Confessions of a Loyal Zionist

Friday May 9, 2025/11 Iyar 5785/Parashat Aharei Mot-Kedoshim

לֹא־תֵלֵ֤ךְ רָכִיל֙ בְּעַמֶּ֔יךָ לֹ֥א תַעֲמֹ֖ד עַל־דַּ֣ם רֵעֶ֑ךָ אֲנִ֖י יְהֹוָֽה׃

Do not be a talebearer among your people. Do not stand by the blood of your fellow: I am Adonai.

(Aharei-Mot/Kedoshim)

Hevre/Friends,

I have a confession. I’m struggling. 

My passionate commitment to the State of Israel and our right to a Jewish homeland where we can live in safety and freedom has only intensified in the 18 months since October 7. My support for Israel’s defense of her borders and her people from violent and vile forces of hatred is unshakeable. My belief in Israel’s obligation to fulfill her promise to be a beacon of justice and of peace has only deepened. My determination to support Israel’s healing and its efforts to fulfill its responsibilities, its pledges, and its destiny remains steadfast. 

And yet, like so many, I am disgusted by the moral and spiritual depravity of too many Israeli political leaders with power and influence over the war and over the fate of the hostages. I am dismayed by - and fearful of - the vitriol and aggression that animate the divides in Israeli society. I despair over the fragility and vulnerability of the many coexistence projects which persist in their vision of a sustainable peace.

But these complex and often contradictory feelings are not the heart of my struggle. Anyone who’s thought deeply about Judaism, Jewish identity, and Zionism in our modern, complicated world is accustomed to holding multiple, often conflicting, values and priorities in a single earnest embrace. Especially now. 

My struggle is how to speak and write publicly about those conflicting feelings as they relate to Israel given the high stakes of this urgent conversation. I’m wrestling with how to use my rabbinic voice responsibly and productively, not wanting to give license to those who are abandoning their Zionism, and not wanting to embolden those who remain blindly devoted to it. 

My struggle is not unlike those experienced by some teachers with their students, and some parents and grandparents with their kids and grandkids. When we speak openly about our complicated feelings about Israel, how do we make sure that as we claim both our shame and our dignity, as we express feeling both mortified and so, so proud, that people won’t hear in our words permission to embrace one without the other? 

It’s an old struggle, some might say. For centuries, Jewish leaders have debated the extent to which we should “air our dirty laundry” for the world to see. But this is different. The risks aren’t only about influencing others in their feelings for Israel. The risks are about further degrading our own people’s support for the Jewish State.

As I do weekly, I sought guidance from this week’s Torah portion, and identified echoes of the same heavy struggle in the verse above. Do not speak ill of your people, but at the same time, do not just stand there when someone is dying, be they a hostage or an innocent human being caught in the crosshairs of war. Do not slander, but do not remain silent in the face of corruption.

This is a war with secondary and tertiary battlefields of all kinds. The conflict over how to speak openly and honestly about Israel without losing people’s appetite for and devotion to the miraculous story of Israel’s rebirth and all the hope reborn along with it is real and critical, especially in a generation of truncated attention spans and torrents of social media images and soundbytes. It requires sensitivity and boldness; empathy and ardency. Like the weightiness of a soldier’s pack, they can be hard to balance even as we run headstrong into the battle.

With continued prayers for our ability to bring home all the hostages, protect the soldiers, heal the injured, comfort the bereaved, and build a lasting peace in Israel and around the world, and with blessings for a Shabbat Shalom,

Dini

Photo Courtesy of Ronen Avisror