Allegedly a Jew burned a Palestinian child to death. A Jew stabbed a Jewish girl to death. Let the victims rest in peace. Let justice — blind justice — be done.
The judgment is harsh. The facts leave no choice.
Every worst stereotype of Jewish society was confirmed in a ghastly week in Israel.
A Palestinian baby, Ali Saad Bawabsha, was burned to death in a deliberate act of arson. One of his siblings is very badly burned. Others suffered lesser injuries.
All would have been murdered — not just one — if the aronists had had their way.
The defensive instinct — not only the act itself but the Jewish culture of Israel, which is not steeped in murder and xenophobia — was manifest in the immediate reaction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He forcefully condemned the murder, he visited both the Arab and Jewish victims of recent terrorism, but he also pointed to the distinction between Israel and the Palestinians: We condemn these acts. Palestinians celebrate them. We host spontaneous vigils; the Palestinians hand out sweets upon the murder of Jews.
This is not the Jewish instinct for the week of shiva. As the Mishnah expresses it, “when the dead lay before thee,” do not engage anyone or anything but the mourning. The Palestinian child and the family are laying before us. It is time only to mourn, to share in others’ mourning, to condemn the evil, to root it out.
There will be time enough later for the rest.
Shortly before the murder, allegedly by a Jew, of the Palestinian child, six attendees at a pride parade in Jerusalem were deliberately stabbed. One died, a 16-year-old girl, Shira Banki. All — and more — would have been murdered if the murderer had had his way.
The instinct to go beyond condemning the act of murder — to articulate a balance, a condemnation of violence and a repudiation of a pride parade —was manifest in the immediate reaction of some leaders in Israel’s religious community. From other sectors we were treated to all manner of public policy proposals on how the rights of every group should or should not be enhanced.
Now is not the time. “The dead lay before thee.” It is time to mourn, to share in others’ mourning, and to root out the evil.
Ironically, paradoxically, we might even say astonishingly, the evil allegedly rests within, or arises from, segments of Israel’s religious community. Murder? Who would have thought that those who wear tefilin or dance on Simchat Torah or advocate the study of Torah all day long could unify within their religious perspective murder?
These questions reflect not value judgments, not analyses, still less prescriptive policy. They reflect, simply, facts.
It will not do to point out that there is a bad apple in every pack. In fact, these recent offenses are not first-time offenses. In some religious circles, however limited, violence has become a preferred option. The State of Israel must treat violent offenders of the Jewish faith the same as violent offenders of any other faith. The failure to do so breeds violence in Israel. A murderer is a murderer. The penalty for murder should be ethnic-blind and religion-blind. The wheels of justice must grind the same for all.
Religious Jews must insist on this. To do so is not only a narrow approach to specific offenders, but a broader approach necessary to inculcate basic religious values. One does not murder one’s opponents.
Just the opposite. The particularistic thread in Judaism, which gives Israel its spiritual strength, is truest to form when it also projects the universalistic thread in Judaism. In Judaism, and in the Jewish state, there should be no Other, no dehumanized group.
We can, and should, have discussions about settlements and peace and two states and Palestinian hatred and about parades and laws and Torah and its affirmations and negations and about all manner of related political and social matters, but there is a time. An order. A prioritization.
First is to let the dead lay in peace — to mourn.
Second is to put the justice system to work as it should — as a respecter of no person more than any other. As Prime Minister Netanyahu has said, “a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist.”
However well meaning or intelligent or both, the incessant chatter of everyone’s personal analysis of what all this means and how it is all to be stopped and whether the stereotypes of Jewish society in Israel contain any truth should not overshadow the first moments of irredeemable sadness, loss and horror. The victims deserve their humanity, pure and simple; absent political or social uses to which it can so easily be put.
May the victims rest in peace. May justice be swift and complete.
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
