She’s back. Under the auspices of something deemed the American Freedom Defense Initiative, the infamous fearmonger Pamela Geller has reasserted provocative hatred onto New York City streets — with new anti-Muslim ads that could appear on city buses.
“Killing Jews is worship that draws us closer to Allah,” one such ad reads, alongside the image of a young man in a headscarf. It continues: “That’s his Jihad. What’s yours?”
Though the advertisements were challenged in court, the Hon. John Koeltl of the U.S. District Court, citing the First Amendment, allowed them. Partly to avoid featuring these ads, the MTA may succeed in changing its policy to bar all future political ads.
But whether they ultimately run or not, this hatred has been exposed, and New Yorkers — and the Jewish community in particular — cannot be silent. The news stories about Geller consistently represent her as “pro-Israel,” and by doing so, imply that the unacceptable language and tactics used by Geller — which smear Islam with a broad brush — are centered in the Jewish community.
But what she does, what she represents, has no place in a Jewish community that is built on tolerance and understanding.
In synagogue this Sabbath, Jews in New York City and around the world read the section of Leviticus that describes the Torah’s response to lepers and leprosy. It resonates — because, for much of Jewish history, we have been kept physically apart from our neighbors.
During the Holocaust, the Nazis went beyond making us social outcasts; they systematically slaughtered our people with unspeakable cruelty. Because we know so well what it is like to be outcasts, we must never, through our deeds or words, make others into modern-day lepers.
That’s why, last summer, I visited Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem to see two young men who were badly wounded — but not from the fighting in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. Samer Mahfouz and Amir Shwiki, Palestinians from a neighborhood in East Jerusalem, had been savagely attacked by a group of fanatical young Jews filled with hatred for all Palestinians.
I was with a delegation from Tag Meir, a group of 40 organizations standing against a spate of Jewish attacks on Palestinians.
We brought flowers and sweets for the after-Ramadan fast. We wanted our Muslim brothers to know that the majority of Israeli and diaspora Jews were praying for the men’s speedy recovery and were determined to see that their attackers are brought to justice. We will do our part, we told them, to uproot such hatred through education, partnerships and other strategies for creating a society that respects the other.
I yield to no one in my love for Israel and my belief in her right to self-defense. I have no affection for Hamas or for any organization that condones violence against innocent civilians in the name of national liberation or religion.
But the method and the means by which we educate and advocate must be true to our own values and to our precepts, not rely on reductive thinking that will move us backward.
Ultimately there can be no military solution to uprooting hatred, also a threat to Israel’s future. That can come only after years of education and the fostering of human ties, which we all pray will dawn one day soon.
In the meantime, we speak out against hate speech, because ours is a religion of love and justice and the Jewish State is to be a light unto the nations.
Leviticus, which teaches us to have empathy toward those afflicted with leprosy, also tells us never to hate our neighbors even in our hearts. That’s a message I’d love to see on our city buses.
Jacobs is president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish denomination in North America.
