Jeremy Rosen
Israel: A Nation in Mourning

Jeremy Rosen - Israel: A Nation in Mourning

- Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the saddest moments in my life. Israel is at war. Fighting continues as we speak. Infiltration from Gaza continues as we speak. Rockets from the north, from the south. Latest news unfortunately reveals that 40 children in a kibbutz on the border were decapitated, were killed, decapitated the thought of what’s going on and of what has gone on. It’s evil beyond imagination, for us as Jews and for human beings. Not since the War of Independence in 1948 have so many civilians being killed in all the battles and wars that Israel has had to fight in these last 70 so years. And not since the Holocaust have we seen such brutal sadism on civilian men and women and children as we and the world is actually seeing on our screens on the media at this moment. I don’t know how it’s ever going to be possible to live in peace with people so barbaric, so delighting in evil as to inflict such brutality on civilian innocence. And yet despite the blackness, there must be hope. Hatred of Jews around the world and on the media are all over. Wherever we are, we are seeing these demonstrations thousands and thousands in the west let alone in the East, in every capital. Thank God we are also seeing signs of support as well. And yet this morning in the United Nations’ so-called Committee of Human Rights, they stood in silence led by the Pakistani delegate for the Gazans with no mention whatsoever of what has happened in Israel. Not since the Yom Kippur war have we proved ourselves so ill-prepared for what has happened, whether it’s the armed forces or the intelligence, or indeed the political leadership.

And we’ve been tearing each other apart this past year, all of which has created this aura of insecurity and incapacity, which thank God at this moment seems to be being put right. We have always lived in a world in which we’ve been vilified by other religions and other ideologies, and yet we have managed to overcome, to survive and to thrive. Israel has always been a battleground. We know that. It’s been inevitable, and the chance of peace has been remote, although in the last couple of years it seemed there was a chance of coming towards some sort of peaceful accommodation. And yet we have been faced with people who are constantly talking about driving out the Jews. It’s in the Hamas charter. It’s in Iran’s constant proclamations from its leadership. And we know without any doubt that they were involved in what happened here. And it was their people as well joining the others in the assault on Israel because it has all the hallmarks of how the Basij in Iran have been attacking their rebels and those people who stand up to them. But now is not the moment to play any kind of blame game. There will be postmortems, and there will be an attempt to see how things can be improved for the future. And the one thing we must not do is allow depression and negativity to pull us down. So what can we do? How do we deal with a situation like this? And how do we in the diaspora who are not directly involved, is there anything we can do? Now, some of us believe in the power of prayer, and prayer has a lot of beneficial side effects that actually don’t necessarily involve theology or whether you believe or you don’t believe.

We have a principle that when there is a crisis, we turn, and we deal with charity, we deal with service and we deal with prayer. And all these things we can do from here. We can give and support with the financial means at our disposal those who are fighting for us. We can commit ourselves to try to be good people and in mystical terms increase the amount of goodness in the world as a way of combating the evil. And in addition to that, we can say specific words that have been part of the way our tradition has dealt with such a crisis. And so forgive me, I’m going to read some texts in Hebrew and in English that I think are particularly relevant to the situation that we are in. The most common response to a crisis is chapter 130 of Psalms. It’s called from the depths. And I’ll sing it in the way. I’m not a Hazzan, but I’ll sing it in the way we always used to sing it in the days when I was in Israel in Yeshiva. In English, out of the depths I call to you Hashem, listen to my cry. Let your ears be attentive to my prayers. If you keep a count of our mistakes and our sins, then no one would be able to survive without your power to forgive. I look to God, my soul looks to God. I am more eager for God than the watchmen are eager for the dawn to rise. Israel waits for God. We wait for divine kindness and salvation, and may God redeem Israel and accept our prayers. But in addition to that, we have in our liturgy a series of prayers that that are said in synagogues, and they’re particularly relevant at this moment. The first prayer that I want to read is the prayer that we have for the state of Israel. Our Father, Israel’s rock, Redeemer, bless the state of Israel. Shield it under the wings of your loving kindness. Spread the tabernacle of your peace, send your light and truth to its leaders, its ministers, it’s counsellors, and direct them with good counsel before you.

But in addition to that, we have a prayer specifically for the Israeli defence forces. May He bless our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Bless the members of Israel Defence Forces and its security services who stand on guard over our land and the cities of our God, from the Lebanese border to the Egyptian desert, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arava, where that there on land, in the air or at sea. May the Lord make the enemies who rise up against us be struck down. May he protect us, deliver us, them from all trouble and distress, affliction and illness, and send blessing and success to everything they do. May he subdue our enemies, and may there be fulfilled the verse that God goes in with you to fight against your enemies to deliver you. Probably the most moving of the prayers we say is the prayer that we say for captives, for hostages. May he who blessed our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David, and Solomon, bless and protect those people missing in action or held captive. All the captives amongst our brethren who are in distress or captivity as we the members of this community pray on their behalf. May the Almighty have compassion on them, bring them out of darkness and the shadow of death. May he break their bonds and deliver them from their distress and bring them swiftly back to their family’s embrace. And in the words of the prophet, those redeemed by the Lord will return to Zion with singing, everlasting joy, gladness. And let us say amen. And finally, there is one more Mi Sheberach that I want to make because it’s a Mi Sheberach, it goes back to mediaeval times.

And it is part of the service that we say on Shabbat after the Torah in which we think of all those people who have over the hundreds, thousands of years given their lives to maintain the Jewish people and to maintain the Jewish community. Father of compassion, may you remember the pious, the righteous, the good, the blameless, the innocent, the holy people who have sacrificed their lives for the sanctification of God’s name. They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death, they were not party. They were swifter than eagles and stronger than lions due the will of their maker and the desire of their creator. God, remember them for good with all the righteous people of the world. And may you exact retribution for the blood of your servants. Very mixed emotions, very sad, very difficult. We Jews have always been torn ideologically between extremes, between the love of peace, between the desire to get on with other people, to follow ethical standards, to respect those who adhere to ethical standards and to reject those who behave inhumanly. We’ve never, ever flinched from defending ourselves and pursuing those who have tried to destroy us. It has been our constant challenge to forgive, to overcome the pain, to go forward. Not to recriminate but to try to compensate, to make up for what we have lost. And look how this has been reflected in our recovery from a holocaust to a position where we are stronger than we were before so that please God, we will be stronger than we were before as a result of this crisis that we continue to go through in defence of our homeland. We have never rejoiced in death.

We have never rejoiced in killing, but we have done what we have needed to do out of self-defense. It’s because of this desire that we have for peace that I want to end on a note of peace. We end every prayer three times a day with a phrase May we have peace for us, for everybody, for the world. The oldest blessing that we have in the Torah is the so-called Birkat Kohanim, the blessing of the priests. I’m not a priest, but I can quote from the Torah. And the blessing you are familiar with goes like this: May God bless you and protect you. May God’s presence be with you, and may he be kind to you. And may God give you peace. And now I’m going to recite the Kaddish for those who at this moment haven’t had people to recite Kaddish for them. Please join me. Technically, this is where I end this presentation, and I’m going to just end it for a moment by playing a little bit of music that I started at the beginning, which is the army of Israel singing a piece for Israel and for life. When it is over for anybody who wishes to ask any questions or raise any issues, I will open up for questions and answers.

Q&A and Comments:

Sarah living in Israel, thank you. And let’s hope we hear good news.

Would anybody like to ask anything or discuss anything? Please feel free to do it. Julian, thank you Jeremy. Thank you, thank you, Julian. I appreciate your comments.

Q: Is there no prayer to turn our adversaries?

A: Oh yes, there are. There are plenty of wishes and prayers both in the Book of Psalms. You’ve caught me on the hop to give you the actual references at this moment, but I assure you there are.

Thank you, Robert. Thank you, Adele. Well, it looks as though there are no questions.

Q: Oh yes. How can we procure the hostage prayer so that we may also say it?

A: The hostage prayer, it’s not in every prayer book, but in the prayer book published by the Koren series, the Rav Kook Siddur is the one that I have. You will find that prayer for the hostages on page 599. The other prayers I mentioned are on 595 and 597.

• [Host] You do have a couple of questions that came after.

Q: - Okay. Is it acceptable to want vengeance?

A: No, we are told not to ask for revenge. The Torah says very, very clearly, we must not act out of revenge. We should punish if somebody deserves to be punished. And so what we’re talking about is not vengeance. We are talking about punishing people for doing the wrong thing. So we shouldn’t confuse the two. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord, but in fact, we are told not to seek vengeance or revenge. Remain the paradox of the Jewish people seeking peace while having to defend ourselves.

Q: Can we pray not to be dehumanised?

A: I think we should very much stress the idea of not being dehumanised. We must recognise that every soul has the capacity to be a divine soul, even though some souls are distorted and are evil. But I don’t know how you can pray specifically for dehumanisation as opposed to praying to be a good human being. And all the time we are told to pray for and for kindness and to be good human beings. Thank you, Devora.

Q: Can you give more information about the United Nations?

A: Well, as you know, the United Nations is a disastrous organisation. Every country has a vote, and there is a built in vote against Israel, both from certain Muslim countries, not all, but from some Muslim countries and from many Marxists left wing socialists. And they are opposed to Israel for originally different reasons, some for religious reasons, some for political reasons. But they happen to be numerically the majority. And therefore the United Nations will pass 70 motions against Israel a year and not one against almost any other country. Occasionally there are one or two that slip through the net, but nowhere near as many as Israel. In addition, the United Nations has several subcommittees. One of them is the ridiculously described Committee for Rights, for Human Rights. And on this committee sit some of the worst abusers of human rights, the Iranians, many others, Russia , and examples without end of states that have abused their own citizens and abused others. They constantly accuse Israel of human rights, of abusing human rights, even though what’s gone on in Gaza is an abuse of human rights. It’s against human rights to rape. It’s against human rights to kill innocent civilians. It’s against human rights to take captives and use them as hostages. These are all official human rights.

If the Human Rights Committee was not a bunch of bastards, and I say this quite seriously, they would’ve passed those motions against the people who actually carry them out, but they don’t. And this morning the Pakistani delegate at the United Nations convened a meeting in which he asked for a moment’s silence for the Gazans. Now I’m sorry for the Gazans. I am so sorry for them. They are hostages to Hamas, that’s got millions of them under their control. But they unfortunately, when you are fixed with, you have a problem, and you want to resolve the problem, you have to strike at the head. And because Hamas constantly uses civilians as guards, as protection, and they put the people on the top while they go down to the bunkers, they are the ones who are suffering. And I feel for the suffering of the Gazan people. But it seems to me the only way to solve this problem is to remove Hamas, bring in a new Palestinian authority that then looks for peace. Bear in mind, Israel voluntarily withdrew from Gaza. It’s given freedom to Gaza for years and years for it to do as it wants, and it has chosen to turn itself into a barracks of death, a war machine, and to commit the crimes that it’s constantly committing. And yet, if you go to an American university such as Harvard, they will be blaming Israel for what’s going on in Gaza. That’s the irony of the situation. And that’s unfortunately the case on most of the American campuses.

Q: Cecil, how should we understand Hashem as good when these atrocities are happening?

A: Well, Cecil, this is a big problem. I can’t think of God as a human being. It’s true we do use human language to describe God. God, the finger of God, the hand of God. It’s not as though even the voice of God. It’s not as though God has vocal chords or has fingers or hands or when he gets angry or indeed whether God is he, she or it. After all in the Bible, God is given female gender as well as male gender. So you know, God cannot be seen in these terms. And therefore when I say God is good, I’m expressing my wish for there to be goodness, my hope for there to be goodness. But we can blame God, if you like, for giving humans the capacity to do evil. And if they do evil, what can we say other than to say it’s humans who are being evil as in the Holocaust? Do you want to say it was God being evil or do you want to say it was the Nazis being evil and those who supported them? It’s true that there are those people within religious Judaism and elsewhere who think of God as benevolent and intervening in our lives. If God does intervene in our lives, I don’t know how. I don’t know how any human being can say that they know the mind of God or how God works. There is a famous statement in the Talmud which says , the world functions according to its own rules. And we have to do our best to live in a world with its own rules. We can turn to God for comfort. We can turn to God as a kind of psychiatrist in the sky we can pour our hearts out to. We can hope and we can pray, but when we pray or when we go to a holy man or we ask for a blessing, there’s a 50/50 chance that it’ll either be ignored or accepted. I’m Israel.

Hi, Barry. Indeed, that’s correct. This must have been a difficult task to give, and I believe your family in Israel, may they be safe.

Thank you, Rhonda. Yes, my family. God bless them. They’re all safe. Although some of the younger generation are in the army. And if you’re in the army, nobody’s safe. And therefore I pray for them as much as I pray for everybody in the army.

Q: Brenda, what is the humane way to respond to people who say that Israel got what it deserved because of the Palestinians.

A: Well, first of all, let’s make one thing absolutely clear. It’s true that Israel was a land that had people in it who were members of the Ottoman Empire. They weren’t called Palestinians. And it’s true that at that stage when Jews started coming in significant numbers ‘cause Jews had always been coming to Israel for thousands of years, the Hasidic movement brought them and the Lithuanian and others they were coming. But when the secular Zionists came at the end of the 19th century, they attracted more people to Palestine because they brought industry and they brought jobs. But with the rise of nationalism and Zionism is a form of nationalism, the Arab world also developed nationalism. And so right from the very beginning there was tension between the Arab population and the Jewish population. Now through a series of decisions that were taken, not just the Balfour declaration in England, but the League of Nations, which is the forerunner of the United Nations. And later on after the war was over the San Ramo conference, the League of Nations dividing up the Ottoman Empire, divided up the Middle East into a French and an English protectorate, a mandate. And the mandate was to provide a home for Jews and for Arabs within what is now an area that includes Jordan and includes the West Bank and down to the sea. The Arab world rejected that. They were not interested, and as a result led to a series of massacres that took place in Israel during the 20s.

As more Jews began to come, the British mandate was caught between them. And to cut a long story short handed the problem over to the United Nations. And in 1947, the United Nations suggested dividing the land into two states, an Arab state and a Jewish state. The Arab world rejected that offer out of hand. And although Israel was not happy with the amount they were given, they said something’s better than nothing. They accepted it. And when the British mandate then withdrew from Palestine because it couldn’t find a solution to the problem, the Arab world declared war on Israel. They declared war on Israel. And after the 1967 war where cartoon conferences, they were offered peace negotiations, land for peace, they consistently refused. Over the years, Israel has made different offers to the Palestinians for peace. The Palestinians have never made peace. There hasn’t been peace. There’s been peace with Jordan. There’s been peace with Egypt, but there’s never been peace with the Palestinians. Now I don’t say that Israel has been perfect by any means. Either one way or another, they have missed opportunities and could maybe have made things different in relationships, if not necessarily in treaties. But as you saw, the Oslo treaty got nowhere. Attempts have got nowhere because by and large the Palestinians are being told don’t accept any compromise 'cause if you hold on, you’re going to get a better deal 'cause in the end, we’re going to get rid of the Jews. And Hamas has it in its charter that their aim is to remove the Jews from Israel and destroy the Jewish state.

So how do we respond? The answer is we must try and deal with moderate Palestinians. But it seems unfortunately the years of tension have really removed almost all the moderates from the scene. There are still some, but not many. I don’t think there is any way of making peace with Gaza. Unfortunately, the Hamas is so embedded there, and the Islamic Jihad is so embedded there, and Iran is so embedded there that unless we destroy the leadership and then give moderate Palestinians a chance to rebuild a peaceful government and a peaceful zone that will be a partner with Israel in peace, and the West Bank will be a partner in Israel with peace. We don’t need to go into the details of what kind of government because governments in one sense come and go and treaties come and go. We have to bring the people together, for the people to say we don’t want violence anymore.

Q: Shelly, in the 16 months I’ve been learning history of the Jews in Europe with Trudy, I can’t help ask why does God let this destruction keep on happening to us? What does God want from us?

A: Well, you know there there’s one sort of resort I can give, and that is what doesn’t destroy you, makes you stronger. God has always, if you like, or let’s leave out God. And let’s talk about history. History has put us in a unique position. It put us in between the great powers of Egypt and the great powers of Babylonia and Mesopotamia. We’ve always been beaten up, but the fact that we have absorbed from different cultures that we’ve had to deal with adversity that we’ve never given up, and we’ve never given up because we have a culture and a tradition that we’ve stuck to. And it’s a behavioural one, as opposed to being an abstract theological one. Look what we have achieved. Who would’ve believed that a people of 15 million would be so influential, so successful, could hold off billions of people. So in one way, maybe ironically, this is what makes us strong. But the straight answer is, I don’t know God. God is not human. I don’t know what God thinks in inverted comma, I don’t know if he has a brain or not. I just know I’m here. I’m part of this world. I have to try to be a good person. And the way I try to be a good person is by keeping my tradition alive and adhering to it. And although unfortunately, there are a lot of hypocrites, a lot of people, the Jewish people itself has always been abandoned, has always, sorry, has always been divided. Look how divided we’ve been this past year. Look how we divided between American jury and Israel jury. All these divisions make us an unbelievable mess. And yet, look how brilliant we are. Sounds horrible to say it, but maybe that’s why we are.

Robert, perhaps the most powerful response to your powerful words is silence. Well, actually that reminds me of the wonderful statement, to answer Shelly’s point, the famous prophet who is running away from being pursued by the politicians hides in a cave and God passes by, and God is not in a powerful wind. It’s in a silent, still, still voice. So sometimes silence is the right answer. Surely it’s not vengeance to prevent the enemy from attacking you again. Exactly, absolutely not. It’s not. It’s self-protection. And as the Torah says, if somebody comes to attack you, you get there first and attack them.

Hi, David. I didn’t know this. David from Toronto. Hi, David. Email me.

Judah, you asked what we should do in addition to what you have done, comforted us, for which I thank you. We should not cease calling out the lies and the vilification of the media. We must. We must. And the trouble, here’s the trouble. For the millions of Jews or the millions of people who are on the social media, in the millions, you have those in the billions who are spouting hatred. We are outnumbered phenomenally on the media. Doesn’t mean we should give up, but it means we know who our enemies are. And we have to keep fighting, and we have to keep strong.

Q: Catherine as a Canadian, non-Jew, but very sympathetic to this current horrific situation, how can I help? Is there a special organisation I can donate to help the Israeli population?

A: There are, there are several ones. I’m sure if you contact, and you should contact Lockdown University and get in touch with them, they will be able to tell you which are the best and the most needy of the organisations in Israel. Because you have a choice. There are Jewish organisations in Israel. There are Christian Jewish organisations. There are a whole span. So I would ask somebody who knows to give you help. If you want any more help, I suggest you go to Lockdown University and ask any of the brilliant people there if they can give you a suggestion.

Pirkei Avot. Where there’s no human being strive to human. Yes, it says in Pirkei Avot, . When there are no men around you, strive to be a person. In other words, you’ve got to stick up. You’ve got to stick up for what you believe. You can’t capitulate.

Q: Sandra isn’t this situation parallel to that of the Israelis in counting Amalek and the journey, we’re told to wipe them out?

A: Oh, indeed. And that’s why we remember Amalek. Every year we have before Purim, we have a Shabbat dedicated to Amalek because Amalek was the one example of attacking Jews for no good reason. We don’t have a Shabbat against the Canaanites. They had every reason to defend themselves against Israel. Israel was coming to take their land, but the Amalekites had nothing to do. They weren’t being dispossessed. They just attacked Israel because they were that kind of evil person.

Marin, you express your hopes from prayers, in your usual kind and human way. Thank you. Thank you, Marin Montego.

Q: How should we regard Islam?

A: Well, no, how should we regard Judaism? I know many Muslims who are wonderful, lovely people who I can actually say I love, but I also know Muslims I hate. So it depends who, which ones. When you, for example, you talk about Christianity, which Christianity, there are Episcopalians who don’t like Israel. You have the Catholics who by and large now are more positive than they’ve ever been before. You have the Southern Baptists who are very pro-Israel. They’re all Christians. And similarly amongst the Jews, you’ve got the Haredi Jews who won’t serve in the Army. You’ve got the modern Orthodox Jews who are the best fighters in the army. You’ve got the secular Jews who contribute to Israeli culture and Israeli life. You’ve got Ethiopian Jews, you’ve got Oriental Jews, Occidental Jews, they’re all Jews and they’re all different.

Susan says, last night in Toronto, there was a huge rally for Israel. Many thousands period were several Iranians carrying the old flag of Iran before the Ayatollah took over. They kept saying, we love Israel. There are a lot of Iranians who hate the regime, who love Israel, who are pro-Jewish, but they are in the grip of this evil regime that sends the sort of people that we saw from Gaza coming to Israel against their own people in Tehran. The same tactics. And that’s why we know the Iranians, we know from other sources, were involved in training this and in leading it and were present in Gaza, their language was identified. Sorry, in Israel.

Rita, bravo, thank you.

Q: Sylvia, should we not be reminding the world the United Nations voted to allow the state of Israel?

A: Well, it did when it was very small. And that’s fair. And it did, and ironically, Russia was one of the first to vote because they thought that Israel would be a socialist state but then turned against it afterwards. But it was a very, a close run thing. I would not really reckon that says so much about Israel as the fact that it was President Truman, basically who was responsible for the rise of Israel as an independent state outside of Israel itself.

Q: The Gazans voted for Hamas. None of them showed, dares to criticise this organisation. Should we still feel sorry for them?

A: Well, we don’t know how many of them. Remember there are a lot of people there who did not support Hamas? Hamas just won, like it won the election. That’s the problem. Sometimes people come to power who only represent a small interest, not the whole people. And that’s the problem. And so that’s why unfortunately, you could say that they could have in numbers rebelled against them and chose not to. But it’s very difficult. Look in Iran. There are many, many more in Iran who would like to overthrow the state. But when you’ve got leadership, which is so aggressive and so powerful, it’s very difficult. That’s why dictators last longer than they really ought to. Why do dictators last for 70 years, 100 years? They will go in the end, of course, but that’s why they last because they have control.

Q: Examples in the Bible use feminine use of God?

A: Well very first one obviously is when it talks about Ruach Elohim, the spirit of God, in the second verse of Genesis, it says . Ruach Elohim , that’s a female verb. Yasmin, is it correct that, and there are plenty of others, but I won’t go into that now.

Q: Is it correct that Hamas terrorists will soon be posting photos and videos of hostages?

A: They have. They’ve been doing it all the time. They’ve been posting videos of rape. They’ve been posting videos of beheadings. They’ve been posting videos of torturing old women and young children. It’s all over the internet. You can see it. It is horrific, absolutely horrific.

Simon, irony, hamas now to execute a hostage, if Israel destroys a building without prior warning. What an affirmation if Israel does indeed go to lengths to avoid civilian death. In fact, it always, it’s always disputed by Israel haters. That’s right. Israel’s gone out of its way to not hurt civilians if it can. And we know also some examples of where it could have got rid of a terrorist and did not because of other casualties. No one mentions expulsion of Jews from Iran and Iraq and the fact that Jews always had a presence along with Arabs in what is now Israel. And the Arabs sided with the Nazis. You’re right. The Mufti sided with the Nazis, and agreed with them that if they would win the war, they would destroy all the Jews in Israel. And it’s true that many Jews still feel very close to many Arabs. In the Persian community that I was the rabbi of, many of them have wonderful relationships both with Iranians who are still there and who are outside. And many Jews do have close relationships with Arabs. And we shouldn’t put all Arabs countries in the same pocket. Think of Morocco. Morocco is incredibly positive towards Jews. The king of Morocco has Jewish advisors, gets on extremely well with them. Those countries that expel Jews like Spain ending up destroying themselves. And those countries like the Arab countries as a result of expelling the Jews expelled their cultural elite and their financial elite. And that’s why they’re all in such a bloody mess.

Q: Riva, God has nothing to do with this evil. He gave us the choice to be good, and evil can’t have free will and fatalism. And as they say to those who say where was God in the Holocaust? God asked mankind, where are you?

A: Right and exactly, it’s where was humanity in the Holocaust. Absolutely.

Elstein, great presentation. Thank you for doing this. We’ll watch it again and pass it on to others. Thank you, Elstein.

Mirna, also, when Israel left Gaza to the Arabs, which is fairly functional area, they destroyed everything of value instead of building what they had. That’s quite true. They were given all these positive opportunities, and all they want is violence. Kill the Jews. That’s all they care about.

Q: Why do you think Israel was unaware of the incoming war in the same way that in 1973 it was unaware or not seriously enough aware of the Egyptians crossing the canal and the Syrians coming into the Golan Heights?

A: Incompetence that comes out of two things: Overconfidence, it won’t happen. We’re okay, we’re good. And you know, Israelis can be a little bit shih tzu. They tend very often to have a kind of this, don’t worry. it’ll be okay. But definitely this was a failure of intelligence, a failure of the army. My son told me that when the reserves turned up, there was no food for them. There was no water for them. They had to go out to the local supermarkets and buy food to cart, to take to them because nobody was providing for them. The whole structure of the military needs total renewal. It needs a dramatic change. Heads have to roll. This was a disaster that Israel made and also, I mean some people like to say, it was the division in Israel this past year that gave them the impetus to attack cause they saw Israel as weak. There might be something in that. But the fact is the preparation for this went on years before. It’s been going on for a long, long time. So you can’t say that was the reason. It might just have contributed. And it’s true. We Jews are often our own worst enemy.

Q: Can there be peace when children are taught with their mother’s milk, how bad the Jews are and how one can change?

A: No, and up to now the United Nations and UNESCO and the European Union have continued to fund Palestinian Arab hatred of Jews. They’ve made noises about changing the curriculum, but they’re being ignored. Their money is being taken, and their morality is being thrown to the gutter because children are being trained to hate. Now you could argue, you could argue that in a situation where there’s occupation, it’s not surprising. And I agree with you, and I agree that Israel has missed opportunities in the past, but everybody has missed opportunities in the past, and a missed opportunity doesn’t need to say we have to leave things the way they are. And unless the world sits on the Palestinians and Hamas and tells 'em to stop the hatred, it will just go on forever.

Marion, thank you for this concerning programme. I live in Israel, very upset and angry at what’s happened. I was told on Shabbat Simchat Torah began. I didn’t go to shul. I read the service at home and found I was questioning what was written in the service. My darling, Marion. I was in the same position. I was in shul on Simchat Torah in the morning or actually on Shemini Atzeret in the morning. Simchat Torah to you. I heard the news in shul. I could not stay in shul. I had to go home. I had to go home and pray and cry. I couldn’t take it. So you know, there are moments when we leave the liturgy for when things are normal, and we express ourselves the way we want to express them. And that is also prayer. That is part of prayer. Now I am happy for you to send whatever you’d like to. I’ll pass on to anybody and to get in touch with me, Jeremyrosen@msn.com.

Q: Does this feel unique situation given the state of the world that humanity and survival?

A: Roma, that’s a very good question. Look around us. Look at Ukraine. I mean what’s happening in Ukraine is unbelievable. And the world and the United Nations is letting it happen. And this, again, horrible man in Moscow, this dictator is attacking civilians, bombing supermarkets, not just dealing with military targets. It’s unbelievable. It’s breaking every single law.

Q: Have you heard one agreed condemnation in the United Nations of Russia?

A: No. Yasmin stand with Israel will direct you. Ah, very good. Anybody who wants advice of where to send the money, send it to www.standwithisrael.co.il, Israel.

Q: David, David sound again. Maybe you didn’t get my earlier question. How do we keep hating Palestinians?

A: We have to work on ourselves. We have to hate the bad ones. But there are good ones, and there are neutral ones. It’s very hard. How do you love your neighbour as yourself? The Bible says, love your neighbour as yourself. It sounds lovely. How many people love their neighbours as theirselves? All it means really, and you can’t love your neighbour as yourself. Try to love your neighbour as if that person was you, as if you were in his boots. So try to think about what they are feeling. Try to find a way of relating if it’s possible. Hate, we should never hate. There’s no, oh, we should hate a Hitler. Hate a really bad guy. You should definitely hate Hamas. But generalising hating Palestinians is a horrible thing to begin.

Magen David Adom are asking for donations. Thank you, Mimi. That’s another valued place they need. They’re dealing with so many horrible injuries, thousands of them. That blood or contribution to Magen David Adom, the Jewish Red Cross, very important.

Q: Where are the Imams all over the world in condemning barbarity, murder and rape?

A: There are some, believe me. I promise you there are some, but a voice is overwhelmingly drowned by the mob. Look who demonstrates in Pakistan and everywhere, it’s the crazy mob. They kill Christians. They kill anybody they don’t like. The mob is out of control, and it’s always been like that. Truth of the matter is, it’s largely like that in this country too. We follow mob rule either to the left or the right. Persian community, I was associated.

Yes, yes. This year I have retired. I have retired, so I am now enjoying my freedom.

Jeffrey, Hi, Jeffrey. Lovely to hear from you. I wonder what point of petitioning prayer both Jews and Muslim be praying to their God. Well, yes. I mean you’re quite right. Just look at the Olympic games or look at the World Cup. Each team, they bow down to their God. Either they look up to heaven or they bow down to the earth or whatever it is.

Q: Does God care about who wins the game?

A: I don’t think so. I don’t think we should think of God as a person. I also, to be honest, when I pray to God, I pray to God for good. I never pray to God for bad. Now, some people like to curse. Some people like to pray for bad. I don’t. But anyway, I believe petitionary prayer is basically me saying what do I care about? So when I pray or give a blessing to my children on Friday night, I’m not guaranteeing that they’re going to succeed in life. I’m just saying, I hope you will do well in life. I hope you will have peace. I hope you will have kindness. It’s an expression of feeling rather than please may I have. I put a penny in the slot, and I pull the lever. Prayer is not ask God for something, and you might be lucky and you’ll get it. In which case please, may I win the lottery, but I never buy a ticket.

The same lack of food and water happened in the last Lebanon war. Yes, it did, and they should have learned from that. I don’t know what’s wrong. Some people unfortunately are in positions of authority where they are incompetent, the Peter principle. Either they’re appointed because they know the right person or they’re appointed because they do some deal with somebody. But there is incompetence. The truth is there’s incompetence in every business. But a successful business learns from its mistakes and roots it out. Israel initially did. But in the 50 years, they’ve got too confident, overconfident, too comfortable, too wealthy in a sense. And that’s what happens. Another one is Israeli soldiers . Well, there are lots of ones. My son is a major donator to one of them. And I can’t remember offhand what its name is.

Q: Do you think we’re living in Messianic times?

A: My dear, we’ve been living in Messianic times for the last 2000 years, and he still hasn’t come or she or it hasn’t come. I believe in the idea of dreaming of a perfect world. I dream that we can make this world better. And that’s what I mean by a messiah. But if I mean a specific guy turning up on a white donkey, I think I would not bet one cent on that if I was given an opportunity.

Mariam, thank you, Coltov.

And at that point, goodbye everybody, and thank you for listening to me.