More than 30 years ago I was in Israel with a group and I had lots of interesting chats with our guide, a woman my age. At one point we discussed the diversity of outlooks on a range of subjects within Israel and in the Jewish diaspora. She shrugged and with a chuckle offered "there is a saying, ten Jews, twelve opinions."
This has certainly come to the fore since the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel and the subsequent military response by the IDF in Gaza. There are Israeli citizens and lots of Jews who feel that the devastating retribution is justified and some within the radical right would accept the obliteration of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
As I noted at the beginning of Passover 2024 a week ago, Jews are gathering around the Seder table and in public places with a variety of outlooks. There are events involving Jews and others for what are being called a Freedom Seders, harking back to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s in the United States. There were Jews, including the great rabbi and thinker, Abraham Joshua Heschel, who not only supported civil rights but marched in solidarity with Dr. King. In April 1969, on the first anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Jewish and African-American activists came together in Washington, D.C. to share a meal that came to be known as the Freedom Seder.
The Freedom Seders of this past week included a public one that took place in the past 24 hours in Berlin, Germany. These Jewish protestors reject what they are convinced is the oppression of the Palestinian people who must be liberated, not subjugated. They call on the German government to cease supplying arms to Israel, also a the focus of another such seder in Brooklyn, New York.
I saw a news clip from London in which an elderly Jewish Holocaust survivor took part in a pro-Palestinian rally and made the connection between persecution of Jews and what is happening in Gaza today.
We have to realize the complexity of this situation which doesn't lend itself to simplistic "us and them" statements. We can appreciate the willingness of Jews to ask the hard questions about what is unfolding in a deeply troubled part of the world.
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