Columnist Says Claiming The West Bank Is Not The Cause Of American Jews

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat, Israel addressed a Re­form temple in East Hampton, New York asking for money for Israeli settlers in the West Bank for armored buses, bul­letproof vests and helmets.

Commenting on his talk, columnist Anne Roiphe, writ­ing in The Jerusalem Report (Sept, 10, 2001), asks: “What is the Orthodox Riskin doing at the beautiful Reform temple addressing its members with urgent, eloquent pleading ... Rabbi Riskin is making a plea that American Jews should come to the aid of the settlers, because Jews are in danger and Jews must stand together in bad times. ... He is selling the settlements as if they were a matter of Jewish solidarity.”

In Roiphe’s view, “The problem with Rabbi Riskin’s plea is that he sidesteps the reasons why these Jews are being shot at. He makes their cause, claiming the West Bank for the Jews, our cause. And it is not. The vast majority of Ameri­can Jews do not view the settlements or the West Bank as essential to the survival of Israel. For profound moral rea­sons, they are not willing to remove or resettle or transport the populations of Arabs who live in that land to allow the expansion of Jewish borders. Asked what to do with the Ar­abs in the West Bank, Rabbi Riskin said ‘I want them re­moved.’ American Jews are now distraught and despair of the peace process...But...the Jewishly identified majority of us...are not committed to a religious vision of taking the entire land, settlement by settlement, away from the people who are already there. The morality of that occupation is ap­palling, but above everything the determination to take the West Bank and the Temple Mount for one’s own seems a sure way to the death of many and the mutual destruction of all.”

Roiphe declares that, “If the settlements did not exist in occupied lands, there would be no need of helmets and ar­mored buses and bulletproof vests. If the settlements were evacuated, then Israeli soldiers could defend the borders with less danger to themselves, less bloodshed all around. Around this issue lies a complicated political and perhaps religious quarrel between Jews. You cannot get around this sharp dis­pute by an appeal to Jewish solidarity that deliberately awak­ens memories of the failure to respond to the Holocaust.”

Roiphe concludes: “The further irony of Rabbi Riskin appearing at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons to make his pitch lies in the fact that he would not accept a conversion performed by Rabbi David Gelfand who leads this congrega­tion. He would on many matters not accept the validity of his halakhic judgment or the sacredness of a marriage performed by this Reform rabbi. It would be no use to appeal to him on grounds of Jewish solidarity to change his mind. So it seems to me a rank manipulation of public opinion to use this ap­peal to raise funds for the settlers. ... American Jews want to support the government of Israel as always. Some of us want to support its loyal opposition. But we are not going to be taken in by sentimental appeals to our Jewish loyalties to put our money where our minds and hearts are not.”