On election day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on Facebook that "Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls. Left-wing organizations are busing them out." With this fear-mongering, he succeeded in bringing out the far-right votes to secure his victory. When I learned of these tactics, and of Likud’s victory, I was not angry. I was overwhelmed with sadness and grief. My sadness wasn’t only on account of dashed hopes for peace, or of an alienated American Jewry. My deepest grief was on the triumph of fear over vision in the State of Israel. In many ways, the story of the Jewish people over centuries has been about the struggle between fear and vision--between the trauma of persecution and the mission to be a holy people, a light of justice and peace for the world. On Passover we tell the story of how our people we were liberated from a fear-mongering Pharaonic state. Our national narrative bears a message of justice an...
A blog by Rabbi Gil Steinlauf