With the approach of the New Year, 5775, our thoughts turn to our families, security and sense of sanctity as we survey the terrain of our most complex and at times, daunting world. We have just seen an end to the 50 days and nights of continuous attacks by Hamas rockets upon Israel’s cities and innocent men, women and children.
In spite of Israel’s defensive, “Operation Protective Edge,” the world media and the United Nations blame Israel for the deaths of the “innocents” in Gaza and label the Jewish state evil. It is quite clear that Hamas is solely and directly responsible for the loss of innocent Palestinian lives, as Palestinian leader Ahmoud Abbas said himself. Israel did not want this conflict, did not start this conflict and did everything in its power to stop this conflict which has also cost Israel dearly. World Jewry told the truth in a world filled with lies.
The Anti-Defamation League, this year, issued a comprehensive study representative of one billion people worldwide on anti-Semitism. It showed that anti-Semitism has reached new and unprecedented levels. The war in Gaza has further exacerbated the situation.
On the eve of Bastille Day (July 14), Parisian Jews were trapped in a synagogue by pro-Palestinian rioters and had to be rescued by the police. Signs were posted in Rome urging a boycott of 50 Jewish-owned businesses. In central London, anti-Israel protesters targeted a Sainsbury’s grocery, and the manager pulled kosher products off the shelves. The supermarket chain later apologized. In Toulouse, France, a Jewish community center was fire bombed. A shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels in May, a month before the latest Gaza conflict began, killed four people. The list of anti-Semitic attacks and rhetoric against world Jewry goes on and on and on and on. Finally, our sense of security at home is shaken by the daily and seemingly unending reports of the wanton murder and barbaric acts perpetrated by Islamic State militants.
While our community has a long and laudable record of fighting anti-Semitism at home and abroad, supporting Israel and bringing people of diverse and religious cultures together, combating extremism and working toward peace, on Rosh Hashanah we are commanded, not only to focus on issues that affect our world, but also the matters that direct and fill our personal lives.