APN commends and supports the many American Jewish community leaders who expressed outrage over last week’s decision by the Israeli government to suspend the agreement to create a pluralistic prayer space at the Western Wall. Coupled with the government’s decision to further a bill tightening regulations on Jewish conversions (which has now been delayed by six months), these actions sent a powerful message of rejection and disregard to the great majority of American Jews. We extend particular support to the respective heads of the Reform and Conservative movements in the U.S., Rabbi Rick Jacobs and Rabbi Steve Wernick, and offer them an enthusiastic kol hakavod for their leadership.
To those same leaders, we ask that a similar outspokenness be applied to Israel’s fifty-year occupation and the continued expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Just as the issue of prayer at the Western Wall threatens to divide the Jewish people, settlement expansion and the occupation that it entrenches pose an existential threat to the Zionist dream of a democratic state of Israel as a secure homeland for the Jewish people. This too is a detrimental and ever-more divisive issue, both within the American Jewish community and between the U.S. and Israeli Jewish communities.
American Jewish leaders, who have now shown a willingness to be harshly critical of the Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government, must recognize this threat to Israel’s future – and must be willing to deliver the same level of criticism. As Michael Siegel, the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, said last week, "Support for Israel does not necessarily mean support for the Israeli government."
Send a letter to Rabbi Rick and Jacobs and Rabbi Steve Wernick wishing them a kol hakavod for their leadership on prayer at the Western Wall – and asking them to do the same on 50 years of occupation and settlements.