spokespeople for the Hadash party in the Israeli general elections in 2006. His parents are professors in Israel, and his extended family includes uncle Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Ben-Artzi is a PhD student at Brown University in Providence, R.I.

Authored By: Emiliano Huet-Vaughn and Tom Pessah

Sponsored By: Senators Gaurano , Carlton, Kwon, Oatfield

1. WHEREAS, the ASUC notes the complexity of international relations in all cases, including the Middle East, and recognizes the inability of a body such as the ASUC to adjudicate matters of international law and human rights law, or to take sides on final status issues on wars and occupations throughout the world. Yet, we do note the following findings from the United Nations and other leading human rights organizations regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict, and use it as a case study; and,

2. WHEREAS, prior and subsequent to the bombing the Israeli government has engaged in collective punishment of the whole of the Palestinian population, in the view of the human rights community,[1] as exemplified by the ongoing 32 month blockade on Gaza, of which Physicians for Human Rights-Israel has written, “the prolonged siege imposed by the Israeli government on Gaza, the closing of its borders, the tightening of policies regarding permission to exit Gaza for medical purposes, and the severe shortage of medications and other medical supplies all severely damage the Palestinian health system and endanger the lives and health of thousands of Palestinian patients,”[2] and of which the Red Cross has said “the whole strip is being strangled, economically speaking” making life in Gaza “a nightmare” for the civilian population, with essential supplies, including electricity, water, and fuel, being denied to the 1.5 million inhabitants 90% of whom depend on aid to survive;[3] and

3. WHEREAS, within the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the Israeli government continues a policy of settlement expansion that, in the opinion of the United Nations Security Council, Human Rights Watch, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and numerous other organizations concerned with enforcement of international law, constitutes a direct violation of Article 49, paragraph 6 of the 4th Geneva Convention which declares “an occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into territories it occupies.”[4]; and

4. WHEREAS, in the context of this bill, “occupation” refers to the current state of Palestinian life under Israeli’s military control in the West Bank and Gaza; a definition that is consistent to commonly-held international law; and

5. WHEREAS, student research[5] has revealed that, according to the most recent UC investment report[6], within the UC Retirement Program fund and the General Endowment Program fund there exist direct investments in American companies materially and militarily supporting the Israeli government’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, including American companies General Electric and United Technologies; and

6. WHEREAS, General Electric holds engineering support and testing service contracts with the Israeli military and supplies the Israeli government with the propulsion system for its Apache Assault Helicopter fleet, which, as documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, has been used in attacks on Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, including the January 4, 2009 killings of Palestinian medical aide workers[7]; and

7. WHEREAS, United Technologies supplies the Israeli government with Blackhawk helicopters and with F-15 and F-16 aircraft engines and holds an ongoing fleet management contract for these engines, and, Amnesty International has documented the Israeli government’s use of these aircraft in the bombing of the American School in Gaza, the killing of Palestinians civilians, and the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian homes;[8] therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that the ASUC will ensure that its assets, and will advocate that the UC assets, do not include holdings in General Electric and United Technologies because of their military support of the occupation of the Palestinian territories; be it further

RESOLVED, that the ASUC will further examine its assets and UC assets for funds being invested in companies that a) provide military support for or weaponry to support the occupation of the Palestinian territories or b) facilitate the building or maintenance of the illegal wall or the demolition of Palestinian homes, or c) facilitate the building, maintenance, or economic development of illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territories; be it further

RESOLVED, that if it is found that ASUC and/or the UC funds are being invested in any of the abovementioned ways, the ASUC will divest, and will advocate that the UC divests, all stocks, securities, or other obligations from such sources with the goal of maintaining the divestment, in the case of said companies, until they cease such practices. Moreover, the ASUC will not make further investments, and will advocate that the UC not make futher investments, in any companies materially supporting or profiting from Israel’s occupation in the abovementioned ways; be it further

RESOLVED, that this ASUC resolution not be interpreted as the taking of sides in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, but instead as a principled expression of support for universal human rights and equality; be it further

RESOLVED, that the ASUC Senate engage in education campaigns to publicize the divestment efforts and violation of international human rights law, and that furthermore, a committee of 5 members, 2 senators selected by the senate body as a whole, 2 members of or students selected by the UC Berkeley Divestment Task Force, and the ASUC President or a representative from his/her office, form at the end of this semester to monitor and promote university progress in regards to the above mentioned ethical divestment goals; be it finally

RESOLVED, that this Committee will recommend additional divestment policies to keep university investments out of companies aiding war crimes throughout the world, such as those taking place in Morocco, the Congo, and other places as determined by the resolutions of the United Nations and other leading international human rights organizations.

__._,_.___

We keep learning that the supposed morality of our fathers (פרקי  אבות or Pirkei Avot)‎ does not describe their actual history.  Jerome has given us another welcome piece of the untold real story of Zionism.  The Einstein of my childhood (the forties and early 50s) was the Dalai Lama of his day, a great humanitarian, humble being but also revolutionary scientist.  He was not only thought of as a supporter of Israel but of other liberal causes.  In the writings of revisionist historians, Israel, Zionism and the history of the Jews  begins to look a lot different than what I was brought up on and what the Israeli propaganda machine wants the world, or at least, the US populace to believe.

Jerome brings us many of Einstein’s own writings and speeches on Zionism and Israel.  While some of what Jerome offers is well known, the additional source material fleshes out Einstein’s views.  And  though Jerome wants Einstein to speak for himself, Jerome’s comments and placement of Einstein’s utterance in context is what gives the book life beyond simply a resource for scholars.   For myself I wish Jerome had put more of himself in the book. 

Einstein, of course, is an interesting character, but as he was wrong about Quantum Mechanics, and wrong for maybe 30 years, so too he was naïve about certain history, even the anti-Semitism through which he lived in the 1920s. 

While Einstein, the transnationalist, had doubts about Zionism’s nationalism and even accused both Irgun and the Stern gang of being like the Nazi’s, he somehow never seemed to unabashedly attack Jewish nationalism that treated the Arabs in ways akin to which the Jews had been.  Yes, he uttered harsh words—calling Menachim Begin a Nazi—but his accusations never seemed to stick.  He and Buber, and maybe Magnes wanted a binational state but that was never in the cards for the Zionists.  When offered the Presidency of Israel, Einstein turned it down saying he was not qualified and would have to say things people did not want to hear.   Still he did not use the occasion to criticize Israeli racism and ethnic cleaning.

Einstein had a kind of garbled view of Jews, as nation, as culture, as race.  I couldn’t quite follow his reasoning.  It seems limp.  He saw people sticking together because of cultural/religious differences with others  and thus different peoples could never live together.  I can’t figure it out.  Einstein was the epitome of the “enlightenment” Jew and yet he criticized them.   The assimilated German Jews of Einstein’s era were much more interested in being German than Jewish, although some were torn, like Heine.  After the defeat of Napoleon and the ensuing reaction when Jew were stripped of some Napoleonic rights, there were many conversions like Karl Marx’s father.  German Jews shared the German dislike of Eastern European peasants and from the 1880s to WWI facilitated the quiet transport of Ostjüden across Germany by packing them into cattle cars and hiding them in warehouses and cheap hotels in Bremenhaven and Hamburg before they set sail on German shipping lines for America.   Jewish assimilation in Germany was an up and down affair.  During WWI they were patriotic and included.  In its disastrous aftermath, nativism waxed and waned and with it Jews’ feelings of belonging.  The Jewish bourgeoisie was always threatened by economically induced xenophobia (as happened in the US)  but we get no sense from Einstein how influential Jews were in the Weimar Republic.  Nor, except for a mention of the Jewish autonomous Birobidjan in ’45, do we get a sense from Einstein about how liberated Jews were in the Soviet Union prior to Stalin’s paranoia after WWII.  After all Hitler and the Nazi’s identified Jews with communists, and they were proportionately right when it came to Soviet commissars.  Einstein did go against both German and Jewish xenophobia by holding university classes for Ostjüden.

One of the most interesting parts of the book was Einstein’s attempts to communicate with Nasser in 1952-53 through an Egyptian journalist/diplomat.  Einstein didn’t want to be a mediator but he even sought the help of Nehru to try to get Egypt to negotiate with Israel.  While he felt Begin was like the Nazis, he saw Ben-Gurion as different: to which the journalist replied that Ben-Gurion acted no differently.  As the author claims, this bit of history has not been presented elsewhere.  And we owe him a dept of gratitude for this.  It is key because Einstein was never able to clearly strip the enlightenment demeanor from the major Zionists who recruited him while concealing their insidious goals.  If he had, his opposition to their program might have been more open and aggressive.

None-the-less I am grateful to the author for giving us a picture of Einstein’s dissent which has not been part of the history Zionists would have us believe.    

Charlie Fisher, emeritus Professor, Brandeis Univesity 

A group calling itself the Israel Divestiture Forum has filed an initiative with the attorney general that would require state pension funds to sever ties with Israeli companies or the Israeli government.

The measure was submitted by Sacramento resident Chris Yatooma, who works as the head of fiscal policy for the California Community Colleges chancellor’s office.

“It is the intent of this act to employ the same divestiture and boycott approach used to help bring down the Apartheid Government in South Africa,” the measure states.

Dozens of ballot measures are filed with the attorney general’s office every year, with only a select few actually reaching a ballot. Measures that would require public schools to allow Christmas music, mandatory drug testing for legislators and a measure that would define a fertilized human egg as a person have all been submitted to the attorney general.

The measure would need almost 434,000 valid signatures from registered California voters to qualify for the November ballot.

Under the proposal, divestment guidelines would be reversed if Israel pulls out of the territories seized during the 1967 war, or the Israeli and Palestinian governments “conclude a peace treaty that leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state that is recognized by the United States Government.”

– Anthony York in Sacramento

Here is a copy of the full initiative:

http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/initiatives/pdfs/i910_initiative_10-0004.pdf