The 600-Day War
Friday May 30, 2025 – ג׳ סִיוָן תשפ”ה
Israel’s War of Independence lasted 596 days from November 30, 1947, to July 20, 1949. It included two phases (pre- and post-declaring independence) and claimed the lives of 1% of Israel’s population. It was a fight for the existence of the fledgling State, and defeat was not an option. The Six-Day War, by comparison, lasted, as its name suggests, just six days and altered the course of the State and the entire Middle East. As MK Rabbi Gilad Kariv emphasized from the Knesset podium: “It is now 58 years since those six days, and today (on Wednesday), we mark the 600th day of this current war, making it the longest war in Israel’s history with sadly no end in sight, and 58 of our people still in captivity.” We know that David Ben Gurion’s doctrine was to wage short wars to avoid societal fatigue and to avoid entering a quagmire from which it becomes increasingly difficult to exit.
To be clear, this current war, Israel’s longest ever, needs to end. The good news is that at the time of writing, we are anticipating the announcement of a new ceasefire and hostage return agreement brokered by Israel and the U.S.
However, many moral questions and dilemmas remain:
- Does Israel end the war without completely obliterating Hamas and making it impossible for it to rule ever again?
- How can humanitarian aid be implemented, as we know that Hamas siphons it off to the detriment of Gazan civilians?
- Does Israel end the war without returning every hostage, whether alive or not?
- What does the oft-mentioned ‘day after’ look like?
- Does Israel support an alternative Palestinian ruler in Gaza?
Standing at Hostage Square this past Saturday night, listening to the words of the hostage’s family members, as well as freed hostage Naama Levi, I was struck by being in the eye of the storm of the Jewish people’s debate on these begging questions. Even as the speakers at the protest screamed desperate cries into the microphone – calling on the government to bring home their loved ones; and even as the young and poised Naama iterated her disbelief that the government now knows the conditions in which they were being held and still doesn’t do everything to bring them home – still there was no question that they were Zionists and loved their country. They showed up out of commitment and passion, but out of a sense of obligation to their country and fellow citizens, and a commitment to the morality baked into the long-standing social contract between Israeli citizens and the State of Israel. Nor did they shy away from expressing the need for increased humanitarian aid, and that the government’s objectives had dubious motivation and unrealistic goals.
But suppose similar speeches had been given in the U.S. or posted on social media here. Those speakers might be subject to ostracization, accused of perpetuating antisemitic tropes, and lambasted with the familiar chorus that such criticism aids Israel’s enemies, which would be hard to lump the thousands joining rallies in Tel Aviv as providing fodder for Israel’s enemies.
Having spent the past week in Israel, I saw that the war is top of mind for everyone. The drain and exhaustion are palpable with an underlying layer of trauma. We are now seeing an increase in questioning Israel’s moral responsibility and its ethics in war (for example, the penetrating words of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert), as the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians are gone, there’s a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, and Israel is now ostracized by many in the community of nations, and runs the risk of becoming an actual pariah state.
One of the things that struck me was how so many Israelis have given up on their government’s will and/or ability to end the war, provide security, and bring home the hostages. The g perception is that only the President of the United States, Donald Trump has the wherewithal to bring an end to the war as Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the Israeli-American father of freed hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, recently wrote.
That is a scary thought on so many levels.
First, President Trump is erratic and unpredictable, has little patience, and has an even shorter attention span. His policies and preferences could change on a dime, his patience wane, and he could easily be distracted by another shiny object.
Second, POTUS is not inherently looking at the world through the lenses of the Jewish people and the State of Israel, seeking to act in our sole interest (as no American president has or would be), and has additional factors at play.
Third, since 11 minutes into Israel’s independence, the United States has been Israel’s most dependable and vital ally. One could posit that Israel would not have been able to survive its ongoing existential threats were it not for America’s friendship, support, financing, military aid, and regional/global muscle flexing. It is a sad day when Israelis look elsewhere because they feel their government has failed to live up to its fundamental function.
The questions at the moment are as follows: What should we do? How do we alleviate suffering in Gaza, end the war, bring home the hostages, and restore a sense of wholeness and healing to Israeli society? And how do we Diaspora Jews maintain a sense of connectivity and solidarity with Israel, while voicing a loving critique of Israel’s government policies and calling for moral clarity?
When it comes to the suffering of Palestinians, including the tragic case of a family that lost 9 of its children in one strike, what is our role? Is their suffering our responsibility? Is it a Jewish obligation to show compassion for those suffering, pushing humanitarian aid, reducing the constant relocation and displacement of Palestinian populations in Gaza, and instilling a sense of dignity and humanity?
Rabbi Menachem Creditor wrote:
“Yes, Hamas is responsible for this war. Yes, they are responsible for the suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians. They have stolen not only thousands of lives, but even food aid from the mouths of their own people. They built tunnels of terror beneath hospitals and neighborhoods. They calculated the suffering of their own people. It is an inhuman cruelty.
And still. Still.
There are people in Gaza — many, many people — who are desperately hungry. And we, as Jews, as heirs to a Torah that commands us again and again to feed the hungry, must not ignore that.
No, we are not morally responsible for Hamas’s crimes. But yes, we are morally responsible for how we wield our power. We are commanded not just to survive, but to be holy. To be different. To feed others because we remember what it was like to starve — in Bergen-Belsen, in exile, in the ghettos, in the camps.”
In a similar vein, Rabbi Jill Jacobs shared that:
“Some who consider themselves pro-Palestine might worry that mourning Jewish or Israeli deaths distracts attention from the death count in Gaza or from the suffering of the Palestinians. It does not. One person’s suffering does not diminish another’s. And minimizing or justifying the deaths of Jews–whether Israeli, American, or from anywhere else is not only wrong, and antisemitic, it also feeds into fears that those who care about Palestinians necessarily do not care about protecting Jews (or worse).
Some who consider themselves pro-Israel may worry that acknowledging the deaths of Palestinians threatens the State of Israel or Zionism. This is absolutely not true. First, dehumanizing Palestinians is morally wrong, just as dehumanizing Jews is. And the justifications for the ongoing war–which even top Israeli military, intelligence, and political leaders say has no strategic purpose, and which the settler movement and their government representatives have made clear is now a war of preoccupation–only feed a narrative that Zionism and love of Israel necessitate violence toward Palestinians.”
The silver lining of hope can be found in our Reform Movement. I joined hundreds of dedicated Reform Jews at our Movement’s Veida—its annual convention —to sing, pray, learn, and celebrate all that we have to offer and how our Movement.
With soulful music, we heard from Reform leaders in Israel who are forging new paths, tirelessly pastoring to struggling community members, and taking to the streets to apply our Torah’s values to the current reality. I was particularly taken by a powerful keynote by Yonatan Shimriz, founder of KUMU! and brother of Alon Shimriz z”l, who was taken hostage on October 7 and tragically killed by Israeli fire in Gaza in December of 2023. Yonatan spoke from a place of personal anguish and truth, reclaiming Judaism with honesty, urgency, and heart. His message was clear: “We don’t need permission to be part of our own people… If we bring Judaism back to the people, the people will come back to it.”
Gone are the days of Israel vs. the Diaspora. This moment is about those on the one hand who see the values of Judaism as representing a need to care for the other, seek peace and pursue it, and heal a fractured yet resilient nation, and those on the other hand who are willing to sacrifice both people and the fundamental principles of democracy to hold onto power and forge a new ethos built not on חסד and צדק – justice and compassion, but on power and domination. That is not the Zionism we believe in.
As Rabbis Creditor and Jacobs commented:
“Zionism, as I understand it, is the ethical exercise of necessary power. Not domination. Not vengeance. But the sacred, complicated burden of Jewish self-determination.”
“Zionism and love for Israel and Israelis can and should look like calling for an end to this war, which more than 70% of Israelis also want to end. It can mean fighting for a long-term solution that will keep both Israelis and Palestinians safe. It can mean publicly pushing for Israel to do better, to live up to both international law and the highest moral code. It can mean publicly rejecting the poisonous ideology that was on full display on Yom Yerushalayim this past Monday, as religious youth assaulted and tormented Palestinian shopkeepers and Israeli human rights activists in East Jerusalem and saying that it is not a zero-sum game.”
We can exercise our power to stop the loss of life and work together for a safe, secure, and peaceful future.
Shabbat Shalom and Shavuot Sameach!
