At Beth El, a New Jersey Synagogue, a Deep Divide Over Israel | The New Yorker Highlight

Last spring, when he read reports that famine was intensifying in Gaza because Israel was blocking food and other humanitarian aid from entering the territory, the “We Stand with Israel” sign began to trouble him. Among other things, he was worried that neighbors would assume that he and his fellow-worshippers condoned Israel’s blockade, which Felder saw as a desecration of what his grandfather had taught him was the most sacred Jewish tenet: protecting human life. As the crisis in Gaza intensified, he sent an e-mail to Jesse Olitzky, Beth El’s senior rabbi, and Rachel Marder, the associate rabbi, in which he shared his distress and asked the rabbis to reconsider the sign. He was told that it would remain. Two months later, Felder wrote to the rabbis again. By this point, experts were warning that half a million people in Gaza were at risk of starvation, and organizations such as the Rabbinical Assembly, an association of Conservative rabbis, were urging immediate action to alleviate civilian suffering. Felder suggested that the Beth El rabbis send out a congregation-wide e-mail offering guidance on how to respond to the humanitarian crisis—say, by directing members to relief groups or by encouraging members to contact their representatives in Congress to exert pressure on Israel.