Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Ba’Zeh – Israel We Have Your Back!

By Rabbi Ellen S. Wolintz-Fields, WLCJ Executive Director

Now more than ever, our Torah Fund theme has special meaning in our lives – Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Ba’Zeh – All of Israel is Responsible for One Another. We see the significance of feeling a responsibility, arevut, to take care of each other. A more accurate translation of Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Ba’Zeh, which truly shows how we feel now, is Israel – We have your back! Think about that – our Torah Fund theme – planned last year – truly depicts how we are all feeling now. No matter if you have blood relatives in Israel, or not, our family is in Israel. I have been reciting Mourner’s Kaddish for the 1,400+ Israelis who have been murdered, including 300+ fallen soldiers, and the 40+ babies murdered. They are all our collective family. We come to this current situation in Israel from different perspectives and approaches. 

Since 1995, when I spent nine months living in Israel, I have felt a great tension. In the summer of 1995, when I was on an Egged Bus on my way to Hebrew University for Ulpan (an intensive Hebrew class), before I started my studies at the Schechter Institutes for my year in Israel during Rabbinical School, I heard a bomb explosion. It was very scary, but got worse when I found out it was on the same bus line I was on, and I could have been on that bus. From that day forward, I never calmly took a bus in Israel. My friend bought a car, and he picked me up every day and drove me to Hebrew University. When I was convinced to take a bus, I literally had the Tefillat HaDerech, Traveller’s Prayer card, in my hand and recited it right after I paid my fare. I feared that I would take the next bus that would be bombed, or I would know someone who was on a bus bombing. That fear of knowing someone on a bus bombing came true on February 25, 1996, when my JTS Rabbinical School classmate Matt Eisenfeld and his girlfriend Sara Duker, someone I had known from our time together as students at Barnard College, were murdered on the Number 18 Bus in Jerusalem. I stayed in Israel for a few more days, and then returned to New York to continue the rest of the academic year at JTS. I came back to JTS with a heavy heart, a wounded soul, an intense anger and PTSD. Although, I continued to love the State of Israel after this horrific incident. However, I was scared and scarred and did not return to Israel until June 2012 and did not take a public bus in Israel until February 2021. Hamas is a terrorist organization that murdered my friends. My anger towards Hamas was silenced, and not something I spoke about; not all people who call themselves Palestinians are Hamas. 

Hamas is the same word used in this week’s Torah Reading, Parashat Noach, to describe the corruption and lawlessness that existed in Noach’s time, which caused God to send the Flood. Hamas killed my friends, and I have never forgiven them. Since October 7, 2023, there are others who share in my rage and anger. Many now realize that Hamas is an aptly named group; a group of terrorists. As the late Prime Minister Golda Meir said, “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”  

We must stand with Israel, as she defends herself against the lawlessness of Hamas. Let us show solidarity and unity and our love for the people of Israel and the State of Israel. It is our responsibility, arevut, to commit ourselves to support the State of Israel and say unequivocally, Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Ba’Zeh, Israel – We have your back!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Ellen S. Wolintz-Fields
WLCJ Executive Director
ewolintz-fields@wlcj.org