News and Updates Clergy Corner

In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, it became clear right away that the grassroots movement of BDS was extraordinarily successful. For years, we thought that the pro-Palestinian BDS movement was ineffective because it was an economic
movement. The goal was to convince organizations and governments to boycott, divest, and sanction the State of Israel. Yet, because Israel’s economy remained healthy and robust, we always thought that BDS was essentially just a nuisance. On October 8, 2023, we learned how wrong this assumption was. We saw that their grassroots efforts to draw Americans into the anti-Zionist camp were actually quite successful. We were shocked to see how quickly so many Americans were to stand against Israel, even after the unprovoked horrors of October 7th.

For the last 40 years, the American Jewish community has done so much to support Israel. We have also worked tirelessly to rally Congress to understand the importance of the United States-Israel relationship. However, what we have not done nearly as well as the BDS movement is spread our message of love and support for a democratic and secure State of Israel with our non-Jewish neighbors. And because we haven’t, they became easy prey to foreign-backed, nefarious social media propaganda.

As a result, while war is terrible and loss of innocent life is tragic on both sides of the conflict, very few Americans who get their news from social media or biased sources have any sense of what really has transpired in Israel since October 7th.

Given the climate that now exists in America with regard to Israel, I do not think there is someone we can elect, a conference we can stage, or a check we can write that will quickly resolve the problem. Instead, I believe we should take a cue from our
prophets Abraham and Sarah, who opened their homes and invited all passersby to hear their story and learn about their mission. While we are doing a great deal of this at the Temple, I would urge members of our congregation to bring non-Jewish friends into their homes for dinner. We should be starting our own grassroots campaigns. We should be having discussions with our neighbors about what is important to us, and listening to what is important to them. We will help you guide these conversations. But it is going to take all of us a great deal of effort and time if we want to stem the tide of anti-Israel sentiment.

And one final note. It is not always important that we agree. What is important is that our neighbors hear and respect our concerns. They should understand why we are scared and how they can help. And at the same time, we can serve as sources of information, and people willing to listen and empathize with their concerns. There is no simple cure for this problem. It is going to take time, resources, effort, and cooperation. But if you are tired of the downward trend of support for Israel and the upward trend of open antisemitism, then please join the effort to jumpstart our own grassroots movement. There is a lot of work to do, and there is no better time to do it than now!

L’shalom,
Rabbi Jeremy Barras