6 | MARCH 23 • 2023 

1942 - 2023

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PURELY COMMENTARY

continued on page 8

guest column

Taking Sides on Israel’s Crisis
of the Judiciary
A

merican Jews, you 
have to choose sides 
on Israel,
” declared 
Thomas Friedman (3/7/23) in 
the New York Times for all the 
world to read. He adds, “Israel is 
facing its biggest internal clash 
since its found-
ing, and for every 
rabbi and every 
Jewish leader in 
America to stay 
silent about this 
fight is to become 
irrelevant.
” While 
I agree with 
the opinion writer that Jewish 
leaders must speak against the 
government’s efforts to under-
mine the judiciary, we must also 
ensure that the “side” on which 
all of us fall is on the side of the 
success of the Jewish State of 
Israel.

Friedman calls Prime Minister 
Netanyahu’s efforts to limit the 
role of the judiciary a “putsch.
” 
Israeli scholar Yuval Noah 
Harari calls it “an antidemo-
cratic coup” (Washington Post, 
2/23/23). In fact, many of Israel’s 
leading thinkers are marching 
in protest alongside hundreds 
of thousands of others. Most 
recently, in an unprecedented act 
of resistance, Israeli reservist Air 
Force pilots are refusing their 
call to service if the Netanyahu 
government continues its assault 
on the Supreme Court. 
Personally speaking, many of 
my Israeli teachers and friends 
— Torah scholars and dedicated 
citizens — are outspoken in their 
condemnation of the proposed 
changes that would, in effect, 
eliminate, impugn, or threaten 
the rights of Israeli citizens and 

especially its minorities. After all, 
in teaching the world that each 
person is created in God’s image, 
Jews were the first to affirm the 
dignity of every human and the 
subsequent notion of inalienable 
rights. What Israelis are also pro-
testing are the coalition politics 
that empowered extremists to 
gain significant ministry posi-
tions and influence the policies 
of a nation-state whose major-
ity voted against them. I share 
my teachers’ and friends’ fears 
and thus their objections, and I 
believe similarly that we should 
condemn extremist behavior and 
rhetoric whenever and wherever 
we see it. 
Friedman demands that we 
choose sides, but it’s unclear 
between which two sides he is 
demanding we choose. Though I 
might disagree with policy deci-

sions of the current coalition and 
express those concerns to my fel-
low Jews, I will continue to travel 
to the Jewish State for my own 
learning and spirituality, and I 
will continue to bring children, 
teens and adults there to benefit 
from the powerful mark Israel 
leaves on the souls of all who 
open themselves. What does it 
mean to “choose sides” when I 
believe that a positive relation-
ship with Israel is vital to Jewish 
life and that Judaism demands 
we perpetuate the well-being 
of the first Jewish state in 2,000 
years?
Moreover, someone once 
said that to be a Jew is to live 
with your passport at the ready. 
Jew-hatred is rising dramati-
cally in the U.S. While we hope 
that America is different and 
while the post-World War II era 

Rabbi Aaron 
Starr

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