Category: Am Yisrael

The Dead Child- a prayer from the ashes of October 7

As we remember the horror of October 7 and the aftermath, the words of Menachem Rosensaft bring us a somber resonance. Let this day of remembrance stir us to mercy for the child, not because we doubt our cause, but because we cherish our conscience.

“the dead child

in gaza city

khan younis

rafah

is cried over

with the same tears

by the same God

the same Allah

the same Adonai

as the dead child

in kfar aza

nahal oz

be’eri

…

and it is

for the not yet dead child

palestinian child

israeli child

muslim child

jewish child

that the killing must end

the war must end

the terror must end

the hatred must end”

—Menachem Rosensaft, from Burning Psalms: Confronting Adonai after Auschwitz (Ben Yehuda Press, 2025)

 

 

Shabbat Shalom

This song caught my heart today.  Thanks to the Maccabeats for Minyan Man.

With so much divisiveness, it’s good to remember Kol Arevim Zeh laZeh, All Israel is responsible for one another.  Each of us is important. Each of us can make a difference.  Together, let’s welcome Shabbat and welcome God’s peace.

Shabbat Shalom

#BringThemHomeNow

What’s in a name?

Genocide is a highly charged word.

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet asks, ‘What’s in a name?’ Names are simply labels we use to identify things, but the true nature of those things exists regardless of what we call them. Genocide is a highly charged word. We get so caught up in the word and all of the intense emotional baggage it carries that we forget the underlying tragedy: it is an attempt to understand what is happening in Gaza.

One side calls it a genocide; the other disputes that term, accusing the accusers of deliberately misusing the word, targeting the victims of such an experience as if they were the perpetrators of that very same horror. We get caught up in definitions, a kind of territorialism, claiming ownership of that word, and in doing so, we completely miss the point.

The people suffering in the war in Gaza are truly experiencing pain. It’s not just about numbers—whether it’s one person or many—innocent victims of the Hamas-Israel conflict have died. They go hungry. They are homeless. They are victims. Although I do not trust the statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry, there’s no way to measure the full extent of the carnage accurately, and Hamas’s role in this is dehumanizing Palestinians, echoing what the Nazis did to Jews.

We must navigate this challenging space and find ways to offer humanity and hope that we were denied, and, sadly, to the Palestinians as well. From the ashes of Auschwitz, we proclaimed Never Again. Was this declaration meant only for us? Our Jewish duty to be a light to the nations requires that it not be. We must uphold our tradition’s promise by maintaining our humanity and embracing the virtues of Pirkei Avot (2:5); in a world that has no worthy men, strive to be a man.

Whatever you call it, the war and anguish must end.