Mending Fences? An Open Letter to Pope Francis on the Occasion of His Visit to the Holy Land: Rabbi Audrey R. Korotkin, Temple Beth Israel For Shabbat Naso, May 30, 2014 Dear Holiness: I hope you found your brief pilgrimage beautiful and inspiring. From the windings alleyways of the Old City to the sacred space at Yad Vashem, from the beaches of Tel Aviv to the lush waterfalls of the Banias, I have always found Israel to be an astonishing place. To know that I am walking on cobblestones where my ancient ancestors walked, to feel the cool stones of the Western Wall on my cheek as I pray, always brings me to tears. I hope you felt a little bit of that connection. And I hope you had fun. I hope you did some great people watching, ate good falafel on the street, and played tourist while also playing the role of, you know, leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. Like so many of us in the Jewish community, I have followed your papacy with inspiration and hope. Your embrace of the poor and the needy, your rejection of the trappings of office, are a reminder to all of us to practice what we preach, and to always keep in mind the mission that God has for humanity on earth. I so looked forward to that moment, that moment that I knew would come and would be recorded for posterity, when you, too, would come close to the Wall, lean, close your eyes, and pray. And that’s why I was so distressed and angry when the “shot seen ‘round the world” was not of you praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, but at the separation wall in Bethlehem. I understand your compassion for all people, and that you led with your heart when you made what apparently was an unscheduled stop. But to many of us, it looked like a set-up: you praying below all-too-convenient, freshly sprayed, English-language graffiti that read “Pope: Bethlehem look like Warsaw Ghetto.” To us, it looked as though you were affirming a heinous comparison of Israel’s need for security to Nazi genocide. To us, it looked like a papal condemnation of Israel before you’d ever set foot within its borders. To us, it could not have been a worse choice for your first stop. Nobody I know likes that security fence. Of course it’s ugly, it’s a blot on the landscape. But it’s there for a reason: It’s there to protect Israelis from what had been unrelenting and murderous attacks from Palestinian villages. It’s there to save lives. I hope you took that to heart when Prime Minister Netanyahu explained that to you in yet another unscheduled stop – this one honoring the memories of Israeli victims of Arab terror. “We don’t teach our children to plant bombs,” he told you publicly, “but we have to build a wall against those who teach the other side.” That, for many of us, is the bottom line. I’m sure you wanted to try and be even-handed in your visit to the Holy Land. But it is not an even-handed conflict. No, Israel is not perfect. Its treatment of its Arab citizens, Muslim and Christian alike, is not what it could be. The current government’s habit of announcing settlement expansion plans comes all too frequently just before major initiatives to move the peace process forward. But Israel is a thriving, modern, open democracy surrounded by tyrants and terrorists whose stated goal is to wipe Israel off the map. You know how your Vatican PR office said you were looking forward to visiting the “State of Palestine”? When the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah and Al Qaida and Syria and Iran speak of the State of Palestine, they speak of the entire Holy Land, a world without Israel, a Middle East that is Judenrein. Do you wonder why Israel saw fit to build that fence? Sometimes good fences make good neighbors. Sometimes they make safe ones. Yes, the fence has been a deterrent to members of your beloved Christian community in Bethlehem being able to travel easily to Jerusalem for work, as they did for decades. But the reason the Christian community of Bethlehem is almost non-existent isn’t really because of the fence. It’s primarily because of violence, and threats of violence, from Arab Muslims – the same ones against whom Israel had to build the fence in the first place. Christians don’t feel any safer under Muslim rule in Bethlehem than they do in Gaza. Or in Cairo. Or in Syria. We know the feeling. Jews had to flee persecution and pogroms in these same places, hundreds of thousands of them whose families had lived there for generations. We wouldn’t need a fence if the lives of millions of Jews were not threatened on a daily basis. You see, it’s not an even-handed conflict. Yes, you did lay a wreath at the grave of Theodore Herzl, father of modern Zionism. Yes, you did declare the Shoah a “great evil” at your speech at Yad Vashem. Yes, at President Shimon Peres’s official residence, you declared: “Peacemaking demands first and foremost respect for the dignity and freedom of every human being.” But Arab terrorists have no respect for Jewish lives. Not in Toulouse, France; not in Brussels, Belgium, and certainly not in Israel. Take a look at what’s happening in Syria and you’ll see they have little respect even for the lives of their own people. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, with whom you also met, has been busy putting out PR fires lately. He’s been trying to reassure us, and you, that his pending unity deal with Hamas does not affect the peace process with Israel. But the leaders of Hamas – which is rightly recognized and reviled as a terrorist organization by the West – say otherwise. Just this week, senior Hamas operatives reportedly declared that the reason they wanted the deal in the first place was so that they could launch terror attacks into Israel from the West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip. No, Holiness, this is not an even-handed situation. Rabbi Abraham Skorka, your friend from Buenos Aires who accompanied you on the trip, said beforehand, “I don’t expect Francis to wave a magic wand and bring together Jews and Palestinians. But his charisma and his great humility can give a powerful message of peace for the whole Middle East.” But that’s not what happened – and it cannot happen without a strong condemnation of the pervasive anti-Semitism and Jew-hatred being perpetuated not only throughout the Arab world but also increasingly in Europe. How I wish that you had publicly recognized the historic and sovereign Jewish ties to the Holy Land that stretch back thousands of years – ties that are denied in much of the Arab world, where modern Israel is looked upon as a cooked-up Zionist conspiracy. How I wish you had reflected on Jesus’s Jewish heritage, and the role that Judaism plays in Christian history and thought. How I wish you had turned your remarks about the Holocaust into a denouncement of the violent targeting of Jews even today. And how I wish you had not chosen to make the iconic image of your trip a photo framed by graffiti that likened Israel’s security fence to Nazi genocide. It’s one thing to invite both Arab and Israeli leaders to the Vatican to pray for peace in the Middle East as you have done. It’s another thing to treat both sides the same, when this is not an even-handed conflict. This coming week, Jews around the world will mark the holy day of Shavuot, the day on which our tradition teaches us that God gave us the gift of Torah on Mount Sinai. It marked the creation of the children of Israel as a nation, unified by God’s guidance and by a divine purpose. But it was also a time of exile and wandering. Our ancestors would face fear from within and violence from without, for forty years before settling in the land to which God brought us. What we call the Promised Land, what you call the Holy Land. It is essential that historical Jewish connection to this land, that Jewish sovereignty in this land, that Jewish love of this land, be recognized and respected by everyone before peace can come. For 66 years, that’s what we’ve asked for. For 66 years we’ve been rebuffed and our very existence threatened. That’s why the fence is there, Holiness. Good fences don’t always make good neighbors, but here they have made safe ones. Safety and peace are not the same thing, Holiness. But one cannot exist without the other. L’shalom – in peace, hope and faith, Rabbi Audrey #### ©2014 Audrey R. Korotkin
Posted on: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 15:42:44 +0000
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