Israel, Gaza, Hostages and Democratic Threat - A Speech Given at Downing Street with Defend Israeli Democracy

 

A week ago, in Synagogues across the world, we read about something, to the Biblical mind, deeply awful. I know it’s invidious to compare building a golden calf to the tragic loss suffered by so many on October 7th, Magen, Sharon – I’m so sorry for your loss. But to the Biblical mind, the building of a Golden Calf was deeply awful. And in the aftermath of that Ason, God is furious and God feels betrayed and God wants to strike out, and the Torah records God saying this to Moses.

וְעַתָּה֙ הַנִּ֣יחָה לִּ֔י וְיִֽחַר־אַפִּ֥י בָהֶ֖ם וַאֲכַלֵּ֑ם

And now, leave me alone to be truly angry with them, and I [God] will destroy them.

God is so hurt, that God wants to strike out and wipe out the entire people and start again – building up a future Children of Israel from Moses.

 

God says to Moses, God’s closest friend on all the earth, הַנִּ֣יחָה לִּ֔י, leave me alone to demonstrate my anger and my power and hatred of this act that has been done against me.

And Moses refuses to back down.

It’s important to understand why Moses refuses to acknowledge down. Moses doesn’t attempt any kind of justification for the awful act that has been perpetrated. And certainly, Moses doesn’t care about the personal gain that would come to him if he is prepared to watch on while God’s indignant anger wipes out a people.

Moses refuses to back down because Moses sees something that not even God seems able to see – that the response of wiping out an entire people, even if they have done an awful wrong, wiping out an entire people isn’t going help.

And Moses says this

שׁ֚וּב מֵחֲר֣וֹן אַפֶּ֔ךָ

Return from your anger

It’s as if Moses is accusing God of a sin – of allowing anger to guide an instinctive divine reaction. Shuv – don’t do this in anger, find a different way to respond.

It’s a story with, I think, a powerful analogy for our time.

The powerful analogy is not that we should think the Prime Minister of Israel is God – though I suspect he would like that. By the way, the reason – you know the Prime Minster of Israel is acting nothing like God is that, when Moses does stand up to God, God doesn’t try and sack the leader of Shin Bet or pass a no-confidence motion against the attorney general or suggest Moses is part of some “deep state treachery.” 

God is grateful for Moses’ faithful opposition, God backs down and Moses is the hero.

The powerful message, in this story is that we are Moses.

In the Talmud, the Rabbis explain what’s going on in Moses’ mind at this point. Moses, too, is hurting in the aftermath of this Ason – this awful act. Moses also is confused and when Moses looks towards God – who is supposed to be the protector of the Children of Israel - there is a piece of Moses’ soul that is ready to back down and let God just get on with being destructive.

But when God tells Moses to leave God alone, Moses says this and it might be single most important pharse in the entire Talmud - Devar Zeh Talui Bi – this thing depends on me, and the Rabbis imagine Moses grabbing hold of God’s Tallit and refusing to let go until God backs down.

We are Moses. Hurting, staggered by the awful thing done to us, and staggered yet further by being told by the political leadership that should have protected us then, that should be protecting us now, that we should just leave them alone. We are staggered to be told we are part of a “deep state traitors.” And, perhaps somewhere in our souls, is a sense of Yeiush – despair.

And yet, but yet, the things that are being in our name are destructive and if there is to be safety for the People of Israel, if there is to be a secure future for the State of Israel, if there is to be Democratic civil future for the People of Israel – Devar Zeh Talui Banu – this thing depends on us.

And we need to hold tight onto the tallit and refuse to let go.

A terrible wrong has been committed – there is no justification for the awful attacks of 7^th October. For Magen, for Sharon, for the thousands and thousands who have been left mourning, there is no justification. For the hostages … well this is the language we call, we pray and we demand their immediate release. As the Rambam taught, there is no higher Mitzvah than the redemption of captives.

 

But, for those of us who love Israel, this thing hangs on us; to oppose the systematic eroding of the democratic, the judicial and the civil functioning of what we used to claim, proudly, was the only democracy in the Middle East – this thing depends on us.

 

And for my government here, and I’m a proud British Citizen, I call on our government also not to back down when told by an Israeli Prime Minister – Hanicha Li – leave me alone and I will destroy them. This government too must stand up and fight for a response to the atrocity of October 7^th that is in line with an acceptable vision of the future for Israel and the Middle East. I was in Israel a couple of weeks ago, Mikhael Manikin put it really well, “I’m working for a future which is not predicated on the erasure of one side by the other. That includes,” Manekin said, “the erasure of me.”

One other thing that has stuck with me since my visit to Israel, two weeks ago, in a group of 15 British Rabbis on a trip organized by Yachad. We met with Chaver Knesset, Gilad Kariv. And, when we asked Rabbi Kariv, what we could do to support the work to build the safe future for Israel we dream of, even in this horrendous time – he said this – vote in the World Zionist Congress elections. It was the first thing he called on us to do. It is an incredible part of the vision of Israel, that we, even in this country, even as non-citizens of Israel, get a vote in the shaping of policy and particularly in the funding of those policies. Democratic power exists, but only if we claim it. If you see an opportunity to register to vote in these elections. Register. If you don’t know who to vote for, I recommend “Our Israel.” Just know that what is at stake is the future of a safe democratic Israel. And the matter - Devar Zeh - depends on us.

Thank you

 

In Honour of Chazan Stephen Cotsen - A Eulogy

Stephen grew up and grew to love Tefillah, in the then-great Jewish community of Cardiff under the tutelage of Chazan Tzvi Finkelstein. He was at the Shul in Cardiff every morning, every evening, as well as four times a week for afternoon Cheder plus Shabbas club.

He certainly could sing, but he wasn’t proud of this voice. He was proud of his command of Nusach and of being an Ish Tefillah, a person entirely at home in the rhythms of our prayer tradition, he learnt all that in Cardiff.

He moved to London, to study at Jews College. but eventually just took a job as Chazan and got on with it. He served as Chazan at Brixton, Hackney and ultimately – in this first chapter of his cantorial career - Mill Hill. Alongside all that, he was a Youth worker at Brady Maccabi, Victoria JLGB, Brighton and Hove Jewish Community Centre. He worked for AJY and served as Executive Director of Jewish Child’s Day.[1]

The first chapter of Stephen’s communal life came to an end because of sexuality. Stephen was gay and held that part of his life secretly until the closeted existence became too much and Stephen left Mill Hill United and the orthodox world.

For most of his time at New London Stephen never discussed his sexuality, but he became, rightly, less concerned about people knowing. He was proud to support New London as we also became more articulate about our welcome of all, regardless of sexuality, and offering same-sex weddings. I’m not sure those steps would have happened, at least not as smoothly, without Stephen being, well … just being Stephen; gentle and forceful in equal measure, guiding us along that journey.

In 2020, in the depths of that strange Covid year, Chazan Stephen and Rabbi Roderick Young shared a conversation as part of our weekly on-line Salon series in which Stephen spoke publicly about his sexuality – his live-in boyfriend at the age of 35 which prompted his decision to tell his friends, Ike and his mother.

I rewatched the recording of that Zoom yesterday – you can find it on-line. [2] It was an intensely moving moment and one that captured so much of the respect and love we, as a community, have for Stephen. I’m getting ahead of the narrative a little.

Having left Mill Hill, Jewish Child’s Day and all that, Stephen started a kosher deli – boy, could Stephen cater! He always claimed he was only a caterer and not a cook, but I’m not entirely sure I fully understand the difference. I think it’s something like this – a cook can make tasty food for, I don’t know, 6 people at a time and Stephen could make tasty food for 100 people at a time, fully budgeted, with all purchasing, peeling, cooking and cleaning arranged like clockwork. But running a Deli wasn’t just about catering and the Deli went, as Stephen would say, Mechula and Stephen – who loved to drive almost as much as he loved to sing – turned to mini-cab driving.

Eventually, in the late 1990s, Stephen moved to West Hampstead and started attending New London, then led, of course, by Rabbi Louis Jacobs and also Chazan George Rothschild. I spoke with George a couple of days ago, he wanted to share his condolences. New London was a different kind of place then. Stephen told me attended services every week for seven months and no-one offered him an Aliyah, let alone a chance to lead prayers. Eventually, on the morning of Second Day Shavuot, he was called up for a Hagbah. “They only needed me for my muscles,” Stephen would share, laughing at his own joke – as was his wont.

In a talk given when Stephen retired for the first time, Stephen Greene – the sixth Chair Chazan Stephen worked with in his time at New London, put it like this,

“And from then the relationship slowly grew and he was engaged, as headteacher and then as chazan – in 1999 – and then as community director and then it was a full-blown full-time relationship.  And New London has grown used to Stephen providing for it both spiritually and gastronomically.  And now we are like an old married couple.”

Stephen was in a lot of old-married-couple relationships with all kinds of people he was never, actually, married to. His beloved fifth Chairman among them. Julian Dawes, our honorary musical director arranged composed for and rehearsed Stephen for so many concerts and choral services – our Slihcot evenings most especially. Stephen loved to sing these works but Julian is a tough task-master, and Julian, you made him work. Ezer Knegdo – a help-mate against him - Loving and bickering in almost equal measure – such things abounded in Stephen’s life.

Stephen served New London through exceptionally challenging times. Rabbi Jacobs had aged and New London was struggling to renew. As Louis retired and Rabbi Chaim Weiner joined and as Chaim left and Louis came back and as Rabbi Reuven Hammer served as interim – apart from the most important days in the year when the Shul had an interim Rabbi Benji Siegel stepping in for the interim Rabbi Hammer – Stephen was New London’s bedrock of continuity and comfort. That’s a lot to carry, even on such mighty shoulders.

When he retired the first time from the position of Chazan at New London, Stephen gave a speech based on numbers, there were the six chairs he reported to, one God he davened to, and four Rabbis he worked alongside; Louis, Chaim, Reuben and … me.

Shortly after I started at New London, he and I sat down to plan my induction service. We had the idea of using some of the marriage liturgy. It’s not a bad analogy for a relationship between clergy and community. I mentioned a favourite couple of verses, from Hosea – Ve’erastich Li.

“Do you know a tune?” I asked. “No” said Stephen, “Let me get back to you.” Several chats later he sung me something he claimed to have found. It was fabulous. It went into the service. It was only several weeks afterwards I learnt that Stephen had written the piece specially, for me. I was hugely touched. It was completely typical of the Chazan I miss so.

I’ve so many things to say about my relationship with Stephen as a Chazan. He taught me so much. Let me share one small thing, one bigger.

In the very first days of Covid, when we  - Rabbi Natasha, Stephen and I – made a decision to lead daily prayer services, Stephen dropped round at my home  - mask on of course – one of the two large-print Siddurim we had at the locked-down Synagogue for me to use on Zoom. It was only the next morning that I realised he had circled a particular vowel I routinely got wrong. He never corrected me in public. He never even corrected me in private. He just made sure I knew, so I could do better and I did.

And a big moment; every year we worked together, right at the end of Yom Kippur would come the moment when I would finish the Neilah sermon and would be done with my heavy lifting of the day. I would turn back from the Shtender and take my position next to the table on the Bimah right next to Stephen we would share a wry smile, or a nod of the head and then I would pull the Tallit over my head and be carried through on Stephen’s coat-tails, tallis-tails, to the end of the day. For me, having the best seat in the house for Neilah was the best perk of the job. I think Stephen liked having me there – leading the communal responses slightly off-key. I know he disliked me wandering off all over the sanctuary the rest of the time. Sorry Stephen.

We all know Stephen’s voice, but I don’t know if we all realise how hard he worked on the Bimah. I remember that last Yom Kippur Musaf, a couple of years ago, when he had already retired for a second time, and this time was struggling with cardiac health. But David was ill and Stephen stepped in to lead Musaf. He looked ashen as he finished with a Chassidic Kaddish he normally felt should only be offered at the end of Neilah, he could barely stand. “That’s it, I’m done. You can get Alex to lead Neilah.” And he left. It was, I think, the last service he ever led.

The amount of work Stephen put in from the Bimah was immense, not just vocally, but practically, ensuring the right people were in the right place at the right time, gesticulating, conducting, all the while leading prayers. He loved the portmanteau ‘Bimah-craft.’ Stephen had sensational Bimah-craft. It was the product of incredible professionalism, care and attention. I miss all of that. I dislike being the person expected to know the answer because, now, I’m the most experienced member of the clergy-team at New London. But most of all I miss my Chavruta – partner in clerical crime. I’ll miss the chance to pop my head around the door to his office, or welcome him into mine, to discuss a pastoral challenge, an educational plan, a managerial challenge … anything really. I miss the frogs, I even miss the humour – and Stephen’s sense of humour was awful.

But in some way, I’m just another person who felt they had a special relationship with Stephen – and there are hundreds, thousands even, of us. I’ve been so touched to read the tales from members and strangers who’ve reached out to me in the past days; young boys and girls, now adults who Stephen taught for BM, young lovers, now old married couples for whom Stephen sung under the Chuppah. Members who stood here, with Stephen at any one of the many funerals he conducted with such dignity at this very spot, members who appreciated the Nechamah he provided for others. I’m sad for us all, all mourning together.

But for Stephen, the most special people, even given his love for the community at New London and his chosen family, the most special people were his mum, Miriam, and sister Susan. In 2012, Stephen left New London to go back to Cardiff to be with his sister and mother. It was a remarkable act of self-sacrifice – though he loved to lead the services at Penylan House Care Home. He stayed in Cardiff for 6 years escorting both his sister and mother through their last years with a dignity and a love that any sibling, and mother could only wish for – Stephen was a heroic exemplar of what the rabbis call the heaviest of all the Mitzvot, Kibud Eim.

And then, when Cantor Jason left New London, Stephen came back. At that point he was tired and was talking about retirement even as he returned to Abbey Road. But then Covid hit and I, we, really all of us, needed him perhaps more than ever. Stephen stayed on through those dark times providing incredible support and love on Zoom and from the ghostly sanctuary where he, Rabbi Natsha and I would stream our services. He was a remarkable hero for our community when we really needed the security of our prayer tradition.

After his second retirement, Stephen gave freely of his time, experience and expertise to support Yoav and David on their cantorial journeys just beginning. I feel so much of what Stephen valued in the amazing work of his successors. And I know Stephen was proud to see the cantorial heritage of our community in such good hands. And now he’s gone – and we’ll have to transform our relationship with Stephen away from our personal interactions into memories and inspiration drawn. Fortunately, there is so much to draw on.

Perhaps it’s the decision, in 2012 to leave New London to be with his mum and sister that best exemplifies everything Stephen stood for; sounded shocking at first, certainly not conventional – though if you stopped to think a bit, and certainly if you stopped to listen Stephen explain, it more than made sense. It was heroic in a simple way – decent, suffused with everything our Mesorah stands for, and done unfussily and with complete commitment to the decision he had made. It wasn’t that it was always easy to understand the decisions Stephen made, around health particularly, but one always had the profound sense that they were his decisions, his agency, his life lived his way. Frank Sinatra would have approved. And so, I truly believe, would God.

HeChazan Yonah Ben Chaim Yaakov u'Miriam, Zichrono L’Vrachah – May his memory always be a blessing.

---

[1] https://www.newlondon.org.uk/chazan-stephen-cotsen/

[2] https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=1359258241130792

Amalek, Intergenerational Hatred and the Possibility of Peace

 

It’s Shabbat Zachor,

And we have read verses from Deuteronomy that remember an event recorded, originally in Exodus

There is an attack, of the Amalekites against the Children of Israel, tired and weary from their servitude in Egypt and their desert wandering. And then comes the bit that makes the tale of Amalek unique in Biblical narratives.

“God will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation.”

Or, as we read today,

^“When God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you, you shall blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”

Amalek is set to function as an intergenerational enemy. That’s the reason for the Haftarah we read on this Shabbat – the story of Agag the Amalekite, enemy of Israel. And connects to the Megillah we will read on Thursday night and Friday morning, featuring Haman the Agagite – enemy of Israel.

And then two things happen. As a matter of Jewish law, there is no such person as a descendent of Amalek. As a matter of Jewish law, you can’t point at someone and say – you are an Amalek, and therefore my dread enemy who I must wipe out even to this day, for you bear such animus towards me.

But then there is the second thing; when there is an enemy of Israel, particularly one who cowardly attacks the weak and weary in the rear, there are places, where such people are called Amalek. Leaders of the Spanish Inquisition were often called Amalekites, and Cossack leaders of horrific pogroms launched against the Jews in the 19^th and 20^th Century. And of course was Hitler referred to as Amalek. Here’s something published in 1933, Paris.

And the idea, I think, of these comparisons is twofold.

On the one hand, this association of one generation’s hatred for Jews with the tale of Amalek is a reminder that there really is such a thing as an inter-generational hatred for Jews. There are those who will hate us and attack us regardless of anything we say or do. And we would do good to remember that.

And on the other hand, this association reminds us not to get soft in the face of hatred. Despite the inducement offered by other religious, sometimes, if someone slaps you in the face and just turn the other cheek, you get slapped on the other cheek. And if you come at the world from a religious place where you believe in the image of God in all humanity and you believe in Dan LChaf Zhcut – judging people meritoriously, it can become too easy to overlook evil. It can become possible to find oneself sliding into a collaboration with those who don’t recognise the image of God in us. And that gets dangerous. We know that as Jews.

And that, of course, brings us to the aftermath of October 7^th.

It’s 518 days since Hamas terrorists attacked the weak and the weary at the crack of dawn along Kibbutzim and settlements and Festival sites in the South of Israel. It was as cowardly an attack of unprovoked murderous hatred as the Jewish people have ever experienced. And the question is – is this Amalek?

Is this an attack launched by a people whose undying intergenerational hatred of Israel, of Jews, or me is so absolute as to blot out any possibility of creating not only a future shared society, but even a future safe border between two people living side-by-side?

It’s the question underpinning so much of what has happened since that awful day; the question underpinning what should be done now.

There was coverage of a leading American Reform Rabbi giving up on the possibilities of a two State Solution in the press this week. Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, a one-time proud peacenik, gave a sermon where he said this, “This was the week that finally ended the hope, at least in my lifetime, for a Palestinian state and a Jewish state existing side by side," Hirsch said. “The Palestinians themselves strangled this fragile hope in its crib.”

The Israeli and Palestinian leadership of the shared-society organisation A Land for All are in London this week. I’m hosting a meeting of rabbis to hear their plan for a way out of this that preserves both Israeli and Palestinian self-determination and freedom. I invited four of local Orthodox colleagues. Three didn’t reply, and the fourth said this; “since October 7^th 2023 I am totally opposed to a two-state solution.  Previously I had supported it.  The best way for British Jews to contribute to a solution is to make aliya.”

A little over a week ago, Rabbi Natasha and I, among other Rabbis visiting from Britain and colleagues from Israel, wandered through the wreckage of the Nova Festival site and stood at the memorials of those slain and asked this question. Is this Amalek, is this people next to whom Israelis live, alongside whom Israelis live, a people who perpetrate the evil of Amalek, an undying hatred that must be uprooted before it can harm yet again?

And my heart breaks that the question is indeed a good question.

For what it’s worth, my answer is no. Od Lo Avdah Tikvateinu – I still haven’t lost hope. I know, easy for me to say, I’m not living along a border across which terrorists can invade. I haven’t served. My children aren’t due to serve. But still, no. This is awful, it needs to be called out as awful and it needs to be addressed with grave seriousness. But this isn’t Amalek.

Two sets of thoughts. There are partners for peace. We met with representatives of Standing Together: Jews and Arabs who haven’t given up and won’t give up because neither think the other is going anywhere and neither can bring themselves to such a level of hatred as to justify ethnic cleansing of worse. We met with mayors of regional councils in the northern West Bank, Area A. The two memories most pushing on my heart was when they took us to look over the 100 dunams behind their village and pointing out the tiny illegal Jewish settlement on a hill – We don’t mind the two or three dunams they have taken, said the mayor. But why all this, and he swept his hand across the Palestinian fields of olive trees that cannot be accessed and the quarry that cannot be run, they are creating the circumstances for another October 7^th, he said. They aren’t perfect peace partners, these Palestinian elected leaders, but George R.R. Martin had it rights when he put these words in the mouth of his character Lord Baelish, “We only make peace with our enemies. That's why it's called making peace.”

If that is hard to hear.

This one is harder still.

There are Jews who are actively fanning flames of hatred between Jew and Palestinian because they sincerely believe with a messianic faith I find abhorrent, that the entire Land, from River to Sea, should be for Jews only. And they know that if they can threaten and lock up and bottle up all Palestinian pretensions to self-determination it will indeed overspill into more violence and that advances their cause. There is a terrible problem in Israel with a far-right extreme political movement that has power and is wielding that power to inflame and set Jew ever further against Palestinian. A wise member here suggested October 7^th is a bit like the end of the David Fincher movie Seven where a despicable murdered decides to commit a series of murders matching each of the Seven Deadly Sins while being pursued by the policeman played by Brad Pitt. The last murder, forgive the spoiler, is to match the sin of Wrath – anger. And the murder is not to be the true source of the evil, but the policeman. The true source of evil is planning to get Pitt’s character to be so full of wrath that he will sin. Israel, being deliberately goaded into committing acts of violence by the wickedness of those responsible for October 7^th, I think, makes more sense of why Hamas did what they did than almost any other thing I’ve heard since that awful day. And I feel that partly since I recognise the same tactic wielded by the extreme settlers and their allies who seem to take pride in their whipping up hatred between Jew and Palestinian.

These are desperate, complex, painful times. 

We must be capable of holding two opposing forces with equal commitment.

On one side, we cannot afford to lose our humanity. 

On the other we cannot afford to fail to call out evil when we see it. 

And in between these two poles, we must struggle. 

For me, the call to see even in those who hate us, Amalek must be pushed back. Yes there is anger and yes there is hatred, but I do not believe there is no partner for shared society, or even strangers living in self-determination on either side of a border. Od Lo Avdah Tikvateinu

 

Shabbat Shalom