By Rabbi David Basior, January 2024

Find me regularly at www.kadima.org/blog 

I am part of the Jewish movement toward a ceasefire in Israel/Palestine. I come to this position as a human, a dad, a Jew, and a rabbi. And I come to this position as someone who has spent nearly two decades as part of Jewish movements against Israeli occupation in and of Palestinian lands.

As a Jew and a rabbi, this position is quite simple for me. Humans were created in the image G-d (Genesis 1:27). Our differences, unique abilities, skin colors, languages, traditions of ethics and worship, genders and more are all various refractions of the divine. The Oral Torah represented primarily in the Mishnah teaches in Sanhedrin 4:5:

“Adam, the first human, was created alone to teach that with regard to anyone who destroys one soul, i.e., kills one human, the verse ascribes them blame as if they destroyed an entire world, as Adam was one person, from whom the population of an entire world came forth. And conversely, anyone who sustains one soul the verse ascribes them credit as if they sustained an entire world. The mishna cites another reason Adam, the first human, was created alone: And this was done due to the importance of maintaining peace among people, so that one person will not say to another: My parent is greater than your parent.”

As a Reconstructionist Jew, I am in the tradition of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan who actively rejected the Jewish idea of chosenness, understanding Jews as a distinct group of people with a particular calling, but not a chosen people with more value nor deserving more or different rights than others.

A mix of these expressions of Jewishness has led me for decades to oppose the Israeli occupation, and from there it is no leap at all to be opposed to the Israeli government’s brutal mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza, particularly as the government of Israel has moved farther and farther to be openly racist and right-wing.

I too oppose Hamas’ brutal attack on Israelis and residents of Israel on October 7, 2023. Ending antisemitism is part and parcel of achieving the collective liberation that I believe aligns with the World to Come/that is Coming. Including Jewish liberation with Palestinian liberation as we all work toward a world without colonization and supremacy needs to be natural and actively sought. It needs to be how we fight for these things even as we pursue them as ends as well. 

For Jews, especially white Ashkenazi-heritage Jews, this will mean grappling with our power after milenia of victimization in a modern racialized context. It will mean healing from that trauma while discerning where our true allies now reside. All too often Jewish leaders choose alignment with white Christian power structures in the name of retaining power, privilege, and security. All too often we allow for, and at times advance, the antisemitic conflation of Jews and Zionists.

For Christians, especially European-heritage Christians, this will mean a reconciliation with the sins of their ancestors after thousands of years of antisemitic thinking, theology, and violence. It will mean apology and return. And it will mean finding ways to work for Palestinian liberation that does not include a continuation of this antisemitic history.

Let us all do the work we have to do to ensure the safety and well being of all in harm’s way. For that reason and more, let us say loudly and proudly: Ceasefire now. 

Rabbi David Basior (he/him) works on Duwamish Land in Seattle, WA as Rabbi & Co-Director of Kadima Reconstructionist Community where he has been working since 2015. He is an runner and new player of Dungeons & Dragons with other 40+ something parents. He has been working for a just peace in Israel/Palestine since 2005 with various groups, including Jewish Voice for Peace and Rabbis4Ceasefire.

This article was originally commissioned and published at Erin’s other ministry emergentgrace.com.