Blog

I have watched mostly the response of Americans to the war in Gaza precipitated by the massacre on October 7. The media has shown a rather substantial anti-Israel response as well as photographs. Had the October 7 massacre not occurred, the current state of affairs would not be present, a point lost by most. Instead, many have offered 75 years of history as the inevitable, excusable response, as though the shocking depravities are somehow acceptable. College students have naively fallen prey to falsehoods and taken up the banner in support of oppressed people without any thought or research, something that we would have hoped colleges endow them with: the desire and capacity to study all sides of an issue.

I saw this in full display this past Tuesday evening at the Allegheny County Council meeting, of which Pittsburgh is the county seat. The potential for a ceasefire motion never occurred, yet nearly 100 residents like myself registered to speak. With a three-minute limit, that could have amounted to five hours of public comment. Permit me to share what I learned that evening.

• There is much pain in both the Palestinian and Jewish communities.
• Any motion will most likely be worded in a way that pleases one group and upsets the other.
• When you repeat accusations often enough, everyone assumes they are true. Powerful words like genocide, apartheid, and settler colonialism have been accepted as facts about Israel.
• Israel is immoral.
• The United States government, by providing military aid to Israel, is complicit in genocide. Our tax dollars should not be spent on committing genocide.
• The Pro-Palestinian groups are a strange amalgam of bedfellows: The Green Party; The Socialist Party; Union representatives; Jewish Voices for Peace.
• They were well-organized and repeated the same points.

I had been previously asked to speak, and had registered to do so, and was given my three minutes. Without trying to come across as arrogant, I made sure that all of the council members knew that I was the Rabbi of the Tree of Life. I reflected on how beautifully Pittsburgh and neighboring communities came together in solidarity with the Jewish community in the aftermath of October 27. People of all colors, faiths and sexual orientations banded as one, as they too felt that this was a horrific attack not only on the Jewish community, but upon them as well. I then acknowledged how much pain was in the room, and how it saddened me that the unity of October 27 had dissipated. I encouraged the council to put aside the interests in engaging in international matters and focus on the welfare of all those who live in Allegheny County. The rise of antisemitism and accompanying words and deeds have caused fear in the Jewish community. Swatting, bomb threats, attacking businesses and people, and threatening Jews because they are Jewish have become commonplace, and are symptomatic of the creeping illness of the H word. That is what I encouraged our council to focus on: the immediate needs in their communities. We might be the city of the most bridges in the United States (446), but they are made of steel. We need human bridges of compassion and shared humanity to learn to live and work together to create a world of peace. That I offered as the charge of the Allegheny County Council.

As I listened to speaker after speaker offer misinformation, I thought of the quote of the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. The facts have become irrelevant, overrun by accusations masquerading as facts. And Israel has lost that war.