Loyalty to Netanyahu betrays true Jewish values
Brooklyn: Rabbi Avi Weiss (“Chuck Schumer’s cowardly courage,” op-ed, March 21) unfairly and shamefully attacked New York’s Sen. Chuck Schumer, a longtime friend of Israel who is often at odds with his fellow liberals and progressive Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, who would offer mild criticism of that country’s brutality toward and occupation of Palestinian lands. I count myself in that category opposed to the senator’s prior positions. It was shocking, however, to read that opinion piece by a distinguished man of religion whose mission is to teach his fellow Jews the biblical messages of empathy, humanity and peace. Instead, he echoed the war-mongering, hateful ideologues of the right that wasted no time in ganging up on the senator for his truly courageous statement that Benjamin Netanyahu, the perpetrator of crimes against humanity who is hated even by his own countrymen, must go.
Contrary to Weiss’s complaint, Schumer’s statement was not against Israel but against Netanyahu and his right-wing, extremist government that advocates the total destruction and starvation of a people. His complaint that Schumer is interfering in the internal affairs of Israel rings false given that AIPAC, the agent of a foreign government, is spending millions to interfere in American elections.
Finally, not one word by Weiss about the intentional killing of more than 30,000 innocent Gazan citizens, mostly women and children. Fortunately, most American Jews do care and speak out against such atrocities. As several other rabbis who are true to their calling recently declared: “Genocide is not a Jewish value.”
George Albro, founder and co-chair, New York Progressive Action Network