Dear President Biden,
As American rabbis, we write to you with deep sorrow and fury.
Tomorrow is the UN – designated International Holocaust Remembrance
Day: a time to honor the memory of the millions of people murdered
through the genocide committed by the Nazi regime, including six million
of our Jewish ancestors. On this day, we honor the enormity of our
losses, the impact of dehumanization and attempted annihilation on those
who survived, and the still-reverberating trauma that has shaped so
many of our families and communities.
With sorrow, we will also remember this as the time in which Israel
was committing a genocide, aided and abetted by the United States.
We are compelled to speak with moral clarity about what is happening
to Palestinians at this very moment. We do so not in spite of our
histories, but because of them. We know in our bones what it means to
hear Israeli officials dehumanize an entire people, to witness the
Israeli military mass murder tens of thousands of Palestinians, to watch
Israel systematically destroy civilian infrastructure, cultural
institutions, universities, and hospitals. To see Israel purposefully
deny food, medicine, and shelter to refugees.
We hold the traumatic history of our people with care and sensitivity
— and know how painful it is for Jews to grasp that a Jewish state
could possibly commit a genocide. Nevertheless, we must agree with
increasing numbers of scholars and international rights experts who have determined that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute, in the words of Prof. Raz Segal, “a textbook case of genocide.”
We support and uplift South Africa’s recent application
to the International Court of Justice claiming Israel is in breach of
the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide. And now, Palestinian human rights organizations, together with
Palestinians in the US and Gaza, are bringing a case against your
administration for failure to prevent, and complicity in, the Israeli
government’s unfolding genocide against them, their families, and the
2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza. We stand in support of their action as
well.
According to a core teaching of Jewish spiritual tradition, humanity
was created in the image of God. That means that each and every human
being is of infinite value. The UN 1948 Convention on Genocide was
created to uphold this very idea. The Torah also teaches that there will
always be moments when we must make a critical moral choice. As
Deuteronomy 30:19 says, “I have put before you life and death, blessing
and curse. Choose life.” President Biden, you have chosen death. Instead
of using your considerable power to prevent or end this genocide, you
have directly abetted it with weapons, funds and diplomatic cover.
On this day of remembrance in 2021, you noted
that, “The Holocaust was no accident of history.” As you stated, “It
occurred because too many governments cold-bloodedly adopted and
implemented hate-fueled laws, policies, and practices to vilify and
dehumanize entire groups of people, and too many individuals stood by
silently. Silence is complicity.”
President Biden, what is happening right now in Gaza is no accident
of history — and your complicity has been anything but silent. We call
upon you to be true to your word and end U.S. complicity in Israel’s
genocide against the Palestinian people.
If the words “Never Again” have any meaning at all, they must mean
“Never Again for Anyone.” We fervently ask of you: please honor the word
and spirit of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day by using your
office to bring a ceasefire to this tragic violence — and to stop
blocking efforts toward building a truly just peace for all who live
between the river and the sea.
With urgency,
Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council
https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2024/01/26/rabbiletter/
