Friends,
It feels as if a dam is beginning to break.
Since we wrote with our call to action last week, we’ve seen a growing number of Jewish leaders and institutions speak out against the horror in Gaza and the need to stop mass starvation and seal a war-ending hostage deal.
We still have a long way to go, but together, we’re clearly having an impact. We need to keep up the pressure – all of us have a role to play in calling for action from the organizations we’re involved with.
The Reform Movement Speaks Out: On Sunday, the largest Jewish denomination in the United States released a powerful statement making clear that “denying basic humanitarian aid crosses a moral line.”
- “Blocking food, water, medicine, and power – especially for children – is indefensible. Let us not allow our grief to harden into indifference, nor our love for Israel to blind us to the cries of the vulnerable. Let us rise to the moral challenge of this moment.”
The Conservative Movement’s Rabbinical Assembly Calls for Action: On Friday, rabbis of the Conservative/Masorti Movement called for “urgent action to alleviate civilian suffering and ensure aid delivery, as leaders continue to focus on returning the hostages and ending this war.”
- “The Jewish tradition calls upon us to ensure the provision of food, water, and medical supplies as a top priority.”
Over 1,000 Rabbis Speak Out: On Sunday, hundreds of rabbis from around the world released an open letter calling for the Netanyahu government to “stop at once the use and threat of starvation as a weapon of war.”
- “The Jewish People face a grave moral crisis, threatening the very basis of Judaism as the ethical voice that it has been since the age of Israel’s prophets. We cannot remain silent in confronting it.”
- Ask your rabbi to sign the open letter here >>
More Organizations Join the Call: With pressure mounting from organizations across the country, more and more local and national organizations are speaking out.
In Israel too, a shift may be underway: Global outcry and images of starvation and deprivation have started to crack the Netanyahu coalition’s narrative, with the government recently announcing that it will undertake airdrops and re-open aid corridors to allow aid agencies to do their work.
- These are early and uncertain steps which experts agree are unlikely to fully meet the moment – but it’s a sign that the pressure is starting to have an impact.
- As a prominent news anchor in Israel recently said, in a comment that made news itself: “It’s time to understand that this is not a failure of public relations, but a moral failure.”
We still have a long way to go, and we must keep up the pressure for more voices to speak out more strongly – and to ensure real action is taken to stop this war, get hostages home and surge aid into Gaza.
Friends – Please commit today to raising this issue in your networks. We ask you to either thank groups you’re involved in for speaking out, or call for more action.
Our hope is that those who have already spoken out can give courage to those yet to do so. Click here if you’ve raised this issue with your networks in the past week so we can track our advocacy impact.
Also, tomorrow, at 3pm Eastern we’re holding a virtual call with Israeli advocates pressing for humanitarian aid and a hostage deal to end the war: They include a hostage family member, a combat soldier refusing to return to serve in Gaza and a peace advocate rallying Israelis to call for an end to the war. Register to join us here, and please feel free to share this link.
Thank you, sincerely, for your support.
Ilan Goldenberg
Senior Vice President and Chief of Policy, J Street
