Heartbreaking images of children starving in Gaza have caused what some Jewish Americans call a “rupture” between supporters of Israel’s offensive in its current form and those who oppose how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is managing the war.
Frustrated by the bloodshed, pressure is mounting on the United States and the international community to take better control of chaotic food distribution sites.
“We’re seeing not only divisiveness, but hatred between us, and that’s not a good thing for the future,” said Rabbi Erez Sherman of Sinai Temple, a Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles. “So how do we not solve it? How do we work on that?”
But support for Israel remains ironclad among many American Jewish groups and rabbis, who argue that Hamas is preventing humanitarian aid from reaching innocent civilians.
“Israel has facilitated an extraordinary amount of aid to Palestinians in Gaza, in wartime, and that’s really an unprecedented situation,” said Belle Etra Yoeli, spokesperson for the American Jewish Committee, which recently ran a full-page ad in The New York Times with the image of an Israeli hostage who remains in Hamas custody.
“The Palestinian civilians who have been caught in the crossfire throughout this entire war because of Hamas’ actions should not be suffering,” she added. “Israel doesn’t want that.”
Nearly 1,400 people have been killed and more than 4,000 have been injured seeking food in Gaza, the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said last week.
At least 859 people have been killed near sites operated by Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, a controversial American- and Israeli-backed organization, the United Nations said.
The foundation’s executive director, Johnnie Moore, said Hamas is largely responsible for the killings and dismissed news reports about people dying by Israeli gunfire.
“We have not seen the Israeli military do anything that remotely aligns with some of these accusations,” he said.
“It is a quite evident fact that Hamas has killed intentionally probably hundreds of people in proximity not to just our sites, to U.N. distribution sites, as a means of sort of misattributing those attacks either to the IDF or to being in proximity to GHF,” he added, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
To address escalating concerns over the humanitarian crisis, synagogues across Jewish movements in the United States have organized roundtables with the executive director of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
At an event with GHF hosted last month by Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, reactions were mixed, according to Sherman, the rabbi, who led the discussion.
Some people were shocked that an organization that has come under so much criticism was allowed to present its case. Others appreciated hearing directly from people on the ground.
“How do you block evil from your midst while also feeding the hungry and supporting the orphan and widow?” Sherman said after the roundtable, referring to Psalm 146. “To me, it’s an impossible task, and I give credit to somebody who is at least trying to do that.”
Polling suggests Jewish Americans are divided over Netanyahu’s handling of the war. According to a Pew Research Center report, 53% of Jewish Americans say they lack confidence in his leadership, while 45% say they have confidence. About 6 million Jews live in the United States, or 2% of the population, according to the Pew Research Center.
The poll was conducted in April, before GHF began its operations in Gaza.
Supporters of Netanyahu’s government, including several Jewish American organizations, have said Hamas is spreading misleading information about who is to blame for ongoing violence at aid sites, a claim Hamas has repeatedly denied. They have also criticized detractors for losing focus on the remaining Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas.
“All of this can just be stopped anytime if Hamas puts down its weapons,” said Orthodox Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization that supports Netanyahu’s government.
