[progchat_action] RABBIS' LETTER IN SUPPORT OF RABBI ARIK
Michael Givel
protest to the Israeli government against the arrest of
Rabbi Arik Ascherman, executive director of Rabbis for
Human Rights, and against the policy of demolishing
Palestinian homes.
Rabbi Ascherman stood nonviolently in front of Israeli
Army bulldozers that were about to (and did) demolish
two Palestinian homes. The homes were slated for
destruction because they lacked permits to add rooms -
permits that are routinely given to Jewish families but
almost never to Palestinians. Thousands of Palestinian
homes have been destroyed - inside the areas that the
Knesset has declared part of Israel as well as in many
other Palestinian areas in the West Bank and Gaza.
Among the rabbis who have signed the letter - besides
the steering committee of Rabbis for Human Rights/
North America, which includes me -- are such leaders of
various strands of Jewish life as Rabbis Brad Artson,
Pamela Baugh, Phyllis Berman, Rachel Cowan, Elliot
Dorff, Amy Eilberg, Arthur Green, Shaya Isenberg, Nancy
Flam, Peter Knobel, Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, Arthur
Hertzberg, Richard Hirsh, Sharon Kleinbaum, Michael
Lerner, Mordechai Liebling, Paul Menitoff, Jeff Roth, David
Saperstein, Sid Schwarz, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi,
Warren G. Stone, Michael Strassfeld, David Teutsch, and
Sheila Peltz Weinberg. The full list of signers is below,
after the letter.
Rabbis for Human Rights/ North America circulated the
letter to North American rabbis. RHR/ NA members will
deliver it in person on Monday January 12 to the Israeli
embassy in Washington and the Israeli consulate in New
York. That day is the yohrzeit of Abraham Joshua
Heschel. RHR in Israel was born out of a search for
rabbis there who would like Heschel unite Torah to tikkun
olam.
If you agree with the letter, you might call the Israeli
embassy in Washington DC at 202/364-5500, ext. 4.
There you can express your thoughts and feelings to the
Ambassador or his representative.
You may also want to share the letter with your friends
and your congregation and urge those who feel so
moved to express their concern by writing or calling the
Israeli consul in your community, by writing to the Jewish
or general press, by calling local US representatives, or
by writing RHR at off...@rhr-na.org to list your name as
people in support of the rabbis' letter. You may also want
to educate your congregation about the home demolition
policy. Call RHR/NA at 508/696-1880 if you want a
speaker for your community.
RABBIS' LETTER IN SUPPORT OF RABBI ARIK
ASCHERMAN & OPPOSITION TO HOME DEMOLITIONS
List of Recipients:
Attorney General
Minister of Justice
Mayor of Jerusalem
Others.....
Dear Prime Minister Sharon,
We Rabbis, leaders of our communities, longtime
Zionists and supporters of
Israel, are writing to express our concern and our support
for our
colleague, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, who is facing trial on
January 14 in
Jerusalem for trying to prevent the demolition of 2
Palestinian homes.
We have two concerns. Our first concern is about the
decision to prosecute
our colleague who has devoted his life to Israel and to
the Zionist vision
of building and sustaining a Jewish State that
exemplifies the values of
compassion and justice. Rabbi Ascherman has
dedicated his career to
protecting the human rights of both Israelis and
Palestinians and his
Zionist and Jewish commitments inspire thousands of
Jews in Israel and
abroad. We fear that the decision to prosecute him is an
attempt to silence
his voice. For us and for many Jews in our communities
the work of Rabbis
for Human Rights represents the Jewish moral
conscience. We express our
love and commitment for Israel by supporting that work.
To silence it is to
push us away from the Israel we love.
Our second concern is about the home demolition policy
itself. The homes
that were demolished were not demolished for any
security reason. None of
the people in these homes engaged in violence or
harboring terrorists. They
were demolished because of a violation of zoning
regulations in the context
where it is almost impossible for Palestinian families in
those parts of the
West Bank under Israeli civilian control or in Jerusalem to
legally obtain
building permits. B'tselem, the Israeli human rights
organization, reports
that since 1987, literally thousands of homes have been
built for Jews in
these same areas, many receiving permits retroactively.
Since 1987 2,500
Palestinian houses on the West Bank and in East
Jerusalem have been
demolished leaving more than 16,000 Palestinians
homeless.
Home demolitions constitute an especially disturbing
human rights issue. A
sense of home is an essential part of our humanity;
homelessness has always
been considered a human tragedy. Jews, because of
our own history, are
especially conscious of the issue of home, and Zionism
can be said to be the
movement to find a home for a people so often deprived
of our homes.
The destruction of a home can only be experienced as a
violation by its
inhabitants. Something fundamental to one's identity has
been removed. To
be deprived of one's home is to be naked in the world.
More, it can mean that one is unable to locate oneself in
the world, to feel that one has a place. Without a home,
wherever one walks in the world, a sense of tragedy and
pain, of emptiness and shame accompanies you.
Any society must proceed with absolute caution before it
destroys a home. That is a basic claim of justice. It is
why Rabbis for Human Rights has been so involved with
issues of home demolition since 1997. It is why Rabbi
Ascherman stood with the Maswadeh family in Beit
Hanina when the bulldozers came, leaving Sufian and
Sana Maswadeh, their children, Mr Maswadeh's sick
mother, as well as his brother's entire family homeless,
within a matter of minutes. It is why he stood with the
family of Ahmed Mousa Dari in Issawiyah, when the
bulldozers came to demolish their home. It is why he
iscurrently standing trial.
These prosecutions will never lead to the kind of Israel
we want and desire: a Jewish State that celebrates the
prophetic voice which has animated our people for
centuries, and which has given such vitality to the Zionist
movement. True democracies protect minority rights,
and cherish and listen to their critics, to those who stand
with the poor and powerless.
We urge the government to exercise wisdom in this
matter: to drop the case against Rabbi Ascherman and
to rescind its policy of home demolitions. We believe that
the word of the prophets still speaks to us: ultimately,
Zion will only be redeemed through justice and those
who return to her through acts of righteousness.
Respectfully,
Rabbis Scott Aaron, Jon Adland, Ron Aigen, David
Ariel-Joel, Benjamin Arnold, Melanie Aron, Brad
Artson, Craig Axler, Larry Bach, Andrew N. Bachman,
David Dunn Bauer, Pamela Baugh, Leonard I.
Beerman, Martin Beifield, Marc J. Belgrad, Haim Dov
Beliak, Yehuda Howard Berger, Phyllis Berman, Leila
Gal Berner, Rebecca Birk, Aaron B. Bisno, Herman J.
Blumberg, Elizabeth Bolton, Stephen Booth-Nadav,
Neal I Borovitz, Barbara Borts, Charles Briskin,
Herbert Brockman, PhD, Caryn Broitman, Lester
Bronstein, Marcelo Bronstein, Ari Cartun, Carl Choper,
Debrah Cohen, Ayelet Cohen, Hillel Cohen, Michael
M. Cohen, Neil Comess-Daniels, David J. Cooper,
Mychal Copeland, Sigma Faye Coran, Rachel Cowan,
Dan Danson, Harry K Danziger, Justin David, Lavey
Yitzchak Derby, Shoshanah Devorah, Bruce Diamond,
James S. Diamond, Lucy H.F. Dinner, Fred Scherlinder
Dobb, Robert Dobrusin, Michael Dolgin, Art Donsky ,
Elliot Dorff, William Dreskin, Ellen Dreyfus, Alice
Dubinsky, Laurence Edwards, Jeffrey Eisenstat, Ed
Elkin, Lawrence A. Englander, Daniel Epstein, Rachel
Esserman, Ted Falcon, Ph.D., S. Joan Glazer Farber,
David Feder, Dena A. Feingold, Eddie Feld, Fern
Feldman, Susan Fendrick, Natan Fenner, Michael
Fessler, Nancy Flam, Ellen Flax, Randy Fleisher,
Jeff
Foust, Russel Fox, Wayne Franklin, Bob Freedman,
Jonathan B. Freirich, Michael Friedland, Dayle
Friedman, Joan S. Friedman, John Friedman,
Stephen Fuchs, Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, Roy Furman,
Ruth M. Gais, Joyce Galaski, Joseph H. Gelberman,
Laura Geller, Jonathan H. Gerard, Neil Gillman,
Arnold S. Gluck, Robert J. Gluck, Shai Gluskin, Neal
Gold, Dan Goldblatt, Irwin N. Goldenberg, Rachel
Goldenberg, Andrea Goldstein, Jerrold Goldstein,
Paul Golomb, Debora S. Gordon, Sam Gordon, Lynn
Gottlieb, Roberto Graetz, Joshua Levine - Grater,
Arthur Green, Steven Greenberg, Susan Grossman,
Susan Gulack, Abraham Havivi, Arthur Hertzberg,
Richard Hirsh, Linda Holtzman, Margaret Holub,
Yitzhak Husbands-Hankin, Fran Ickovits, Shirley
Idelson, Shaya Isenberg, Marc Israel, Margery
Jacobs,
Richard Jacobs, Jennifer Jaech, Paul J. Joseph, Dan
Judson, Julie Greenberg, Debra Newman Kamin,
Patricia Karlin-Neumann, Debra Kassoff, Alan J. Katz,
Joanna Katz, Alvan Kaunfer, Leora Kaye, Jason
Kimelman-Block, Ralph P. Kingsley, Paul J. Kipnes,
Jason Klein, Sharon Kleinbaum, Marc Kline, Myriam
Klotz, Peter Knobel, Doug Kohn, Neil Kominsky, Ira
Korinow, Emily Faust Korzenik, Douglas E. Krantz,
Matthew Kraus, Leonard S. Kravitz, Charles A. Kroloff,
Alan LaPayover, Barry Leff, Michael Lerner, Joshua
Lesser, Mark Levin, Joshua Levine-Grater, Sue E.
Levy, Yael Levy, Mordechai Liebling, Rebecca
Lillian,
Ellen Lippman, Janet B. Liss, Jane Rachel Litman,
Richard Litvak, Alan Lovins, Shaul Magid, Harry
Manhoff, Natan Margalit, Marc Margolius, Bonnie
Margulis, Dow Marmur, Mecklenburger, Paul Menitoff,
Shira Milgrom, David Mivasair, Margaret Moers Weinig,
Tracy Nathan, David Nelson, Sue Oren, Shaul
Osadchey, Joel Oseran, Sandy Roth Parian,
Shoshana M. Perry, Aaron M. Petuchowski, Bruce J.
Pfeffer, Marsha J. Pik-Nathan, Ph.D., Steven Pik-
Nathan, Brian Nevins-Goldman, RRA, Eliot J. Baskin,
D. Min., Gary S. Fink, D.Min., Moshe ben Asher,
Norman T. Roman, Vered L. Harris, RJE, Yakov
Rabkin, Arnold Rachlis, Michael Remson, Alexis
Roberts, Liz Rolle, Neal Rose, James B. Rosenberg,
Aaron Rosenberg, John Rosove, Donald Rossoff, Jeff
Roth, Jonathan Rubenstein, Elisheva Sachs, Richard
B Safran, Douglas B Sagal, Murray Saltzman, Samuel
M. Stahl, Emeritus, Neil Sandler, David Saperstein,
Marna Sapsowitz, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Arthur
L. Schwartz, Barry L. Schwartz, Sid Schwarz, Judith
Seid, Bruce Bromberg Seltzer, Miriam Senturia, Gerry
Serotta, Judy Shanks, Dan Shevitz, David Shneyer,
Daniel I. Siegel, Hanna Tiferet Siegel, Richard Simon,
Scott Slarskey, Jonathan P. Slater, Amy Joy Small,
Joel Soffin, Rav A. Soloff, Scott Sperling, Aaron
Spiegel, Toba Spitzer, Jacob J. Staub, Peter Stein,
David Steinberg, David Stern, George Stern, Warren
G. Stone, Michael Strassfeld, Alana Suskin, Monique
Susskind Goldberg, Michael Z. P. Tayvah, Elliott
Tepperman, Terry R. Bard, , David Teutsch, Betsy
Torop, Michael Torop, Lawrence Troster, Gordon
Tucker, Andrew Vogel, Brian Walt, Arthur Waskow,
Pamela Wax, Michael A. Weinberg, Sheila Peltz
Weinberg, Eitan Weiner-Kaplow, Simcha Weintraub,
Michael A. White, Arnold Jacob Wolf, Bridget Wynne,
Paul Yedwab, Shawn Israel Zevit, Michael Ziegler,
Michael Zimmerman, Misha Zinkow, Meryam Zislovich,
Henry A. Zoob.
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