Can different Jews
Unite for the
High Holidays?
By Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman | JNS.org
I n April 2015 — in the aftermath of the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray inside
a police van after being arrested by the Baltimore Police Department, followed
by days of riots in the city — warring street gangs stood side by side against
what they called police brutality.

Tzippi Shaked, author of Three Ladies, Three Lattes: Percolating Discussions in
the Holy Land, believes that the case of the Bloods and Crips unifying together is
a valuable lesson for the Jewish community, in which there are frequent divisions
along religious lines. This was echoed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
in his annual Rosh Hashanah greeting last year, in which he urged Jewish unity by
working “together … [to] build our Jewish state — because we’re united, proud of
our past and committed to our future.”
Can Jewish people of different religious denominations truly unite and work
together for a common good?
The concept of Jewish unity is one that comes up around the High Holidays due
to the Torah portions read before the holidays: Nitzavim and Vayelech. In Nitzavim
we read, “Today you are all standing before God your Lord — your leaders, your
tribal chiefs … even your woodcutters and water drawers” (Deuteronomy 29:9).

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