Dear Friends,
Last week marked the seventeenth day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz. Shivah Asar b’Tammuz, as it is known in Hebrew, is a day of fasting that marks the beginning of a three week period leading to Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, the day on which Jerusalem fell to the Romans. (These three weeks are known as Bein haMetzarim [“between the straits,” i.e. between the days of distress] and ritually observant Jews observe numerous mourning customs during the entire period.) The seventeenth of Tammuz is notable for being the day when, according to tradition, the walls of Jerusalem were first breached. It marked the beginning of the end of the period of Jewish autonomy in our ancestral homeland.
Being in Israel on Shivah Asar b’Tammuz just days after a Houthi drone hit Tel Aviv and killed one Israeli was a surreal experience that brought those dark days in our history into focus in a new way. It is a reminder that our freedom, let alone survival, as Jews has never been guaranteed but that, after all the tragedies that have befallen our people, we are still here.
But there is an aspect of this period in our history that is often overlooked. While the Romans laid siege and ultimately conquered and destroyed Jerusalem, they were unintentionally assisted by a group of Jewish religious extremists. These extremists, known as the Zealots or Siccari, prevented the residents of Jerusalem from leaving the city. When their fellow Jerusalem residents failed to adopt their extremist ideology insignificant numbers, they burned the city’s storehouses of grain.
We often discuss the social divisions of race, religion and gender, but as the seventeenth of Tammuz reminds us, the most impactful social division is often between extremists and everyone else. That extremism was on full display on October 7th. Since then, Hamas leaders, including Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed earlier this week, have pledged to repeat the atrocities of October 7th as many times as possible.
Sadly, however, we too have extremists within our Jewish community. Meir Kahanah, the founder of Kach, was an extremist. I heard him speak in Jerusalem a few years before his death and was shocked at the vitriol coming from him. Yigal Amir, who assassinated Prime Minister Rabin, was a Jewish extremist. And those who this week defended the indefensible actions of IDF soldiers who tortured Palestinian prisoners are extremists. No civil society should or can tolerate the abuses that went on in that prison. The Israeli justice system rightfully arrested them and began an investigation. But, as ugly and egregious as the alleged mistreatment of prisoners was, and it was, the reaction of right wing extremists was equally distressing. I was disgusted to see such ugliness but grateful that the vast majority of Israelis found the behavior in the prisons, and the response of those defending it, equally repugnant. I pray those involved in the abuse face justice and that immediate reforms are put into place.
As our world has become increasingly polarized we have seen the extremes at both ends of the spectrum feel increasingly emboldened. They say and do things they would never before have dared to say or do. Many seem to take note of the extremism coming from one side or the other, but if we have learned one thing in the past ten months it is that, as a sign at the Washington DC Solidarity Rally I attended last fall said, “The extreme left and the extreme right meet at antisemitism.”
We know only too well the pain, loss and suffering that extremism brings. We have experienced it at our own hands and at the hands of others. Now, more than ever, we need the voices of tolerance and moderation to be heard. For the sake of our future and future of generations to come it is on us to stand up, speak out and reject the extremes.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Daniel Cohen