Updated on Aug. 12
Some 30 Jewish religious leaders blocked a section of Montgomery Street outside of the Israel Consulate in San Francisco on Monday, calling for an end to the killing in the Israel-Hamas war, for the release of hostages and for more food and medical aid to enter Gaza to alleviate suffering.
About half of the clergy members — rabbis and cantors from Conservative, Reform, Renewal and Reconstructionist branches — said they were willing to be arrested if it came to that. But police officers kept their distance. After two hours of blocking the street and the entrance to the consulate and then sitting down in the intersection of Montgomery and Sacramento streets, the group dispersed.
About 100 other people came to support the action in the city’s Financial District, including at least one pastor, Brian K. Woodson Sr. of the Bay Area Christian Connection.
The protesters told J. that they had tried late last week to schedule a meeting with Consul General Marco Sermoneta, but were not successful.
A statement sent to J. on Monday afternoon from the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest region criticized the protesters.
“It is deeply regrettable that in the 675 days since the October 7th Massacre, these protestors never called for the release of the Israeli hostages,” the statement said. “They did not take to the streets even after Hamas published the emaciated images of their own brothers, Rom Broslavsky and Evyatar David, being deliberately starved, one of them forced to dig his own grave. Despite the Hamas disinformation campaign, there is food in Gaza and Israel continues to flood Gaza with food and humanitarian aid.”
Renewal Rabbi David Cooper, rabbi emeritus of Piedmont’s Kehilla Community Synagogue, was among the first to address the group. “Starvation in Gaza continues, unabated, every moment. We can’t wait. Settler attacks on peaceful West Bank villages persist without consequences,” he said.
Cooper noted that the clergy present disagreed on many issues when it came to the war, yet they all agreed that it had gone on long enough. He was followed by Rabbi Chaim Schneider of Aptos who read from a statement that many of those present had signed.
Had they been able to meet with Sermoneta, Schneider said, they planned to state their opposition to the Israeli government’s plan to occupy all of Gaza “and especially to express our dismay at the unrelieved starvation of the population of Gaza,” Schneider said. “To quote the Babylonian Talmud, we learned that anyone who is able to protest the misdeeds of their community and does not protest is complicit in their misdeeds.”
Rabbi Chai Levy of Berkeley’s Conservative Congregation Netivot Shalom began by saying, “I’m here today because as a rabbi and a Jewish leader, I cannot be silent about the starvation and suffering in Gaza.” She stressed that she cares deeply about Israel and Israelis, and she feared some might consider her an anti-Zionist for taking part in this particular event.
But to those who deflect all responsibility for the current situation to Hamas, she said, this is her response:
“Hamas is a cruel, terrorist organization…. But I don’t feel responsible for what Hamas does. I have no hopes or expectations that they will care for their own suffering people. I do feel responsible, however, for what Israel does.”
Conservative Rabbi Amy Eilberg then offered a prayer on behalf of the assembled clergy, especially those who were willing to risk arrest, invoking Mahatma Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Oh God, be with us today as we stand up to power,” she said, “invoking the moral authority of our identities as rabbis, and as clergy, to say that Israel, whom some of us have long loved, is actually acting in a way that is un-Jewish…. We will stand up to say that the killing must stop, the starvation must end, and all the hostages must be brought home.”
After the comments, about 10 people sounded shofars, and Cooper pronounced “Hineinu, we are here” as the group began to block the street.
Together the protesters carried a large yellow banner that read, “Each person is created in the image of God: Food for Gaza now!” Then they sat down with the sign, blocking the intersection alongside symbolic bags of rice and lentils (that were later donated to a food pantry).
Rabbi Sheldon Lewis, 84-year-old rabbi emeritus of Palo Alto’s Conservative Congregation Kol Emeth, who protested against the Vietnam War and on behalf of Soviet Jewry, was appointed as liaison to the police, though he didn’t plan on being arrested himself.
Word filtered to the protesters that the police — who were at the ready down the block — did not want to arrest people. So they said Kaddish, the mourner’s prayer, before dispersing.
Ed Cushman, a retired Jewish community professional who showed up Monday, said that over the years he had joined a number of counterprotests against anti-Israel groups at the very same spot. During those events, he showed up to demonstrate his support for Israel at the urging of Jewish community groups.
“I can’t believe I’m here now protesting against the Israeli government,” he said. “But it’s time to speak out.”