Where Are My Progressive Brethren?

As the ICE protests and then “No Kings” protests consumed Los Angeles, reducing our community yet again to simplistic partisanship, I felt a profound sense of loneliness. As a rabbi who remains open to all, who believes in purple more than red or blue, who loves that “at our community a man who votes for Trump can hold the chuppah poles for a Kamala-supporting lesbian couple at their wedding,” I find the SILENCE by so many of my colleagues like a frost over a hot desert. 

It is time that the Jewish community do what it must do — unequivocally condemn evil … against Jews. There have been too many moments when progressive colleagues equivocate or respond to conflict with shifty eyes, waiting to see what others will say before they respond. The attacks on Israel from IRGC who chant “Death to Israel, Death to America” is not a DaVinci code to be solved; it is quite clear, quite true and, sorrowfully, quite vivid this week.

My prayer is that all of us – those who raise their voices for the most marginalized in our midst – from Home Depot to Dodger Stadium – raise them up for Klal Yisrael. My prayer is that those who gather in creative protests against a “King” who maybe just “took out all of his toys knowing what Iran might do after a direct strike to Israel” understand that there are many different ways of seeing the body politic through this time.

My prayer is that those who stage encampments seeking justice for all on college campuses include Israel in their “all.” Most of all, May All of Us recognize that there is only ONE Israel, love her or hate her, and within her controversial borders dwell 10 million people who are traumatized and doing the dirty work for us (never mind that 55 have yet to be returned home from the underworld of Gaza), IRGC is a modern day Amalek, and the people who also need us to march are the Iranian women who desperately need to let their hair down and demand their freedom.

My prayer is for the United States of America and its Jews: May we never know the kind of terror we see through glass in our hands; may we model a heart of curiosity and compassion for the days ahead; and may we never experience the scope of destruction on our own soil.

Above all, may we have the courage to show up for our people the way we show up for the stranger.

Rabbi Lori Shapiro is the founder and artistic director of The Open Temple in Venice.