opinion
The Settlers’ Attack on Huwara Is Not
the Orthodox Judaism I Grew Up On
Aviad Houminer-Rosenblum
N 12
MARCH 9, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
Jewish rioters look on as the cars they set on fi re burn in the Palestinian town of Huwara in the West
Bank on Feb. 26.

permanently, for the land belongs to Me, for you are
strangers and [temporary] residents with Me.”
By contrast, the Judaism that the militant
settlers imbibed — or distorted — led one of the
pogromchiks, he too in skullcap and sidelocks, to
speak in Hebrew words I understood but whose
language I could not not comprehend. “There is
something very moving here,” he told a reporter.

“Jews won’t be silent. What the army can’t do, what
the police will never do, simple Jews come and
carry out a simple act of vengeance, setting fi re to
anything they can.”
The same Judaism led Davidi Ben Zion, deputy
head of the Samaria Regional Council, also an
observant Jew, to say blithely, shortly before the
pogrom, that “Huwara should be wiped off the
earth — no room for mercy,” and “the [Jewish] guys
in Huwara right now are behaving precisely like
guys whose brothers were massacred in cold blood
at point-blank. The idea that a Jew in Samaria is a
diasporic Jew, who will be stabbed in the heart and
politely say thank you, is childish naivete.”
That same Judaism led Israel’s fi nance minister,
Betzalel Smotrich, the de facto governor of the
West Bank, to publicly support a tweet by another
coalition member calling to “wipe out” the village.

In the name of this Judaism, denizens of hills
and outposts abuse the Palestinians daily, with
the aid or under the blind eye of the IDF. A national
Jewish settlement endeavor has been taking
place for two generations now, which despite the
good intentions of some of its practitioners, has
included land theft, institutionalized discrimination,
killing and hatred. An endeavor under which
See Houminer-Rosenblum, page 13
Screenshot Via Twitter
ighttime in Huwara, a small Palestinian town
in the West Bank. Jews in large skullcaps
and sidelocks, prayer fringes dangling from
their waists, responding loudly to the cantor: “Yehei
shmei raba mevurach leolam u’leolmei olmaya”
(“May His great name be blessed, forever and ever”)
— the words of Kaddish, a regular daily prayer that
can also be said to mourn the dead.

The gloom outside is illuminated by an enormous
bonfi re of cars, shops and homes belonging to
the Palestinian residents of the village, which the
Kaddish-reciters have set on fi re, in revenge for the
horrifi c and heartrending murders, hours before the
pogrom, of brothers Hillel and Yagel Yaniv (may their
memory be a blessing) and for other recent terror
attacks in the area.

One Palestinian was killed during the rioting
by these Jewish settlers. Dozens of wounded
Palestinians were evacuated to hospitals, some
from smoke inhalation, others from beatings and
stabbings. A family was evacuated by IDF troops,
moments before they might have perished in the
fl ames that took their home.

This wasn’t just any Kaddish, yet another one
of those said and repeated by any observant
Jew multiple times a day, sometimes in
mumbling fashion. This time it was a Kaddish for
Judaism itself.

I grew up in a small town in central Israel, in a
classic “dati leumi” or national religious community
whose ideology combines Zionism and Orthodox
Judaism. I studied in typical religious institutions:
a school in the state-religious education stream,
a high school yeshivah and a “hesder yeshivah,”
which combines advanced religious studies with
military service. I was also very active in the religious
Zionist Bnei Akiva youth movement, as an educator
and leader.

Even today I live in a religious community in
Jerusalem, and my young children study in schools
that belong to the state-religious education stream.

The Judaism that I know and by which I try to
live is a Judaism that operates according to the
commandment “walk in His ways” (Deuteronomy
11:22) and the Talmud: “As He is gracious you should
also be gracious, as He is compassionate you
should also be compassionate” (Shabbat 133b:4-
6). This Judaism operates according to the verse
from Leviticus, “The land shall not be sold



opinion
Loving Something Flawed
Rabbi David Levin
I am struggling with my
relationship with Israel. The
aspirations of our ancient
homeland and our history drew
me to the miracle that was and,
in many ways, continues to be this place.

But the state is pressing on issues such as racism,
tolerance for pluralism, and checks and balances
in government. I was suckled in a mythic Israel but
have learned to ween myself, given the practicalities
of a nation-state that cannot live solely by the hopes
and dreams of the Jewish people.

However, as David Ben-Gurion understood, to
be a nation like other nations was a pragmatic
understanding of survival in the harsh real world.

Today, the ideals of a homeland that is both Jewish
and a democracy are threatened by raw political
power and expediency.

We had come to accept Judaism and democracy
in tension. For the first time, we face the existential
crisis of threatening both. The fractious rough-and-
tumble nature of Israeli politics and the need to form
a governing coalition in Knesset has brought us to a
new place.

Over time, we developed complacency in our
attitudes. Israel, as a Jewish democratic state, was
always considered a given. Laws and policies often
were merely annoyances and opportunities for
workarounds. “Religious” marriage meant a weekend
in Cyprus. The Orthodox church that has become the
Kotel was not an issue for the secular.

Israelis have enjoyed unprecedented prosperity
and unrivaled military strength, making this a safe
and secure place for most. Palestinian rights, West
Bank settlements and civil rights were not on
the radar screen of most and were relegated to
the margins.

Then came Bibi 3.0. The assault on cherished
rights, once considered unassailable, has awoken
many from slumber.

The protests in the streets by hundreds of
thousands are sending a strong message that this
is unacceptable. “Guns and butter” at any cost are
not enough. The extensive unbridled settlement
program is intolerable, and the Israeli response to
terrorism is rightly called a pogrom. To use a familiar
Jewish word, it is a shanda.

I struggle to love the country as I continue to love
the land that held a people charged to be a light unto
the nations. This is my heritage.

Last week, during my trip to Israel with the Central
Conference of American Rabbis, I was proud to be
at two demonstrations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

I was deeply moved to see the sea of Israeli flags and
patriotism on display.

However, I was disgusted and deeply aggrieved
to be spat on when attempting to bring our Torah
for Rosh Chodesh and assaulted by yeshivah
bochers trying to stop my expression of Judaism in
the Kotel space.

I cannot turn my back on this precocious and
precarious experiment. But I am distraught.

I support those who do the work, including
the Israeli Religious Action Center and the brave
Women of the Wall. I also proudly support NGOs
who envision a place where people can live in a
shared society, including the Yad b’Yad schools
and the New Israel Fund, on whose regional
board I serve.

I am actively considering dual citizenship, not
to lessen my devotion to the United States, but
to achieve a voice in shaping the destiny of Israel
as only a voting citizen can do. I urge everyone to
evaluate where they stand and what they want to do
at this critical juncture.

No one can sit on the sidelines any longer. ■
Rabbi David Levin manages the Jewish Relationships
Initiative, helping seekers of meaning through Jewish
wisdom. Levin teaches nationally on such matters
under Conversations for Life and Legacy.

HOUMINER-ROSENBLUM Continued from page 12
the current coalition, the most observant ever,
only grows and intensifies.

In ordinary times life is not black and white. The
Palestinian side also has a significant part in the
story. The violence comes in great force and cruelty
from there as well, and its many victims and circles
burn the soul and draw many good people into the
cycle of vengeance.

The solution, too, is complex and hard to see, even
far off on the horizon. But there are moments when
things are actually very clear, clarifying the gray areas,
when the choices are between life and death, and
good and evil.

This evil version of Judaism is a lethal drug,
which through a historical twist of fate gained
ascendance over our ancient tradition. Combined
with nationalism and majority hegemony in the Land
of Israel, it has become a conflagration, one that
has long since spread beyond religious Zionism —
what Americans might refer to as “Modern
Orthodox” — to the haredi, or ultra-Orthodox sector,
and Israeli society in general.

An entire generation of Jews has been raised
on this Judaism of hate, contemptuous of anyone
who is not Jewish, of any display of weakness, of
compassion. To whom Judaism is not the keeping
and continuation of our tradition, observing
commandments or studying Torah, but a worship
of “Jewish might” (“Otzma Yehudit,” the name of a
far-right political party) and limitless greed.

In this Judaism, traditional values like
modesty, pity and charity are signs of weakness,
or remnants of a pathetic and feeble Christian
morality that under no circumstances are to be
shown to a stranger, the other, those who are
not like us.

What we need now is not accommodation, nor
soft words and platitudes. Neither will an obvious
and empty condemnation of the pogrom do a
bit of good. What we need now — having seen
the elected officials who represent this religious
population, having witnessed their nationalist
Judaism — is a policy rooted in a tradition they
abandoned. We should treat those who distort Judaism as
the Mishnah tells us to treat all evildoers: “Distance
yourself from an evil neighbor, and do not cleave to
a wicked person” (Ethics of the Fathers 1:7). We need
to announce that we want no part in the feral growth
that has sprung up here, that this is not the tradition
we grew up on, this is not the Torah we studied,
and this is not how we wish to live our lives and
raise our children.

Let us return to tradition and start over. ■
Aviad Houminer-Rosenblum is deputy director-
general of Berl Katznelson Center and a member
of The Faithful Left movement, which last month
organized the first-ever conference of Israel’s
religious left.

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