Only a Kahanist kind of Judaism has no room for compassion toward children
Palestinian children carry pots of soup near a food distribution point in the northern Gaza Strip, on 18 September 2024
Noa Limone writes in Haaretz on 18 September 2024:
Last weekend we learned that leaving flyers in a synagogue is a crime. The three dangerous criminals who committed this crime were handcuffed and arrested for trespassing, or maybe for conspiracy to commit a crime, or perhaps on suspicion of breaking and entering. The police still aren’t certain which charge is relevant, but the women assuredly broke some law. Consequently, as journalist Amit Segal put it Channel 12 News Saturday evening, they shouldn’t complain about being punished.
But Segal surely knows that leaflets are routinely distributed in synagogues, and in general they are welcomed. Nobody persecutes the people who distribute them; on the contrary, synagogues ask them to come.
For example, about 50,000 copies of Olam Katan (Hebrew for “small world”) are distributed every Shabbat to 5,000 synagogues. The digital version has some 20,000 email subscribers and 3,500 followers on WhatsApp.
This leaflet, the most widely distributed in the religious Zionist community, is indeed small. It represents a narrow, racist worldview, located at the metaphorical intersection of Rabbi Meir Kahane and the “price tag” movement that attacks Palestinians whenever illegal settlement outposts are demolished. Its opinion writers include far-right activist Meir Ettinger (Kahane’s grandson). One issue in January featured an article by Rabbi Reuven Feirman explaining why the doctrine of purity of arms endangers our soldiers and should therefore be scrapped.
“Rise up and kill him first,” he urges soldiers. “What will you tell your soldier’s mother, that you sacrificed her son to protect Arabs? Kill him first. Don’t wait for all doubt to be removed! Show no mercy to him or on all the cruel Arabs who live there!” Feirman wrote, citing a conversation with one of his students, an infantry officer. And then he added, “We are killing Israel’s enemies. So it doesn’t matter how old the terrorist who wants to kill you is or whether it’s a woman or a man.”
A report released last week shows that this doctrine is indeed being applied in the field. Since the war began on October 7, a child has been killed in the West Bank or East Jerusalem every two days on average.
According to this report, compiled by Defense for Children International – Palestine, 20 percent of the Palestinian children killed by either the Israel Defense Forces or settlers in the West Bank since 2000 were killed since October 7, 2023. Also, according to the report, Israeli forces routinely targeted Palestinian children with live ammunition and aerial attacks and then prevented ambulances and paramedics from reaching them.
The picture that emerges from the different responses to the distribution of these two different leaflets is shocking. A flyer with pictures of hostages, including two young children, Kfir and Ariel Bibas, and the text “Let my people go” was denounced as political and criminal and the women who distributed it were arrested. But racist leaflets that encourage killing children and other innocent civilians (“even an old man on crutches could be a murderer!” Feirman wrote) are welcomed in synagogues.
Redeeming captives, no; Kahane Lives, yes. If this picture accurately reflects the bounds of the religious Zionist community’s tolerance, then this is a moral catastrophe and a complete negation of Judaism’s values. What kind of Judaism is this if it has no room for compassion, even toward children?
Alternatively, if this does not represent the community’s values, then it’s high time for the synagogues and those who worship at them to denounce Olam Katan and its ilk and to warmly embrace flyers of the hostages.
This article is reproduced in its entirety