Selective Hearing

"What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn"

Hillel-- 110 BCE to 10 CE

I was taught that this famous Jewish sage actually said the "rest is commentary; go and learn". Regardless, every religion has their version of Golden Rule, which all mean the same thing.

Why do we sometimes hear a voice whispering this simple and sublime rule but not at other times, like now?

Certainly a question for our shepherds.

--Andreas Rubinstein

What if These Children Were in Your Congregation?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28573674

THE FOLLOWING IS A LETTER INITIALLY SENT TO AND PUBLISHED IN THE KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINAL.  THE LETTER IS WRITTEN BY FORMER KNOXVILLIAN KEN SCHUBERT.

Gathering lacked Judaism's empathy

3:00 AM, Jul 30, 2014

letters to the editor

As a Jew who lived in Knoxville for many years, I think the local Jewish leaders and organizations should be ashamed of themselves for the way that they promoted the Israel Solidarity Gathering at the Arnstein Jewish Community Center on July 24. The eight sponsoring organizations, including the synagogues, obviously felt that they needed to support Israel's offensive in Gaza. That in itself was a questionable decision that silenced open and honest discussion, given that a great many Jews are opposed to the offensive. But not to mourn for, or even mention, the hundreds of civilian deaths and widespread devastation that Israel has wrought in Gaza is a greater blasphemy of Judaism and the Jewish religion than any anti-Semite could possibly commit. Instead of prayer and support for Israeli soldiers, these leaders and organizations should have spent the time reading the great Jewish philosophers and refamiliarizing themselves with the compassion and empathy that Judaism is all about.

Our Appeal!

At a morgue in Gaza City, Palestinians mourned the arrival of children killed in the Gaza conflict.CreditWissam Nassar for The New York Times-7-29-2014



If you see the vast majority of Palestinian people as decent human beings and not as caricatures bent on suicide, homicide, and self-degradation, you've seen beyond the distorted media presented by the major news outlets of the U.S.  You've uncovered the cruel dishonesty of Israeli and AIPAC subterfuge and spin.

If you are nauseous over the images of dead children in Gaza, and the savage indifference of the majority of Israelis and affiliated American Jews and American Christians, then please consider the following campaign:

If you are Jewish, write and meet with as many rabbis as you can.  If you are a Christian, write and meet with as many Christian clergy as you can.  Insist that they take on the humanitarian cause of the Palestinian people.  

There should be moral outrage projecting from pulpits everywhere.  Your rabbi or preacher or priest must show his or her congregation the extraordinary gap between professed faith in G-d and the passive acceptance of the horror show currently playing out on a 32 by 6 mile strip of land by the Mediterranean Sea.

Rabbis and Christian clergy have to be taken to task.  They have to take the lead in debunking stereotypes and myths about the Palestinian people--G-d's children just like all of us.  They have to lead us in organized pressure on our government and the U.N. and the Israeli Government and business world.

If G-d's love does not spread to all, then it does not exist, and we are all pagans.