The late Harvey Milk said that as long as LGBTQ folk stayed in the closet, people would be unaware that people they knew were gay. This only made discrimination easier.
Well, I’m not gay, but I’ve been in the closet about my practice of not knowingly buying products from settlement industries in the West Bank.
Now you know.
These words printed here may now possibly exclude me from visiting my beloved Israel, from visiting friends and relatives there, and being there to lend my support to those who are nonviolently opposing the occupation or the expansion of settlements. This is how I am affected by the new law passed by the Knesset this week, which allows excluding the entry of any foreigner who supports the boycott of products from any area under Israeli control, including if one’s boycott is limited to West Bank settlement goods.
I suppose it was easy for many in the Knesset to vote for such a bill and for many others to support it. After all, if you don’t know that your rabbi, your cantor, the executive director of your favorite Jewish institution refuses to buy settlement goods or supports some aspect of boycott against the occupation, you just might think that all boycotters are a bunch of anti-Semites, just like so many people thought that all gays were child molesters — until their brother or daughter came out.
I know that it is a lot easier for me in particular to come out about this. After all, I serve a congregation, Kehilla Community Synagogue, that supports free speech for its rabbis and that has published a statement of values on Israel-Palestine. We have made clear that our Jewish values and Israel’s security are contradicted by a permanent occupation and the expansion of settlements. Given my secure position, it is incumbent at least upon me to come out and to declare my personal refusal to normalize the settlements and to aid their profitability.
I know that many of you in the Jewish leadership who agree with me are reading this and pondering if you can put your job at risk by being public. That you hesitate to do so is understandable and I cannot judge you. But I can decry that it has come to this in our Jewish community: that so many of us dedicated Jewish leaders must hide our principles so that we can continue to serve the people who need us.
But I do ask you to give it your consideration. And I ask that even if you cannot come out, and even if you do not support the overall boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, or a selected boycott of settlement goods, that you at least express your dissent from the scapegoating of those who are non-violently and publicly standing up against the occupation.
In the Megillah, which we read this weekend, we are taught to speak up. As Haman’s plot becomes revealed, Mordechai warns Esther of a terrible outcome “if you remain silent in this moment” (Esther 4:14). She too has to decide to come out. She is challenged to consider whether it is for this very purpose that she has come into a position of leadership.
She does not remain silent. Neither should we.
cooper dares to compare himself to hadassah, who spoke out to save the jews from extermination?
what he does assists those who wish to exterminate all the jews in the state of israel
what an evil loon
This article articulate true leadership- to call out abuse to power. To both spiritually & economically challenge those authorities who take away the freedom of anyone, in this case Palestinians. As a Jew, I am not exempt from wrongdoing; as a Jewish State, Israel is not exempt from wrongdoing. Thank you for speaking out, R. David. Oh Rabbi, My Rabbi.
I am concerned at the Rabbi’s lack of morality.
http://myrightword.blogspot.co.il/2017/03/dear-rabbi-cooper.html
Thank you ‘coming out’ — I’m another rabbi who emphatically does not support the overall BDS movement (whose rhetoric too often goes beyond ‘anti-occupation’ into ‘anti-Israel’), but davka as a lover of Israel cannot support settlements, either. I too am speaking up against the Knesset’s painful over-reach, whcih targets free speech and human rights at once, and which only makes the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” case harder to make. In linking the future of Israel proper with that of the anti-international-law settlements, and trying to squeeze anti-occupation pro-Israel folks like us out of the tent, the Israeli right shakes the very core of Zionism — and threatens its, and our, future.
Anti-international-law settlements? Actually, under international law, Jews are entitled to live anywhere in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. There is no such thing as Palestinian land and never was. The West Bank and Gaza never belonged to any sovereign ruler after the British withdrew from Mandatory Palestine; before that it was part of the Ottoman empire.
Israel actually acquired the West Bank from “Trans-Jordan” in a defensive war in 1967. Under international law, Israel is not required to transfer the land to a third-party.
what a wierd “rabbi” you are. you feel the western wall and the har habayit, the centre of judaism are “occupied”? you compare yourself to esther and mordechai. haman is closer to the truth. you’re a disgrace
Thank you Reb David for speaking out so publicly. As another rabbi who supports Israel and peace, I implore all Jews to speak out for Israel and Palestine by opposing the occupation. In this past week’s parsha, the Torah implores us to remember what Amalek did to the Israelites. Let’s be sure we remember this by not becoming oppressors ourselves.
There are many reasons Jews collaborate with those that hate us. Good Jews. Otherwise honorable Jews. Josephus had his reasons for collaborating with the Romans; various figures in the Judenrat had their reasons. So, I am sure, do Green and Cooper. My feeling is, let them be divorced from the Jewish People. Let them have their priorities that deny us access to our own ancestral land. Let them soak in their smarmy piety. We have returned to our land. We will not be moved from it.
Palestine, like America and Britain, has always been a land of immigration. If you support Arab immigration to America (as I’m sure the author must — it’s now the premier moral crusade of progressive Jews), you should likewise embrace and celebrate Jewish immigration to (what you think of as) Palestinian land.
Just curious, but how are Jewish values and Israel’s security enhanced by creating a dangerous, antisemitic, religiously intolerant, homophobic, misogynistic country that is home to Islamist terror groups, just a stone’s throw away from Tel Aviv and Haifa?
I am sure that Rabbi David Cooper is not a liar and a hypocrite. So I know that he will for the rest of his life boycott all Israeli products. If he boycotted only those that are easy to do without, but bought others, he would be a lying little weasel, wouldn’t he?
Below is a partial list of products developed and distributed by Teva, Israel’s largest pharmaceutical company. Most of these are prescription drugs so claiming your doctor prescribed it will not get you a pass. Rabbi, if you are going to boycott Israel, you better hope diet and exercise will be enough, because your medical care will now be right out of the 19th Century without Teva pharmaceuticals. Better check your medicine cabinet to see if you are already a boycott hypocrite.
If you do violate your own boycott, man up and tell your adoring congregation about your cheesy excuses for violating your “principles” with the same amount of exposure you gave to announcing your boycott.
Adderall (generic and branded)
Adrucil
Alprazolam
Amikacin Sulfate
Amitriptyline
Amoxicillin
Apri
Aripiprazole (generic)
Atomoxetine
Atorvastatin
Augmentin (generic)
Aviane
Azathioprine
Azithromycin
Baclofen
Balziva
Bisoprolol Fumarate
Bleomycin
Budeprion
Budesonide
Buspirone
Calcitriol
Camrese
Carboplatin
Cefdinir
Cephalexin
Ciclosporin
Ciprofloxacin
Citalopram
Cetirizine
Claravis
Clarithromycin
Clonazepam
Clozapine
Codeine
Copaxone
Cryselle
Cyclosporine
Daunorubicin
Dexmethylphenidate
Dextroamphetamine
Diazepam
Dihydrocodeine
Doxorubicin HCl
Enpresse
Epirubicin HCl
Epoprostenol Sodium
Errin
Escitalopram
Estazolam
Estradiol
Etodolac
Famciclovir
Filgrastim
Fiorinal[66]
Flunitrazepam
Fluocinonide
Fluconazole
Fluoxetine
Fluvoxamine
Gabapentin
Haloperidol
Haloperidol Decanoate
Ibuprofen Max
Idarubicin HCl
Ifosfamide
Irinotecan
Gianvi
Irbesartan
Junel
Kariva
Kelnor
Lamotrigine
Laquinimod
Letrozole
Leucovorin Calcium
Losartan
Methotrexate
Methylphenidate
Mirtazapine
Mitoxantrone
Montelukast (generic) [67]
Naltrexone
Naproxen[citation needed]
Norepinephrine
Norethisterone
Nortrel
Nortriptyline
Nuvigil
Nystatin
Ocella
Olanzapine
Omeprazole
Optalgin
Oxycodone
Oxymorphone
Pantoprazole[68]
Phentermine
Portia
Pravastatin
Prednisolone
ProAir
Provigil
Quetiapine
QVAR
QNASL
Ramipril
Rasagiline
Salbutamol (Albuterol)
Sertraline
Simvastatin
Sprintec
Sulfamethoxazole Trimethoprim
Sumatriptan
Tamoxifen
Temazepam
Temozolomide
Terbinafin
Topiramate
Trazodone
Tri-Sprintec
Ursodiol
Velivet
Venlafaxine
Warfarin
Zolpidem
If “Rabbi’ Cooper expects to make us or the Israelis feel bad about the Knesset excluding his valuable input from Israel, he is sorely mistaken. His siding decisively with the enemies of Israel and the Jewish people means to informed mature people that his judgment and counsel about Israel-Palestine issues are of no value.
He proposes that his congregants will change their view about the judgment of the elected government of Israel when they find out that their “rabbi” is opposed. It might well be taken as an argument borne of egocentrism and narcissism that it does not occur to him that his congregants are more likely to question their “rabbi’s” judgment than that of the elected government of Israel.
In an era in which a self-invented American politician routinely vents the most wantonly egocentric and narcissistic views, why should we expect a self-invented “rabbi” to do less?
One could well regard the attitudes of a “rabbi” who compares himself to Mordechai in the Book of Esther as smug and self-righteous. Perhaps he should take up rambling irrational late-night tweets to enlighten the masses he so clearly looks down on from the pinnacle of his inch-high moral peak in Berkeley?