NEW YORK – Following the deadly attack in the Palestinian village of Huwara by Israeli settlers who set fire to Palestinian homes and cars, T’ruah, a rabbinic human rights organization representing over 2,300 rabbis and cantors nationwide, condemned the violence in the harshest possible terms and called for a full investigation of the attack by the Israeli government.
In a statement, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T’ruah, said:
גַּ֛ם כִּֽי־תַרְבּ֥וּ תְפִלָּ֖ה אֵינֶ֣נִּי שֹׁמֵ֑עַ יְדֵיכֶ֖ם דָּמִ֥ים מָלֵֽאוּ׃
Though you pray at length, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. (Isaiah 1:15)
“We condemn in the harshest possible terms the pogrom carried out Sunday in the Palestinian village of Huwara and neighboring Burin by Israeli settlers, after the terror attack that killed two Israeli brothers, Hillel and Yagel Yaniv. No political aim justifies the murder of civilians. But nor does such a murder justify a rampage that included setting fire to homes and vehicles, injuring close to 100 Palestinian residents, and killing one person, Samah Hamdallah Aktash. The sight of settlers wearing kippot and tzitzit, and even pausing for maariv (evening prayers) in the midst of the attack is a chillul Hashem — a desecration of the Divine name — of the highest order.
“Following the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin by a religious Jewish extremist, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein reprimanded his community: ‘Today, we hide behind the phrases, ‘a wild weed,’ ‘from the outskirts of our society.’ But if a day before the murder we would have said proudly, ‘See what we have produced,’ we must say it now as well – ‘See what we have produced!’’
“Those who carried out the pogrom in Huwara were not ‘wild weeds.’ They were not acting out of spontaneous anger about a terror attack. They are an organized terror group and the direct product of years of incitement by elected officials and extremist rabbis and yeshivot, including some like Od Yosef Chai funded in part by U.S. donors.
“We hold responsible for this terror attack the current government, which has fueled the incitement that led to this attack, and some of whose members continue to justify the settlers’ actions. We hold the army responsible, which had prior knowledge of the violence planned and did nothing to prevent it, and almost nothing to protect residents. And we hold responsible the religious institutions that are teaching violence and those who support such institutions.
“We call for a full investigation, for the perpetrators of these attacks to be brought to justice, and for Netanyahu and his coalition partners to stop stoking violence that will only lead to more destruction and death in the West Bank and Israel.
“Every Jewish organization in the United States and beyond must condemn this attack and the deliberate provocations that preceded it and that continue unabated.”
T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights mobilizes a network of more than 2,300 rabbis and cantors from all streams of Judaism that, together with the Jewish community, act on the Jewish imperative to respect and advance the human rights of all people. Grounded in Torah and our Jewish historical experience and guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we call upon Jews to assert Jewish values by raising our voices and taking concrete steps to protect and expand human rights in North America, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories.