JVP Rabbis: 'Israel is committing the holocaust of our time'

Source: Jewish Voice For Peace

The Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinic Council has issued the following letter, entitled: 'Speak truth: these atrocities are crimes against humanity'.

As rabbis we have taken on a sacred responsibility to protect our ancient tradition, to support our community, and to offer moral leadership amid crisis. We find ourselves in a horrifying historical moment. Many of us have parents, grandparents and great-grandparents who survived or perished in Nazi death marches and we have all grown up in the shadow of the Nazi holocaust. The state of Israel is currently perpetrating a holocaust, the deliberate mass slaughter of Palestinian people, with weapons provided by the United States.

The photos and videos coming out of North Gaza are a terrifying echo of all-too-familiar images of European ghettos and Nazi concentration camps in the 2nd World War. The Nazi camps were hidden from the world, but as Susan Abulhawa writes, "Israel is committing the holocaust of our time, and it is doing it in full view of a seemingly indifferent world." Today we stand with our ancestors at our backs, in solidarity with our Palestinian siblings, demanding an immediate weapons embargo and an end to genocide - we will not act with indifference toward Palestinian suffering.

There is no time to waste and no room for ambiguity. We must call the Israeli government's actions what they are - genocide. A growing mountain of documentation now accompanies the Palestinian testimony we have been receiving all year. While Zionist discourse propagates the myth that Israel must commit these heinous acts for the sake of Jewish security, we know this was never about keeping anyone safe, as the staggering death toll confirms. The Israeli military has killed, at the very least, 42,000 Palestinian grandparents, parents, babies, children, artists, leaders, poets, teachers, journalists, and doctors. Countless more lie under the rubble, not yet documented within Palestine's destroyed healthcare system.

We call on you and all people of conscience to show up today and heed our tradition's insistence that we speak truth - dabru emet (Zechariah 8:16), and choose life - u'vacharta bachayim (Deuteronomy 30:19). We must ask ourselves who we are: will we be like the courageous "righteous gentiles" who risked their personal safety to protect and save Jewish lives during the Nazi holocaust? Or will we behave like those who "didn't want to get involved" or joined the Nazi party enthusiastically? There is no middle ground. We implore you: join us in speaking truth and choosing life. We need everyone.

Dabru emet, speak truth: The Israeli military is herding Palestinian men and boys into lines, and forcing them to walk toward pits. These are death marches.

Dabru emet, speak truth: The Israeli military is forcing Palestinian families to flee again and again, even as there is nowhere safe from their bombs. This is ethnic cleansing.

Dabru emet, speak truth: The Israeli military is burning Palestinians to death in hospitals and displaced persons camps. The Israeli military is burying Palestinians alive in the rubble of their destroyed homes. The Israeli military is abandoning infants to die and decompose. This is a campaign of extermination.

These atrocities are crimes against humanity, a phrase codified within international law in response to the Nazi holocaust, seeking to prevent horror of this magnitude from ever happening again. Lo ta-amod al dam re'echa (Leviticus 19:16): we must not - we will not - stand by watching endless Palestinian blood shed. So many lives can still be saved.

We must honor our ancestors who were murdered by Nazis when the most powerful nations in the world allowed genocidal violence to escalate unchecked. We must honor all our ancestors who were displaced and killed because of racist, nationalist ideologies throughout our history. We must honor our ancestors by shouting the truth to the heavens and putting our bodies on the line to stop the Israeli government's genocide of Palestinians now. Ameinu, our people, are those who stand up to stop genocide.

Join us as we join our Palestinian allies in calling on our government to block weapons to Israel and commit to a full arms embargo now.

We invite Nazi holocaust survivors, refugees, and their descendants: add your name to our call to stand up and stop genocide. www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/resource/never-again-is-now-speak-out/