Famine in Gaza divides many Jewish Americans

Tearing images of hungry children of Gaza have caused what some Jewish Americans call a “breakdown” between the supporters of the Israel offensive in its current form and those who oppose the way the Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuThe government manages war.

Frustrated by blood effusions, pressure rises to the United States and the international community to better control chaotic food distribution sites.

“We see not only division, but hatred between us, and it is not a good thing for the future,” said the Rabbi Erez Sherman of the Sinai Temple, a conservative synagogue in Los Angeles. “So how do we not solve it?” How do we work on this? “

But support for Israel remains all of them among many American and rabbis Jewish groups, which argue that Hamas prevents humanitarian aid from reaching innocent civilians.

“Israel has facilitated extraordinary help from the Palestinians in Gaza, in wartime, and it is really an unprecedented situation,” said Belle Etra Yoeli, spokesperson for the American Jewish Committee, who recently led a full -page ad In the New York Times with the image of an Israeli hostage that remains in police custody.

“The Palestinian civilians who were taken in the cross-fires throughout this war because of Hamas’ actions should not suffer,” she added. “Israel doesn’t want that.”

Nearly 1,400 people were killed and More than 4,000 were injured in search of food In Gaza, the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs Coordination said last week.

At least 859 people were killed near sites operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, a controversial organization supported by the Americans and Israeli, the United Nations said.

The executive director of the Foundation, Johnnie Moore, said that Hamas is largely responsible for murders and has rejected the reports on people who were deceased by Israeli shots.

“We have not seen the Israeli army do anything that aligns remotely with some of these accusations,” he said.

“It is quite obvious that Hamas has intentionally killed hundreds of people close to not only our sites, UN distribution sites, such as a way of disattating these attacks either at the FSI or the proximity of the GHF,” he added, referring to the defense forces of Israel.

To respond to the climbing of concerns concerning the humanitarian crisis, synagogues through Jewish movements in the United States organized round tables with the executive director of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

During an event with GHF organized last month by the Sinai temple in Los Angeles, the reactions were mixed, according to Sherman, the Rabbi, who led the discussion.

Some people have been shocked that an organization that has been subject to so many criticisms has been authorized to present its case. Others appreciated hearing people directly on the ground.

“How do you block the evil of your environment while nourishing the hungry and supporting the orphan and the widow?” Sherman said after the round table, referring to Psalm 146. “For me, it’s an impossible task, and I give credit to someone who at least tries to do it.”

The survey suggests that Jewish Americans are divided on war management by Netanyahu. According to a Pew Research Center report53% of Jewish Americans say they lack confidence in their leadership, while 45% say they trust. About 6 million Jews live in the United States, or 2% of the population, according to the Pew Research Center.

The ballot was carried out in April, before GHF began its operations in Gaza.

Supporters of the government of Netanyahu, including several American Jewish organizations, said that Hamas spread misleading information on which is to blame for the current violence on aid sites, an assertion of Hamas has denied several times. They also criticized the detractors for losing the emphasis on the remaining Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas.

“All this can be stopped at any time if Hamas drops its weapons,” said the Orthodox Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization that supports the government of Netanyahu.

An emerging concern reproduced by several organizations and rabbis is that Netanyahu’s position does not create an Israeli or world environment for the Jewish people. Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the organization for the defense of non-profit defenders, J Street, said that the in progress violence exposed the Israelis and the Palestinians to an unnecessary blood outpouring.

J Street, which supports a solution to two states, opposed Netanyahu for years before the war.

“If you tell people you need to be pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli, then we condemn ourselves and our children to an endless conflict,” Ben-Ami said on Monday.

But according to the Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari of Kol Tzedek, a reconstructionist synagogue in Philadelphia, the war creates an “existential rupture” which opposes friends and family members against each other.

“It’s catastrophic,” he said. “We fight with the very question” Are we belonging? ” »»

Fornari was part of more than 40 people arrested outside Trump Tower in New York earlier this month as it was shouting for the United States to stop I Israel and feed Gaza. He was arrested for investigating the blocking of traffic and obstruction, his third arrest since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, he said.

Some posters and signs displayed outside Trump Tower referred to an old maxim concerning the moral obligation to denounce injustice, said Fornari.

“That said, whoever has the power to express themselves and who chooses not to do so is responsible for it,” he said.

Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T’ruah, a rabbinical organization of human rights. Jacobs said that she supported Israel’s military response to Hamas’ terrorist attack in 2023, who killed 1,200 people and led to the taking of 250 hostages. The strike, the worst attack of a day against the Jews since the Holocaust, shocked the world.

Since then, more than 61,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including thousands of children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, and a large part of the territory has been destroyed.

Jacobs began to question Netanyahu’s strategy because more and more civilians in Gaza have been killed, she said. In July, she denounced the American Jewish leaders who had not talked about the humanitarian crisis which unfolds thousands of kilometers.

“In private, Jewish lay leaders are anxious against Gaza. Publicly, they fear being labeled anti-Semitic, ”she wrote in a Opinion column in the attackerAn American Jewish newspaper.

Jacobs was called anti-Semitic by other Jews who support Netanyahu and avoided by inherited Jewish organizations, she said. Some, she said, comes from a legitimate fear of prejudices.

In May, two staff of the Israeli Embassy were killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, and a group of pro-Israeli hostages in Colorado was attacked with two Molotov cocktails in June. There were also reported with anti-Jewish insults and panels on university campuses and pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country.

Cultural benefits played in the living room and through kitchen tables. Sonya Meyerson-Knox, spokesperson for the anti-Zionist group, Jewish Voice for Peace, who has opposed war since 2023, said that a member was not invited to dinners of the Shabbat family due to differences of opinion on war.

The group was suspended from several campuses, including Columbia UniversityDuring allegations, he intimidated Jewish students and made them dangerous during pro-Palestinian demonstrations last year. The Jewish voice of peace maintains that his opinions are not anti -Semitic.

“It is not unique in Jewish history that the Jews are fiercely disagreed with each other,” she said. “What is unique is that there seems to be an effort to arm half of our community against the other.”