President Biden, stop vetoing peace!

Rabbi Alissa Wise

On January 9, 36 rabbis and rabbinical students from Rabbis for Ceasefire took our prayers and outrage at Israel’s ongoing violence in Gaza to the United Nations headquarters in New York City.

This is the moment the UN was created for. In the wake of the horrors of World War II, the nations of the world came together to charter a new institution that promised “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person”.

The UN was born with a bold and urgent mission to ensure the horrors of the Holocaust would never be visited upon the world again. But right now, we find ourselves in the midst of what experts widely believe is a genocide unfolding in Gaza.

Our protest was a prayer service because our calls for a ceasefire are sacred to us. In Jewish tradition, saving a life is a central religious value. We are obligated to break the Sabbath if it means rescuing a single stranger. Prayer is an ancient language Jews have used for thousands of years to funnel our fears, dreams, hopes and despair. These words that soothed and inspired our ancestors for millennia endure as vehicles for our hopes, righteous indignation and conviction today.

The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins much the same way the Torah does. The preamble reads: “Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” Likewise, the first chapter of the first book of the Torah affirms the dignity of each person created in the image of the Divine.

This idea of the inherent dignity and worth of all human beings is the root of our call for ceasefire. As we say in our mission statement: “Ceasefire means no more bombing. Ceasefire means no ground war. Ceasefire means all Israeli hostages must be released now. Ceasefire means immediate engagement by the international community toward a just and lasting peace in Israel-Palestine. Ceasefire is the only way to prevent more death and destruction.”

I started Rabbis for Ceasefire because I believe that rabbis have a special responsibility to carry the torch for a Judaism that affirms life. I became a rabbi to caretake Jewish tradition, so that generations of Jewish wisdom can continue as a scaffold for a life of ethical rigour and spiritual depth. All the more so in times of crisis and trauma, rabbis are needed to guarantee a worthy Judaism will be passed to the coming generations.

Our urgent plea for a ceasefire stems from our religious convictions as rabbis. As rabbis we have dedicated our lives to serve the Jewish people and to ensure our traditions endure as a source of inspiration towards pursuing justice, peace and life. This responsibility, to safeguard the ethical core of Judaism, has never felt as urgent as it is today.

Israel and the United States continue to maintain that their actions are in the interest of Jewish people. As rabbis who serve the spiritual and practical needs of Jewish people, we know this couldn’t be more wrong. More than 23,000 Palestinians killed is not in the interest of Jews. Starving Palestinians is not in the interest of Jews. Denying Palestinians basic human rights is not in the interest of Jews. We know that what makes Jews truly safer is solidarity and engagement from the international community.

The banners we unfurled at the UN headquarters read: “Biden: The World Says Ceasefire” and “Biden: Stop Vetoing Peace” – a reminder that the US and Israel stand alone in going headlong into death and destruction instead of diplomacy.