Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) and T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights delivered a plea from hundreds rabbinic leaders today urging the withdrawal of the “Bill on the Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev,” also known as the Prawer-Begin Plan Bill, at the beginning of Knesset’s Interior Affairs Committee hearings on the legislation. The Prawer-Begin Plan is expected to lead to the displacement of an estimated 30,000-40,000 Israeli citizens from their homes and the demolition of Bedouin villages.
“In 1920, the Zionist Movement registered 2.6 million dunams as belonging to Bedouin in the Negev. The Ottomans and British also recognized Bedouin ownership,” said Rabbi Arik Ascherman, President of RHR, in his testimony before the Knesset Interior Committee. “However, the notion that the Bedouin have no legitimate land claims remains at the fundamental core of the Bill on the Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev. If we start from the premise that the Bedouin land claims are legitimate, and are willing to sit down with the Bedouin as equals, many things are possible.”
RHR and T’ruah presented Committee Members with a copy of a public letter signed by more than 775 rabbis, cantors, rabbinical students, and cantorial students urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reconsider the Prawer-Begin Plan.
“Demolishing homes and forcing people off their land contradicts the moral values of Judaism, on which the State of Israel was founded,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director of T’ruah. “Jewish values and laws protect non-Jewish residents and prohibit expulsions and the destruction of a person’s livelihood.”
While the government claims that population transfers will only involve moving people short distances, Bedouin residents and allies say that the government is only offering highly concentrated impoverished urbanized options that undermine their traditional clan structure and agrarian way of life.
The rabbinic letter, signed by more than 775 rabbis, cantors, rabbinical students, and cantorial students, urges Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to “treat Israel’s Bedouin population as equal citizens, involve community members in policy decisions that affect their future, and work together to develop zoning plans that meet their needs.”
“The ‘Prawer-Begin Plan’ violates basic human rights,” said Rabbi Anna Boswell-Levy, Co-Chair of T’ruah. “Furthermore, uprooting Bedouin communities and destroying their homes and villages does absolutely nothing to increase Israel’s security or further the cause of peace.”
Signatories include such high profile American rabbis as1:
- Rabbi Sharon Brous of IKAR in Los Angeles
- Rabbi Arthur Green of Hebrew College in Boston
- Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in NYC
- Rabbi David Ellenson of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in NYC
- Rabbi Laura Geller of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, CA
- Rabbi J. Rolando Matalon of B’nai Jeshurun in NYC
- Rabbi Rachel Cowan of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality in NYC
- Rabbi Burton Visotzky of the Jewish Theological Seminary in NYC
- Rabbi Sally J. Priesand, emerita of Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls, NJ
- Rabbi David Ingber of Romemu in NYC
- Rabbi Amy Eilberg of Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning in St. Paul, MN
- Rabbi Sid Schwarz of Clal: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership in the Greater Washington, DC area
- Rabbi Denise Eger of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, CA
- Rabbi Mordechai Liebling of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, PA
- Rabbi Ellen Lippmann of Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of Our Lives in Brooklyn, NY
To view the letter and the full list of signatories, visit:
http://bit.ly/BedouinRabbis.
Related Material:
- Jewish Organizations Meet with White House National Security Council and State Department Officials on Israeli Government Plan
- T’ruah, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association Urge Knesset to Reconsider Plan that Threatens to Dispossess Bedouin
- Reform Movement Urges Netanyahu to Suspend Plan for Negev Bedouin
- OHALAH Board Statement on Bedouin Settlement in the Negev
- Background Brief on the Prawer-Begin Plan from RHR