Why it's time for Jews to practice what we preach over Gaza
In Judaism, it is believed that to save one life is to save the entire world. Israel and its allies must act immediately to relieve the suffering of people in Gaza
I recently asked my friend, Dr Adam Lee Goldstein, head of trauma surgery at the Wolfson Medical Centre in Holon, Israel, how, after experiencing hundreds of missiles being fired from Palestine into Israel, does he look across the operating table into the eyes of Palestinian clinicians without feeling anger. I asked him what he was thinking at that moment? Adam soberly replied: “I feel only one thing. We must stop the bleeding.”
A few years ago, prior to the attack by the terrorist organisation Hamas, Adam and a Palestinian colleague founded the charity Operating Together to seek ways for Palestinians and Israelis to work with each other more effectively and humanely in the operating theatre. This highly respected and acclaimed programme now shares their best practices with war-torn countries all over the world.
According to Adam, his priority, along with those of his colleagues, is to save a human life. In Judaism, life is sacred, as embodied in the Hebrew phrase “L’Chaim”, meaning “to life”, when Jews make a toast or when greeting a mourner after the death of their loved one by saying, “may you have long life”. This value is one reason why so many Jewish people seek medicine as a career.
The Day of Forgiveness
During the past two years, like many other Jewish people throughout the world, I have personally struggled with my non-negotiable loyalty – because it has served as a protective homeland for the Jewish people – to the state of Israel’s government.
I know from my work as vice-chair of the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum that, in 1938, the Chinese saved 18,000 Jewish Holocaust victims when no other country, including the UK, would open their borders to them. This reminds me of the words of Israel’s only female Prime Minister, Golda Meir, who said: “The only real security in Israel we Jews have is that no other country in the world wants us.” I fear the same is true today due to the fears of increased immigration in some countries.
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I am, however, also reminded of another remark by Meir that she made during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. When asked about atonement, which is a Jewish commandment during Yom Kippur (Day of Forgiveness), when we ask the almighty and our fellow humans for forgiveness, she famously replied: “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.”
Soon on October 1 and 2, the Jewish people will once again experience our Day of Atonement which occurs during the period known as the Days of Awe or Days of Repentance. Perhaps this year is the time when collectively we should remember and further commit to another of the most important values of our faith, ‘tikkun olam’ or to ‘repair the world’.
Repairing this broken world
For more than 5,000 years, the Jewish people have seen the world repeatedly broken from war and, now, the starvation in Gaza. According to our faith, we are commanded to perform charitable acts to repair this broken world through tzedakah (Hebrew for acts of charity). Surely there can be no more charitable act than feeding the hungry so they may experience good health and long life?
I may have first learned about tzedakah from my parents in the 1960s when an Iranian boy enrolled at my high school. His family had fled Iran after the 1963 uprising when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini became a strong vocal critic of the Shah of Iran’s progressive White Revolution because the Ayatollah believed the Shah’s reforms were contrary to Islamic law.
My father, perhaps remembering the challenges his own parents faced in the 1920s as Jewish refugees, asked me to visit my soon-to-be friend Eddie Tabibian. I drove over to Eddie’s modest home and, in short order, he and I bonded over a shared love of the music of the Beatles. I never asked him about his experiences in Iran. However, many times he would tell me how fortunate he was to have found refuge in the USA.
As we listened on my turntable to the Beatles song Let it Be, I believe we shared a common belief that over time the world would heal and that, in the meantime, we clung tightly to our close friendship as our own personal refuge during those turbulent times of the Vietnam war.
In the song, Paul McCartney sings: “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, Speaking words of wisdom, let it be. And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me, Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.”
It may have seemed strange to have seen two high school students, one Jewish, the other Muslim, singing along and swaying to a song that mentions the mother of Jesus Christ. However, it served as a strong common bond for me and my friend Eddie that I remember and cherish 60 years later.
Life-savers
Now, as I view with horror the escalating starvation in Gaza and the hesitation by the government of Israel and their allies to boldly and immediately take action to relieve this suffering, I wonder when we shall follow the Jewish value of charity and work together to save lives as the clinicians do through Operating Together?
We need an immediate, common bond. In Judaism it is believed that to save one life, as people are doing every day through programmes such as Operating Together, is to save the entire world. This should be that immediate, common bond. Now is the time to practice what we preach.
Professor Joe Goldblatt is a member of the Jewish people and co-chair of the Edinburgh Interfaith Association. His views are his own. To learn more about his views, please visit www.joegoldblatt.scot
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